Wednesday, March 30, 2005
anxiety dreams
"And he dreamed...And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God"
-Genesis 28:12-13
"4:40 pm Mar 30"
-my phone
turned on the TV
not better just not them
and i walked under red bridges
with red bricks in each hand.
my face swole up like a bubble
from the lips of a young girl,
hair in natty pigtails,
lunch pail tucked in overalls.
i pointed my phone to the moon
and i sipped several cups of gin
and ate a couple mints
and then lay mostly content on the white skins.
now the sheets red
and that lady turned her purse down.
skunks and rats and coonskin caps
sat in the back of my head
throwing popcorn at the screen.
the projector broke a while a go,
the scene played again.
"And he dreamed...And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God"
-Genesis 28:12-13
"4:40 pm Mar 30"
-my phone
turned on the TV
not better just not them
and i walked under red bridges
with red bricks in each hand.
my face swole up like a bubble
from the lips of a young girl,
hair in natty pigtails,
lunch pail tucked in overalls.
i pointed my phone to the moon
and i sipped several cups of gin
and ate a couple mints
and then lay mostly content on the white skins.
now the sheets red
and that lady turned her purse down.
skunks and rats and coonskin caps
sat in the back of my head
throwing popcorn at the screen.
the projector broke a while a go,
the scene played again.
Friday, March 11, 2005
March 11, 2005
“I’m throwing rocks tonight in the cold snow.”
-Leon Neyfakh
“it's a sad scene and would probably be even more dismal if filled with lotsa unfulfilled, awkward hookups with rules of conduct an limits on what you can do and asking permission and people leading you on and all that crap. i don't really need it all as much as i used to think, and last night just proved once and for all that i can have a fucking fantastic time just drinking and being rowdy, poking fun at people and inciting violence and drink throwing rather than always being a sex-obsessed seductive pervert, which i admit i like doing a lot as well, but now realizing that no one really measures up to the girl i have and so no longer really caring. its a good revelation to realize i can still be wild even though i'm tied down.”
-Mike Taylor, January 8, 2004
Sartre was wrong when he said hell is other people. Hell is yourself; heaven is everyone else. In honor of the one-year anniversary of my reading of paris-puss Nausea, today I will break paradoxical non-masturbatory five-on-one tradition and write a journal entry.
I went for a run this morning, pretty much the first thing I did, except for talk to my sister about everything that’s been going on, my firm decision to move to New York, my need to calm down, and, of course the ladies. I must’ve been pretty wound up, because even though I like running pretty well, I never actually go out and do it.
So I put on my shoes and my Rocky Balboa zipup hoodie and ran down my street. I live right by the lake. There was a thin layer of Wisconsin snow on the ground, which I think due to the cold weather stays more solid and clean than DC or other east coast snow. Plus, people from Milwaukee just keep their boots cleaner. So the snow was white and covering the trees and the sun shone deep and cold across the lake and onto my street, where I was huffing away all the pack of cigarettes I smoked on a crazy night one week ago.
I probably ran about a mile to a stoplight a little past the Milwaukee city limit where there’s a park and a fairly major intersection. I saw a woman walking slowly and she passed the intersection, turning left toward the lake. For some reason seeing an old lady in a dorky winter coat trundling along in the inch-thick snow, trying to get her heart rate up just a little bit so she could squeeze one more day into her life, reassured me about pretty much everything that had been giving me trouble this past week.
I was so glad to see her and so glad I had gone on my run I turned around at the light and ran back home, and my lungs hurt and my knees started jarring against my femurs and I started to slip on the snow.
Almost home I saw an ROTC kid doing his morning run in full winter gear. I nodded to him. Then I bucked up.
For all my boondoggling about the extraordinary complexity of life and all my fretting about the future, running, like drinking into a blackout or smoking too much pot or getting in a car wreck or having my life threatened, brings out my few true inner urges. I know the truth when I run and the rest of the time I am bogged down in insignificant details. I should run more.
I’m going back to DC today. My phone will be arriving soon. There’s too much to be happy about to lose any more sleep. And I’m keeping my window open.
Love to all.
“I’m throwing rocks tonight in the cold snow.”
-Leon Neyfakh
“it's a sad scene and would probably be even more dismal if filled with lotsa unfulfilled, awkward hookups with rules of conduct an limits on what you can do and asking permission and people leading you on and all that crap. i don't really need it all as much as i used to think, and last night just proved once and for all that i can have a fucking fantastic time just drinking and being rowdy, poking fun at people and inciting violence and drink throwing rather than always being a sex-obsessed seductive pervert, which i admit i like doing a lot as well, but now realizing that no one really measures up to the girl i have and so no longer really caring. its a good revelation to realize i can still be wild even though i'm tied down.”
-Mike Taylor, January 8, 2004
Sartre was wrong when he said hell is other people. Hell is yourself; heaven is everyone else. In honor of the one-year anniversary of my reading of paris-puss Nausea, today I will break paradoxical non-masturbatory five-on-one tradition and write a journal entry.
I went for a run this morning, pretty much the first thing I did, except for talk to my sister about everything that’s been going on, my firm decision to move to New York, my need to calm down, and, of course the ladies. I must’ve been pretty wound up, because even though I like running pretty well, I never actually go out and do it.
So I put on my shoes and my Rocky Balboa zipup hoodie and ran down my street. I live right by the lake. There was a thin layer of Wisconsin snow on the ground, which I think due to the cold weather stays more solid and clean than DC or other east coast snow. Plus, people from Milwaukee just keep their boots cleaner. So the snow was white and covering the trees and the sun shone deep and cold across the lake and onto my street, where I was huffing away all the pack of cigarettes I smoked on a crazy night one week ago.
I probably ran about a mile to a stoplight a little past the Milwaukee city limit where there’s a park and a fairly major intersection. I saw a woman walking slowly and she passed the intersection, turning left toward the lake. For some reason seeing an old lady in a dorky winter coat trundling along in the inch-thick snow, trying to get her heart rate up just a little bit so she could squeeze one more day into her life, reassured me about pretty much everything that had been giving me trouble this past week.
I was so glad to see her and so glad I had gone on my run I turned around at the light and ran back home, and my lungs hurt and my knees started jarring against my femurs and I started to slip on the snow.
Almost home I saw an ROTC kid doing his morning run in full winter gear. I nodded to him. Then I bucked up.
For all my boondoggling about the extraordinary complexity of life and all my fretting about the future, running, like drinking into a blackout or smoking too much pot or getting in a car wreck or having my life threatened, brings out my few true inner urges. I know the truth when I run and the rest of the time I am bogged down in insignificant details. I should run more.
I’m going back to DC today. My phone will be arriving soon. There’s too much to be happy about to lose any more sleep. And I’m keeping my window open.
Love to all.
