this is how you fake it:
- don't sing elliott smith too loudly, or too close to other people. they can hear you.
- when you tell the story about the man who got sick of his friends and started to collect rocks instead, don't set it up like a joke. people will get confused.
- you may not say "whatever" more than three times in one day, even if it's under your breath.
some people get away with saying "fuck" by saying it for a very long time- "fffffffuuuuuuuuccccccccckkkkkkkk." you, however, are not some people.
- pretend you're in love with jesus, or know who that is.
- a grin is a tool like a nail or a whisper. you plant one end of the grin on whatever you'd like to dig into. you take your blunt instrument and breathe wide, pausing to give fine details to the air that's coming out, which are all sounds that resemble words. if it works, your grin will dig into whatever you're looking at and it'll stay there, transfixed, and you can move around with a little more certainty.
my plan is to go around firing grins at things like flashbulbs. everybody stops if you grin the right way. everyone is surprised. slightly bothered. deer-in-headlights is an accurate cliche, because it conveys the same sense of doom and shock. that's what a grin is. "reality aside, and without regard to whether I mean it or not, I am going to smile."
- when the time comes for you to leave work, don't stick your head out the window until you're sure no campers/ parents of campers will recognize what you are doing. they will guess correctly, and you don't want that.
- eat and say as little as you can get away with. right now that means saying a few less words every day and eating only a sandwich at lunch. you will remove one half slice of chicken from your sandwich each day. you will say less stuff each day. you will do both things quietly, and be satisfied that you exist. some aren't that lucky.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Saturday, July 26, 2008
chapter five: roadkill impressions
sore. all over. back pain. arm pain. my knees are all gummy. my ankles twist slowly. soreness. I have skin peeling off on one shoulder, in spite of meticulous sunscreening. my neck is a knot. I have cuts on one calf from sliding on asphalt. a kid tripped me. he later apologized.
the worst part is that, for all that pain, I won't get any scars. it'll just be another really uncomfortable phase that passes, and when it's over I'll look back for something special in all that steady agony, and nothing will stand out. I've had trouble breathing and running at the same time because of a mysterious pain in my stomach (if I find out I have an ulcer, I'll laugh very carefully). in a few days, when I get sick of these little miserable aches and actually medicate, I'll drink some pepto bismol and the scab in my guts will clay over, just like in the commercials, and that'll be it. hands washed. neosporin applied. cells replaced. problem solved.
today I went to the art museum, and there were these two flat-screen TVs showing a video of two people, a man and a woman, from the waist up, naked, reaching up towards a source of light. they couldn't touch it, and you saw their agony in slow motion. it was the most gruesome part of my day.
their torsos were completely unmarked. not a scratch on them. you couldn't tell what they'd done, where they'd been, or anything about them other than what they were doing, how they were moving so slowly and painfully, reaching towards the light. where did they come from? why were their hands empty? it was supposed to beg those questions, and the apart-ness of them, one on each screen, gave it a sort of agonising parallel, that both wanted to reach towards the same thing, but couldn't, and maybe they didn't know the other even existed.
I came away from it thinking about ecclesiastes, again, which I should not do as much, but I do. it's an easy way to ruin everything you should enjoy. maybe I should like having my faith blown apart like swiss cheese every time I see something that challenges it. maybe I'm just overbalancing right now- maybe that was just a little push back into an uncomfortable bit of theology, and now I'm shifting into the slim part of scripture I know the best to rationalize what it's trying to say, and that just so happens to be the weirdest book in the bible.
well, at least it's not revelations. I'm not that crazy.
driving home, I stuck my head and shoulders out of the window and almost forced an SUV off the road. they were going in the other direction. they flashed their hi beams at me, very loudly. I swerved home around dead, flat animals, took four aspirin, and still feel like a piece of meat tied in a knot.
the worst part is that, for all that pain, I won't get any scars. it'll just be another really uncomfortable phase that passes, and when it's over I'll look back for something special in all that steady agony, and nothing will stand out. I've had trouble breathing and running at the same time because of a mysterious pain in my stomach (if I find out I have an ulcer, I'll laugh very carefully). in a few days, when I get sick of these little miserable aches and actually medicate, I'll drink some pepto bismol and the scab in my guts will clay over, just like in the commercials, and that'll be it. hands washed. neosporin applied. cells replaced. problem solved.
today I went to the art museum, and there were these two flat-screen TVs showing a video of two people, a man and a woman, from the waist up, naked, reaching up towards a source of light. they couldn't touch it, and you saw their agony in slow motion. it was the most gruesome part of my day.
their torsos were completely unmarked. not a scratch on them. you couldn't tell what they'd done, where they'd been, or anything about them other than what they were doing, how they were moving so slowly and painfully, reaching towards the light. where did they come from? why were their hands empty? it was supposed to beg those questions, and the apart-ness of them, one on each screen, gave it a sort of agonising parallel, that both wanted to reach towards the same thing, but couldn't, and maybe they didn't know the other even existed.
I came away from it thinking about ecclesiastes, again, which I should not do as much, but I do. it's an easy way to ruin everything you should enjoy. maybe I should like having my faith blown apart like swiss cheese every time I see something that challenges it. maybe I'm just overbalancing right now- maybe that was just a little push back into an uncomfortable bit of theology, and now I'm shifting into the slim part of scripture I know the best to rationalize what it's trying to say, and that just so happens to be the weirdest book in the bible.
well, at least it's not revelations. I'm not that crazy.
driving home, I stuck my head and shoulders out of the window and almost forced an SUV off the road. they were going in the other direction. they flashed their hi beams at me, very loudly. I swerved home around dead, flat animals, took four aspirin, and still feel like a piece of meat tied in a knot.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
chapter four: sweat
dilemma: how to recognize when you're fucking everything up while the fucking-up-of-everything is still in progress. because if you don't see what you're doing, you'll just continue off the cliff, and nobody likes to see that happen; and if you see something's wrong in an unappetizing way, and over-correct this mistake, you could cut past the quick or botch a nose job or over-inflate your tires or have gasoline spilling out of your tank as you roll so gently out of cumberland farms, two Sobe's in the passenger seat to try and compensate for the riduculous amount of sweat that coagulated in& around the windows, or drink them way too fast and have to take such a piss that you start speeding.
have to write a love story, as soon as I can.
my pile of dostoyevsky is bleeding free radicals into the air, polluting the side of my bed with radioactive dreams. in one I am driving to the dentist's office on an eighth of a tank of gas when I remember that the grass has to be cut. just enough agony for it to count as hell if repeated over and over, night after night, an almost-empty tank and the foreshadowing of silver instruments prodding my gums as apparent as the stale chemical mouthwash haze hanging out of my mouth. my cup runneth over.
the pocket dalai lama remains to be read. it's next to my crime and punishment, a tiny red and yellow book-ette. I look at it and have thoughts of donut holes: are they really the middle of the donut taken out? if I were to attack Razumihin with an ice cream scooper, is this tiny thing the book I'd get?
recent purchases include a pair of airwalks, needed for work. my old shoes I'll give a Viking funeral. not really, I'll just throw them out. which is pretty close. I'll put them in a box and stuff it with newspaper so they don't jumble around. I'll put this box in with the recycling. a green truck will take it away. then it'll be mashed up into tiny bits and injection-molded and burned until the volume in which its molecules had once been a mass no longer resembles a pair of beaten-up, well-loved shoes. then they will become a playground, or a chair, or a water bottle, or a box. and eventually those boxes will become new boxes, or new shoes, and with each new form a little mass will be lost, and each different fixed volume will be a little bit smaller to accomidate the inevitable, terrifying running-down of everything.
have to write a love story, as soon as I can.
my pile of dostoyevsky is bleeding free radicals into the air, polluting the side of my bed with radioactive dreams. in one I am driving to the dentist's office on an eighth of a tank of gas when I remember that the grass has to be cut. just enough agony for it to count as hell if repeated over and over, night after night, an almost-empty tank and the foreshadowing of silver instruments prodding my gums as apparent as the stale chemical mouthwash haze hanging out of my mouth. my cup runneth over.
the pocket dalai lama remains to be read. it's next to my crime and punishment, a tiny red and yellow book-ette. I look at it and have thoughts of donut holes: are they really the middle of the donut taken out? if I were to attack Razumihin with an ice cream scooper, is this tiny thing the book I'd get?
recent purchases include a pair of airwalks, needed for work. my old shoes I'll give a Viking funeral. not really, I'll just throw them out. which is pretty close. I'll put them in a box and stuff it with newspaper so they don't jumble around. I'll put this box in with the recycling. a green truck will take it away. then it'll be mashed up into tiny bits and injection-molded and burned until the volume in which its molecules had once been a mass no longer resembles a pair of beaten-up, well-loved shoes. then they will become a playground, or a chair, or a water bottle, or a box. and eventually those boxes will become new boxes, or new shoes, and with each new form a little mass will be lost, and each different fixed volume will be a little bit smaller to accomidate the inevitable, terrifying running-down of everything.
Monday, July 14, 2008
chapter three: on that tick there was an elephant
somebody asked me what my favorite color was, and I lied. I said it was the color of old wood, very light brown. that's not it at all. it's the color you see when you close your eyes and look at the sun.
today I was sick at work, and I didn't do a good enough job of hiding my misery, so everybody was asking me what was wrong. and for a second I forgot that I had a head cold and had been stealing into the dining hall for paper towels and packets of pepper.
all day, I would hear somebody making some trite remark, like, "Hey, don't look so happy," or "Feeling under the weather?" or "Is it allergies, or a cold?" and I'd whip my flu-stained eyes over towards theirs, and I'd have to readjust them back and forth as that split second changed honest concern for my well-being into the disgusting, hateful, gruesomely normal phrases people choose to express their concern.
added to my tension headache was the ache of the thought that all people are like this at work. they don't know how to treat you, if they're shooting the shit with a human being or a part of the decor. they find it peculiar and puzzling when the wallpaper calls in sick, or when the water cooler starts hitting on them, or when your best bud does a lamp impression. most times, they don't react at all. they just go back to work. which is a friendly enough reaction.
in the split second right when you first look at somebody, if you turn your eyes over to them and they turn theirs at you and if you both do it fast enough, if it's a big enough accident, you will both be naked. that's the fastest possible way to take off everything you're wearing.
today I was sick at work, and I didn't do a good enough job of hiding my misery, so everybody was asking me what was wrong. and for a second I forgot that I had a head cold and had been stealing into the dining hall for paper towels and packets of pepper.
all day, I would hear somebody making some trite remark, like, "Hey, don't look so happy," or "Feeling under the weather?" or "Is it allergies, or a cold?" and I'd whip my flu-stained eyes over towards theirs, and I'd have to readjust them back and forth as that split second changed honest concern for my well-being into the disgusting, hateful, gruesomely normal phrases people choose to express their concern.
yes, I am feeling more than a little shitty. if I look depressed, this is why. I don't care what it is, allergies or cold, I only care that I get over it.
added to my tension headache was the ache of the thought that all people are like this at work. they don't know how to treat you, if they're shooting the shit with a human being or a part of the decor. they find it peculiar and puzzling when the wallpaper calls in sick, or when the water cooler starts hitting on them, or when your best bud does a lamp impression. most times, they don't react at all. they just go back to work. which is a friendly enough reaction.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
chapter two: rufus wainwright/ a cherry red minivan
no, it doesn't make sense that I want to ask somebody's permission to be happy. who would I ask? what would they say? no?
no, I should not look to Ecclesiastes for tips on how to have fun in my mortal shell. because that would be counterproductive.
no matter how high I turn my ipod, I still end up hearing the feedback on guitars. it's a little reminder that the sounds they make came from vibrating strings- that whatever's shaking around in my ears once came out of a guitar held by three cubic feet of person. and even if i turn it up so loud that it spills out of my headphones and everybody around me notices whatever is exploding at present, there's a subtle whine at the end of each chord, which means you're just human enough to hate the limitations of being human, or of being too far away from six strings making pleasant noises.
as if being closer were ever enough.
all of my bob dylan sounds warped, because it was all burned three or four times, recycled, before it hit my ipod. the beat on speed trials sounds bizarre if I'm not playing it on car speakers. the snare on like a rolling stone that's supposed to shatter dark windows between realities is muted, lame, unspecial, and everything after it is just there- not excited by what it means, not enjoying its existence.
there's something infinitely sad about headphones getting disconnected by accident. whichever song was playing becomes a homicide victim. at times, when the last chord is unnaturally hanging there, when the words are fading but still suspended and when I look down to see the little blue bar tick away the life of sound that could've been, I'll actually consider not putting the headphones back in, just mourn, silently, and try to think of what it sounds like.
that's what's nice about a laptop: if the headphones get yanked out, there are speakers in the keyboard. now if only it weren't for the half-second of delay between taking the headphones out and when the speakers turn on, I could actually listen to music without being distracted by how good it is at dying.
no, I should not look to Ecclesiastes for tips on how to have fun in my mortal shell. because that would be counterproductive.
no matter how high I turn my ipod, I still end up hearing the feedback on guitars. it's a little reminder that the sounds they make came from vibrating strings- that whatever's shaking around in my ears once came out of a guitar held by three cubic feet of person. and even if i turn it up so loud that it spills out of my headphones and everybody around me notices whatever is exploding at present, there's a subtle whine at the end of each chord, which means you're just human enough to hate the limitations of being human, or of being too far away from six strings making pleasant noises.
as if being closer were ever enough.
all of my bob dylan sounds warped, because it was all burned three or four times, recycled, before it hit my ipod. the beat on speed trials sounds bizarre if I'm not playing it on car speakers. the snare on like a rolling stone that's supposed to shatter dark windows between realities is muted, lame, unspecial, and everything after it is just there- not excited by what it means, not enjoying its existence.
there's something infinitely sad about headphones getting disconnected by accident. whichever song was playing becomes a homicide victim. at times, when the last chord is unnaturally hanging there, when the words are fading but still suspended and when I look down to see the little blue bar tick away the life of sound that could've been, I'll actually consider not putting the headphones back in, just mourn, silently, and try to think of what it sounds like.
that's what's nice about a laptop: if the headphones get yanked out, there are speakers in the keyboard. now if only it weren't for the half-second of delay between taking the headphones out and when the speakers turn on, I could actually listen to music without being distracted by how good it is at dying.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
chapter one: eye-squeezing
there are a lot of nice cowards out there.
every day last summer, at least one butterfly would cross my path. I'd just be standing around, and one of them would fly across my eyes, always from left to right. it hasn't happened yet, this summer.
also, I've been sleeping very well. is it possible to be unhappy about sleeping more? it probably means I use sleep deprivation to justify some terrible, shit-awful thing I do every day, without being conscious of it, and now that I've bankrupted myself of any excuses for doing that one thing, I should be sleeping less and worrying more, but I am not. I should be making a circle with all my neuroses, and I'm not.
sometimes I wonder if I pinch my eyes shut tight enough, I could suck them back into my head, and whatever I'd be looking at if they were open would get sucked in with them, so nobody would have to look at whatever it is.
I think that would be a worthwhile sacrifice.
it's been extremely hot for the past two days of work, and I don't know what to tell people when they complain about that- I could pour water on them, but they would probably take it the wrong way, or they'd start pouring water on each other, and who wants a bunch of out-of-control children roaming the plains with buckets of cold water?
I sure don't.
words of wisdom which haven't paid off yet: if you throw one cross away, a heavier one will squash the breath from you. the moment of peace you experience after throwing out something unpleasant is the heaviest substance in the universe, because it increases infinitely each time you decide you want to switch careers.
every day last summer, at least one butterfly would cross my path. I'd just be standing around, and one of them would fly across my eyes, always from left to right. it hasn't happened yet, this summer.
also, I've been sleeping very well. is it possible to be unhappy about sleeping more? it probably means I use sleep deprivation to justify some terrible, shit-awful thing I do every day, without being conscious of it, and now that I've bankrupted myself of any excuses for doing that one thing, I should be sleeping less and worrying more, but I am not. I should be making a circle with all my neuroses, and I'm not.
sometimes I wonder if I pinch my eyes shut tight enough, I could suck them back into my head, and whatever I'd be looking at if they were open would get sucked in with them, so nobody would have to look at whatever it is.
I think that would be a worthwhile sacrifice.
it's been extremely hot for the past two days of work, and I don't know what to tell people when they complain about that- I could pour water on them, but they would probably take it the wrong way, or they'd start pouring water on each other, and who wants a bunch of out-of-control children roaming the plains with buckets of cold water?
I sure don't.
words of wisdom which haven't paid off yet: if you throw one cross away, a heavier one will squash the breath from you. the moment of peace you experience after throwing out something unpleasant is the heaviest substance in the universe, because it increases infinitely each time you decide you want to switch careers.
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