I keep imagining someone slowly pushing a xanax bar into someone else’s eyeball. —Tao Lin
I misheard the word prisons, thinking she said “All the penguins are fragile.” Del the documentarian. I can’t stick to one subject because I’ve already spent it in my head. Quick note: I am alive; I shall purchase a suit
more suitable for reading poetry with short lines (must start reading).
188 pounds at Starbucks on New Montgomery. Incredible line-up, a bit intimidating.
“You’re funny,” he says. “Did you even know the widow was open?”
I like my awesome new desk with a Vanilla Bean Espresso on top. Tedious day of lady jazz. Third day of running.
Overhead: Needs new notebook....needs new porn....(or poem?)....Pigeons ....Finished Brandon’s e podes....Read to my mother while waiting for finger- prints today....Security badge.....Walgreen’s then cook.....Me laundry..... Miss you notes from Erin....Should I read a little Dahlen or kiss one?.....
I’m writing this as though I invented it, but it keeps getting truer and truer.
Maybe it’s just impossible for me to pick my tongue out of my cheek. Do they ever hurt like the worst kind of splinters, which today I confirmed are hair splinters (this is one of the things I learned from Brook, my new barber, my barber of today)? It’s not that I haven’t tried.
Is somebody going through a rough time? I know somebody that’s going through a rough time. And I’m just no good at ‘being there’ for such things. Especially what with how cruel the world has been lately (you know who you are!). I run from D for Drama. Even though a little piece of my heart gets an erection.
Maybe not entirely, though. I can emote. Right? You saw me last night when you played that new P!nk video. That was art. Totally. And she worked so hard for it, too. Which makes it art with a hard-on. Omigod, I mean art with purpose. But I’m sorry it’s just impossible.
Which of course is why when you played the new Lana Del Rey video immediately after, I just couldn’t let go of myself. I know, I know, an hour of non-stop criticism for a poor....brunette now, I think, right?....for a poor brunette with a wobbly voice and a bizarre penchant for interm- inably long poetry-reading- esque voice-over narrations before, during, and after her [musical number?] during an Easy Rider vs. Anna Nicole Smith music video—is just a
Aw, is your rope-a-dope strategy not working? I’m usually not good at ‘being there’ for such things. But I have taken my medication and I have come prepared. One of us needs to roll up our sleeves. Ugh, work! We stood around for a while just looking at one another, but after a while we each took a seat. My exhaust runneth over. Giggles. Someone thought they heard it coming through the ventilation system. Some- where in the future of global warming. Somewhere in the future of an all points bulletin but before the final point is made. . . . Everyone in the movie collapses, but the film plays on. People stare blankly, first at the open fields (of celluloid), and then at each other. And slowly, one by one, folks start to rise and sort of aim themselves down aisle-ways and out doors. Everyone is gone before the credits roll. Except Otto, who just wants to make sure there isn’t a teaser for the sequel. Not to give anything important away, but in the end, all
For better or worse, I have never blacked out. Not really, anyway. I haven’t even passed out. Ever. Unless you count pre-surgery anesthesia-induced counting- backwards-from-ten-to-maybe- three induced unconsciousness. Sometimes I’m envious of those who occasionally reduce their faculties to nil ... recreationally or otherwise. But there seem always to be such absurd politics in the determination of which parcels of land get to be called National Park. Or get to keep that name. Or get to discard that name forthwith. This is just one reason it is invariably difficult for me to force myself to the voting station. Or connect the dots or lines or whatever, stick everything into the allotted and postage-paid envelope, and tote it downstairs to the blue mailbox that (invariably) has a mouthful of graffiti. Raise your hand if you look good. That’s all I’m saying. No- body ever got this far without a little bit of shine. I didn’t even blossom until later in life, but look at me now.
From the outside looking in, I’d say he was a mooch.
Horses wonder who you are. —Dana Ward
Opening night was a tremendous success! And so was the weekend. We worked out together twice. If you ask me how we did it, I’ll probably be less than forthright.
While inside I’ll only wish I was a deviant. Does it seem like living to be still up at five in the morning to hear the marathon bullhorn and the crowd of how-many-ever
thousand going wild? Surely the only audience were the marathon runners themselves. Why expend that much energy right at the get-go? This is a pretty
warped thought at five in the morning. I do digress. Portentously. Ominously. Maybe even hilariously (I have somehow maintained a very active fantasy
life. At least when I’m running on a treadmill.) I guess I am the last to learn that computer stuff is now code for watching porn. Sometimes I’m
so ahead of the game, so cognizant, so aware of my surroundings, day or night. Other times I’m totally drunk in tiny white shorts at a 70s theme
party. Or I’m at Darren’s going-away party thinking about a nearby Starbucks. Or I’m waking up at the wrong address with some
guy from Chicago who turns out to be cognizant mafia (some dreams are okay).
Last night on Animal Planet we learned how mermaids were beautiful creatures who once ruled the oceans but have been drawn to near extinction by tuna nets. Over the weekend, I
discovered that I am quite funny, even hilar- ious. Aren’t you glad that over the weekend I discovered that I’m quite funny? Except I couldn’t stop. Comedians take all kinds of
shit and are often suicidal. I think I read that somewhere. My point is The Daily Show is not news. But people can’t really get it into their heads that it’s more like a sitcom. I
tried watching The MacNeil/Lehrer Report once, but had to turn the channel halfway through. And I support public broadcasting. Jim Lehrer was even the commencement
speaker at my college graduation. I keep looking at the pictures of my graduation and I just look awful. I was already in no mood for the real world. I refused
to wear a tie under my gown—what a costume, anyway. And the ridiculous- ness on my part of the not wearing a tie protest. And look how skinny I was!
All of my parents showed up, too— still alive. I remember how compart- mentalized the day was. And how I wanted nothing more but to go to sleep.
None of this has anything whatsoever to do with Alfred Hitchcock, who looks like such a schlub as Anthony Hopkins in a fat-suit. But then again, the real world is not the movies.
I think I just realized why I decided against fame. I can easily recognize my name from a distance and sometimes get downtrodden when not (easily recognizing my name from
a distance). That was easy. To celebrate (and also to hide everything) I put it (my name)
into the casket that used to be a box full of
chocolates. These were the chocolates given to me for my birthday, the birthday during
which I was surprised to receive two boxes
of chocolates from friends, fairly close friends, both, and I’m pretty loud about the fact that I don’t really like chocolate. The beautiful little blue box that once contained chocolates, which, when I started eating them, I could not stop. In that, yes, they were unbelieveably delicious, and since then I have toned down my loudness about not liking chocolates. And also purchased with my own money several new such blue boxes of chocolates for my personal consumption. But now it’s like a funeral for whatever it is that I put into the box. Compounded or confused by the fact that I hid the box, and furthermore there is the problem of I can- not remember where I put it. I’m not really sure how to end this dilemma (I’ve a pretty lousy memory), but sometimes I think that no matter what goes down in the end, this could still reas
Maybe the page is stupid. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Let’s try it a different way. I sit and think through the slats of the blinds for a few hours. Open-ended is the new panic. I’m even starting to get abstract. I mean understand it (I am wholly concrete). Those are stupen- dous lines for a twenty-three year old. After which I hide my face in shame. I’m on the dancefloor dancing, though. There is no shame. There are no rolling eyes. Only ambition. When I woke up I realized that I had
Surprised? I breathe and the blood doesn’t get to my brain, so what can I say but maybe wakka wakka. Which in my language is not at all erotic. How
was your weekend? Mine was pretty super: dancing, cavorting, visiting with old friends and new architecture, hosting my bi-weekly (or so) roundtable critique
of today’s best tunes, and being domestic. And now for something completely un- expected. Like ignoring the Beatport tab and hiking to lunch. Stay tuned
Who spent all that time and effort updating his status when he could have been finishing that treatise on the plight of humanity? Or writing a poem?
If you give me just one kiss, you’ll never need to consider that ridiculous thought again.
Love is like that. All our attention drawn to the beautiful sheath of flawless skin. None at all to the revolutionary new (blond) hairdo. Hearts aflutter.
At half of the month we trot ourselves out to lunch at 12:30. Schizophrenia. At 3:00, we discover how to copy the mail-in ballot and spend the rest of the afternoon and evening voting.
Nobody noticed a thing until mid-July when the body was found (still writhing); duck sauce smeared all over the unexposed areas.
I check my email a lot. There’s good in everyone but you’ve got to see it. —Jack Kimball
Jackhammer exhaust in the morning better on the outside than inside like yesterday. That was seriously not sexual but it reminds me how presumed tops never get a day off for emotional issues. Domination is a tough life, I suppose.
Today’s forgotten english word of the day is callet, “A vulgar, scolding, ill-tempered, unchaste woman; an ancient word in common use, though perishing from literature.” On so many levels, too.
Otto left me the article on hip-hop’s “big gay moment” and I read it with almond m&m’s – I’m a morning person. I tried like the devil to get out the door by noon but in four minutes I will have failed. Miserable
failure purportedly leads to all sorts of revelatory, evolutionary, eye-popping, mind-bending... educational happenstances. This is maybe a Buddhist way of thinking or even perhaps an ascetic way of being okay with death and such. Things like zen and(/or) yoga seem beautiful to me. Ascetism not so much. But let’s hope this yields some
truth. I picked up ice skating just fine. The first time I ever tried. I turned it into an annual event in my mind (later, I’m told that I shuffle anniversary dates haphazardly). Is it a crime, this quest for poignance?
I don’t normally head in the direction of thinking or uttering the phrase “licking one’s wounds” ... but that’s where I wander when I hear Coco cleaning herself beside me, here on the couch. Like fireworks going off in my head, I think
This joke dates me. (I picture our honeymoon in Paris. On prime-time). Thanks for nothing, Pres- idential Debate! I can whimper but I’m too tired to tweet.
Company comes like a nightmare I’m greedy for. There is a long conversation but I keep thinking about anniversaries. The anniversary of his thin limbs. The anniversary of my desire. This makes company somewhat fascinating.
I’m staring at the chef splitting eggs single- handedly. I mean. Very fluid movement. Maybe a dozen eggs into a very huge pot. I like to feel the heat of his stove while I’m eating my breakfast.
My voice is resonant. I mean I don’t think I’ve ever had any trouble being heard. When I speak. Be- cause I’m pretty loud I think. I don’t have a very pleasant- sounding voice. I’ve been told.
I freeze up when the phone rings now. The Wok Shop guy couldn’t deliver our dinner because I kept looking at the phone as it rang. (The dread of I keep thinking it’s the employment agency? It’s about a job?)
Let’s bring ourselves back to life, shall we? It’s Saturday and we toss poems at one another. One-on-one poem-toss. Sounds romantic. Coco stinks us back to reality, shaking it all off, fresh from the box. I’m not alone because the cat is here with me.
I stare at the words long enough they dance around in the living room until exhausted. They pair off as they settle, reassemble. Watching porn with my family during the 1st Iraq war
Computer stuff at the Tease Emporium helps convince me that I am not alone. People are dying in Salinas and else- where but I dance until 3am in an ocean filled with guest stars, co-stars and other revenants. On Sunday (which is of course where we are at 3am on Saturday night) I compare notes with vegetables. This, along with the sound of electricity. And the tap-tap- tapping of keys on a laptop (which is special because it’s a symphony that I get to compose). Helps con- vince me not only that I am here, but also that I am not alone.
Wow, you’re so gorgeous. Did I embarrass you going on like that for nearly nine years? Almost nothing makes you blush. And you even love how each birthday makes you one year older. What does it mean when I freak out because I can’t remember if it’s nine years or ten years nearly? How can there still be so many mysteries? Last night—halfway through—it gets STRANGER! Only now does my mind wander. What allowed this, me or my mind? I think of Strangers on a Train and the game of Freud. Masculine is not an amoeba (Rock on! Own it!). I think I have a couple of short strokes. I sketch them into a number (maybe 184?). How can I find war this interesting? How surprising who brings us back to such proper focus. How thankful to have chosen our guests so appropriately. How thankful to have cast our co-stars so brilliantly. To have that luxury. Collapse into hav- ing that luxury.
I can’t tell about my presence. I keep getting reminded (over and over again) that it’s my turn. I keep taking turns but what am I doing?
Retreat at Lake Tahoe, two weeks. Al- together it made me not very here. At the Tease Emporium several nights last week. I wish I weren’t here. I’ve a pain in my chest and my heart hurts. I’m dizzy. Need break. Wish weren’t here.
Sometimes dizzy is sleepy. There are German people beside me. My Mother: Demonology. Writing hurts. This isn’t normal. Wait a minute, writing is hurting. Several nights last week I think work sucks. Need break. Need vacation.
So on Library Day I’m a little edgy. It’s nice out. I certainly haven’t felt this healthy in a while. Am I slimming down? Does form follow content (defeat of deduct went over defense before detail). How to feel for the details. How to feel comfortable with details. Also hungry. Bottom of back. Movement makes me
Sentences in bed are not describers, they are instigators —Lyn Hejinian
I breathe but the blood doesn’t get to my brain. Friday I gave notice, which I may have already mentioned, after watching Dark Water. Otto visits with his folks at the airport while I experience this in a public sort of way. Warm. Sleepy. I look at other people’s handwriting. What it tells us is nothing. Probably nothing. I go to Postrio for dinner, a first and only time. So nice. City noise.
There’s a fly in the living room but Coco, perched at the kitchen’s threshold, is very seriously con- templating the kitchen. This, I take mental note, could be a sign that the end is near.
