You know, I should stop writing diary entries so late at night. I look back, and it seems like all my nice, thoughtful posts are written during the day, or the evening. And then you have these late-night posts and they're just...id.
(That was, by the way, the obligatory superego intro.)
When I'm drunk, I forgo the superego intro. But then I'm not drunk, except possibility on fatigue. and shit. i'm gonna be buttass tired tomorrow. today. less than 4 hours from now.
Late at night, tiredness is nice, though. You know what I mean. That kinda fatigue that resides low in your long bones, and loosens your muscles. The kinda tired that makes you wanna stretch out and drift off to sleep.
If I could, I'd write this from bed. I'd write it lounging in bed. Sprawling. Hell, I'd write by voice if I could. Talk and watch the letters come out. Except those are usually stupid, those programs. "My name is Damon. I live in San Jose."
Blip... My fame is Dame end. Eye live in Sand Ho Say.
You get the point.
My ear hurts, fuckit. Might be because I've been wearing headphones for way too long. Maybe I should take 'em off, but I'm too lazy to reconnect my subwoofers. Though right now, I could use a good bassline. Something to rumble through my tired bones.
--yawn--
Yesterday I had a thing for brilliant chica mathematicians whispering pi. While they...
I should censor myself, shouldn't I?
Anyway. I'm glad to say that particular fantasy has gone by. Now it's stretching. Stretching's damn sexy. I wonder why I didn't notice this before. I bet if this gets out, 50% of the female population would be afraid to stretch. The other 50% would be stretching every other minute.
Winamp. Has the crappiest equalizer. Things sound a lot better if you just turn the equalizer off.
Speaking of drifting to sleep...and I know I mentioned that long ago, but when it's 3:30am you just have to learn to ride the randomly rolling waves of my thoughts.
Okay, I've just forgotten what I was going to say.
Something about drifting to sleep. About--oh, probably afterglow. About drifting to sleep aching and tired with sweat drying off your skin.
I really. Really. Need to think about untabooed things.
That was a futile attempt from the superego's corner. I'm glad to report the id has crushed the SE entirely. HA! Pathetic SE. Super, indeed.
It's amazing what music can do. Get a compelling beat going, and next thing you know you're moving to it. Dancing in your chair. My thoughts are so disjointed. I keep writing a sentence or two, thinking it's a topic I want to pursue, but then the topic flies out of my grasp or disintegrates, or...I don't know...I can't seem to hold a straight line of thought.
I am tired; I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me
Different colors made of tears
Sounds like lyrics composed under the influence of a hallucinogen to me. Smirk. Nonetheless, they're my favorite lyrics from this song.
This is was what I was talking about...when I talked about rhythms that pull you into it. Did I say that? Maybe I didn't. I said it now. That's how it is. It pulls you in. You move to it without realizing it. This song has the most compelling beat I've ever heard.
Maybe not ever. Maybe not most compelling, at least.
But it's the most hypnotic.
I mean, shit, I've ranted about it twice already. I haven't even ranted about Garbage once. Or have I? Garbage is my favorite band. Most of you reading this probably know this, because I don't anticipate anyone I don't know reading this.
Now that would be weird.
This is gonna be another of those posts I'm gonna wanna delete, but won't...
Anyone wanna dance? I wanna dance. To this song. Or..no. I wanna lounge somewhere. Arms up along the couch. Legs crossed at the ankles. Crucified by laziness. And watch someone dance for me.
That idea just came into my head, btw.
It's a good one.
Dance that one dance. The veils dance. Seven veils? The one where she drops the veils, one by one, and ends up naked. Does she end up naked? She should. Sandstorms and incense and perfumed oils and bare skin shining in firelight and undulating flesh.
My imagination is overactive...
I should've been born a storybook Gypsy. Baggy pants and open-throated shirts. Unshaven jaws and gold earrings. Bandannas around my head and a glint in my eye. Have a dark-eyed Gypsy girlfriend with beads in her hair and dark, dramatic makeup. And she'll dance for me in the dead of night when all the other Gypsies have gone to sleep. When the fire's guttering low enough that the light it gives is subversive and red, and everything's shadowy and mysterious. She'll dance, and the shadows will pool and flow in the changing hollows of her body. And I'll beat the drum for her, because all the other musicians are asleep. Just the drum. Bare hands on drumskin. Slow hypnotic rhythm. Watch her while she dances. Slow hypnotic dance.
And she'll watch me back. With a razoredged dagger held between her teeth. With a razoredged gleam in her eye.
...dangerous.
I titled this drunken philosophy, but only half the title is accurate.
The drunken half.
I can hardly type without making typos. The caps make things harder, too. So I think I'm not gonna use caps anymore as...of...
...now.
poof.
it's done.
i'm free of caps.
i'm free to rant.
lessee, then. where do i start? let's talk about what i'm listening to. shivaree. goodnight moon. it's a great song. it's sexy. she has a sexy voice. in a disturbingly precocious way. it's very goth. porcelain vampire doll. except the song and the band is countryish. so it's gothic country.
porcelain vampire cowgirl doll.
the allure of the song lies in her voice. she has an awfully provocative voice, at least in my state. it's breathy, but has substance behind it.
ooo, she just started that spoken-whispered bit. i could shiver.
but it's not just the way her voice sounds, which is lilting and sweet and pouty. it's a big part the way her voice rides the rhythm of the song so easily. it's not a very smooth rhythm, either, kinda syncopated. makes you wonder what else she can ride so nicely--
okay. let's talk about something else.
smirk.
next song. painted on my heart, by the cult. from the gone in 60 seconds soundtrack.
it's a good song. has a very tormented-howl feel to it. all dramatic and stuff. it's like a thunderstorm of a breakup song. the best breakup song in the world is you look so fine. but then again, considering the breakup in question involves Angelina Jolie, i suppose i'd be in a thunderstorm of grief, too.
that woman. is sexy.
i mean, really sexy. because she settles back in her own body and wears sensuality like a second skin. and. stuff like that.
yum.
more smirking.
more ranting.
oh wow. it's moved on to girl you'll be a woman soon already. in fact, that song's ending. hmm. i didn't even hear it. i'll replay it.
i really like this song, too. it has neat beat. samba or something. vaguely spanish. latin. i couldn't dance to this song, though...wouldn't know what to do with my feet. heh. but it's a great song to listen to. drive to.
you know who makes great roadtrip songs? Tom Petty. his songs are ALL about roadtrips with the sun beating into your eyes. dust and heathaze and the highway. the freeway. his songs are about california. about the central valley. and about LA. not Santa Monica, surf and sand--LA. the grittier, less wholesome side. all-american, but not redblooded.
we digress.
this is a sad song. damn. all my songs are kinda sad tonight. well. some, at least. i'm in an odd mood. heh. the slightest provocation makes me laugh, and yet when i write, it comes down being kinda dulled and humorless. i wonder why?
i've been obsessed with that Velvet Underground song all day. it's a great song. it's a very strange song. i mention this because it's come on again. it sounds vaguely middle-eastern.
ooo, deja vu. i think i've said this before.
actually, i'm pretty sure i have. heh.
but it does! it's that single note held under all the rest. and the percussion. i keep thinking of some shah's bedchamber with his harem lounging all over silk cushions, veiled and dressed in almost see-through gossamer and wreathed in incense smoke with smoky hooded kohl-stroked eyes and...hmm...
...i've really got a one-track mind.
well, the other alternative is what this song probably was made from and for...getting shitfaced...
i love that. "getting shitfaced". so much for euphemisms.
ramble on, damon, ramble on.
i wish i could say something intelligent. or reach for some elusive fiber of life that just happens to float through your field of vision so for a moment you have a glimpse of one thread in the tapestry of the universe and you wanna catch it but can't. i wish i could write down what it feels like to grasp for it and miss and know you've missed and know you'll never ever capture it (you probably have no clue what i'm talking about right now) but i'm having trouble steering my mind into metaphysical philosophy and the meaning of life. i just wanna lounge. i just wanna
(fuck)
...okay. we won't go there.
who's reading my diary again? this is an entry i should delete in the morning. this is not an entry that should get out. this is not a respectable, responsible M.D. entry. then again, i never do delete the entries i should delete. i forget. i think there was another one i swore i'd delete. probably more than one. since i haven't deleted any at all, i suppose they're still there.
venus in furs.
what a compelling name.
who thinks venus is a blonde? show of hands? i thought she was a blonde. it seems proper, somehow. maybe it's because the world has this vision of her as the goddess of love and beauty and all, but it's inherently a lighthearted, lightheaded, airheaded vision. like, you know, that aphrodite on xena.
i have it on good authority that xena's a man, by the way.
i digress again.
isn't that weird, though? aphrodite is blonde. even though she's the goddess of lust, and i don't really associate lust with blondeness. (yeah yeah. crucify me tomorrow.) but she CAN'T be a brunette. she's just...blonde.
oh, and no goddess can be a redhead. sorry.
(crucify me TOMORROW, i said.)
now, while aphrodite can't possibly be anything but blonde, venus can. venus somehow sounds...lower. not lower as in baser, but lower as in the tone is lower. you'd speak aphrodite in a higher tone. you'd breathe venus, low and husky. as in she holds herself closer to the earth. and in that, i mean, she's serpentine. wow, what a leap of logic. but that's what i mean. serpents, isis, slithering lowslung prowl.
venus in furs, now...
...rowrrrr.
i think i'm certifiable now. someone go find me a straitjacket, yeah?
still talking about venus in furs (seeing as how it's now on permanent repeat): i bet this song's good to dance to. slow, but not slow-dancing. you know? not, like, slow 'n tender swaying. slow, like lascivious-slow. like dim lights and eye contact and liplicking and arms round neck and hands on moving hips. this song's allll about moving hips, if you were dancing. even if you weren't dancing, it's about closing your eyes and moving loose-jointed to it.
i think i can rant forever about this song. you know why i'm ranting like this? because SOMEone went to bed, and i can't rant at her anymore.
i was lying. the song's all about having sex. while high. or just having sex. in the sauna. or somewhere smoky. or hot and humid. or...whatever.
i think almost all my favorite songs remind me of sex. there's a reason. it's because you feel good songs deep in your blood and bones. and you definitely feel good sex deep in your blood and bones. the ones that don't remind me of sex are always really, really sad. not soap opera weepy sad, but stirring, deep-in-your-blood-and-bones sad.
there's a connection.
i think...it's time for me to shut up.
end rant.
The drunken half.
I can hardly type without making typos. The caps make things harder, too. So I think I'm not gonna use caps anymore as...of...
...now.
poof.
it's done.
i'm free of caps.
i'm free to rant.
lessee, then. where do i start? let's talk about what i'm listening to. shivaree. goodnight moon. it's a great song. it's sexy. she has a sexy voice. in a disturbingly precocious way. it's very goth. porcelain vampire doll. except the song and the band is countryish. so it's gothic country.
porcelain vampire cowgirl doll.
the allure of the song lies in her voice. she has an awfully provocative voice, at least in my state. it's breathy, but has substance behind it.
ooo, she just started that spoken-whispered bit. i could shiver.
but it's not just the way her voice sounds, which is lilting and sweet and pouty. it's a big part the way her voice rides the rhythm of the song so easily. it's not a very smooth rhythm, either, kinda syncopated. makes you wonder what else she can ride so nicely--
okay. let's talk about something else.
smirk.
next song. painted on my heart, by the cult. from the gone in 60 seconds soundtrack.
it's a good song. has a very tormented-howl feel to it. all dramatic and stuff. it's like a thunderstorm of a breakup song. the best breakup song in the world is you look so fine. but then again, considering the breakup in question involves Angelina Jolie, i suppose i'd be in a thunderstorm of grief, too.
that woman. is sexy.
i mean, really sexy. because she settles back in her own body and wears sensuality like a second skin. and. stuff like that.
yum.
more smirking.
more ranting.
oh wow. it's moved on to girl you'll be a woman soon already. in fact, that song's ending. hmm. i didn't even hear it. i'll replay it.
i really like this song, too. it has neat beat. samba or something. vaguely spanish. latin. i couldn't dance to this song, though...wouldn't know what to do with my feet. heh. but it's a great song to listen to. drive to.
you know who makes great roadtrip songs? Tom Petty. his songs are ALL about roadtrips with the sun beating into your eyes. dust and heathaze and the highway. the freeway. his songs are about california. about the central valley. and about LA. not Santa Monica, surf and sand--LA. the grittier, less wholesome side. all-american, but not redblooded.
we digress.
this is a sad song. damn. all my songs are kinda sad tonight. well. some, at least. i'm in an odd mood. heh. the slightest provocation makes me laugh, and yet when i write, it comes down being kinda dulled and humorless. i wonder why?
i've been obsessed with that Velvet Underground song all day. it's a great song. it's a very strange song. i mention this because it's come on again. it sounds vaguely middle-eastern.
ooo, deja vu. i think i've said this before.
actually, i'm pretty sure i have. heh.
but it does! it's that single note held under all the rest. and the percussion. i keep thinking of some shah's bedchamber with his harem lounging all over silk cushions, veiled and dressed in almost see-through gossamer and wreathed in incense smoke with smoky hooded kohl-stroked eyes and...hmm...
...i've really got a one-track mind.
well, the other alternative is what this song probably was made from and for...getting shitfaced...
i love that. "getting shitfaced". so much for euphemisms.
ramble on, damon, ramble on.
i wish i could say something intelligent. or reach for some elusive fiber of life that just happens to float through your field of vision so for a moment you have a glimpse of one thread in the tapestry of the universe and you wanna catch it but can't. i wish i could write down what it feels like to grasp for it and miss and know you've missed and know you'll never ever capture it (you probably have no clue what i'm talking about right now) but i'm having trouble steering my mind into metaphysical philosophy and the meaning of life. i just wanna lounge. i just wanna
(fuck)
...okay. we won't go there.
who's reading my diary again? this is an entry i should delete in the morning. this is not an entry that should get out. this is not a respectable, responsible M.D. entry. then again, i never do delete the entries i should delete. i forget. i think there was another one i swore i'd delete. probably more than one. since i haven't deleted any at all, i suppose they're still there.
venus in furs.
what a compelling name.
who thinks venus is a blonde? show of hands? i thought she was a blonde. it seems proper, somehow. maybe it's because the world has this vision of her as the goddess of love and beauty and all, but it's inherently a lighthearted, lightheaded, airheaded vision. like, you know, that aphrodite on xena.
i have it on good authority that xena's a man, by the way.
i digress again.
isn't that weird, though? aphrodite is blonde. even though she's the goddess of lust, and i don't really associate lust with blondeness. (yeah yeah. crucify me tomorrow.) but she CAN'T be a brunette. she's just...blonde.
oh, and no goddess can be a redhead. sorry.
(crucify me TOMORROW, i said.)
now, while aphrodite can't possibly be anything but blonde, venus can. venus somehow sounds...lower. not lower as in baser, but lower as in the tone is lower. you'd speak aphrodite in a higher tone. you'd breathe venus, low and husky. as in she holds herself closer to the earth. and in that, i mean, she's serpentine. wow, what a leap of logic. but that's what i mean. serpents, isis, slithering lowslung prowl.
venus in furs, now...
...rowrrrr.
i think i'm certifiable now. someone go find me a straitjacket, yeah?
still talking about venus in furs (seeing as how it's now on permanent repeat): i bet this song's good to dance to. slow, but not slow-dancing. you know? not, like, slow 'n tender swaying. slow, like lascivious-slow. like dim lights and eye contact and liplicking and arms round neck and hands on moving hips. this song's allll about moving hips, if you were dancing. even if you weren't dancing, it's about closing your eyes and moving loose-jointed to it.
i think i can rant forever about this song. you know why i'm ranting like this? because SOMEone went to bed, and i can't rant at her anymore.
i was lying. the song's all about having sex. while high. or just having sex. in the sauna. or somewhere smoky. or hot and humid. or...whatever.
i think almost all my favorite songs remind me of sex. there's a reason. it's because you feel good songs deep in your blood and bones. and you definitely feel good sex deep in your blood and bones. the ones that don't remind me of sex are always really, really sad. not soap opera weepy sad, but stirring, deep-in-your-blood-and-bones sad.
there's a connection.
i think...it's time for me to shut up.
end rant.
More than a month without a single entry, and then two in a day.
I'm unpredictable.
Of course, I also ruined the precise mathematical arrangement of my posts: 7 in the first month, 4 in the second, 2 in the third, and 1 in this month. 7 - 4 = 3; 4 -2 = 2; 2 - 1 = 1. Which means next month, I shouldn't post at all. Ever again. Dun dun dun...
But then again, I screwed that pattern up. So fear not, I'll continue posting.
I'm not as drunk anymore. Small wonder; I spent the last 2 hours playing with the HTML on my page. BTW, if you want it to look right, you need to have these fonts:
1. Viner Hand ITC
2. Eras Light ITC
I suck at HTML. I spent forever figuring out how to make the damn thing do what I wanted it to. And, of course, I never stopped to ask/look for directions.
I'm a self-sufficient beast, I am.
...okay, maybe I'm not SOBER just yet...
I just stretched. Hard. The big muscle on my back almost cramped up. Thank God it didn't. If THAT muscle cramps--you know, the huge dorsal muscle that spans the entire lower 2/3 of your back--I would be in trouble right now. I'd have to force my abs to crunch together and pull the dorsal muscle loose. I wonder if my abs are capable of overpowering my back. Hmm. I don't want to find out.
It'd be one hell of a workout, though. Agonizing pain's a good motivator. Smirk.
I need to stop drinking Mountain Dew. The stuff's so loaded with caffeine it takes funny. But it's damn addictive. Ick. But I don't HAVE to drink Mtn Dew. I can stop anytime I like!
Oh, wow. I got booted offline and I never even noticed. I'll climb back on so I can post this entry.
It's kinda cold tonight. My windows are steamed up. It rained, too. There's one of those big round globe lights on a post outside. The globe is beaded with water, and it casts a shimmering whitish glow on the wet pavement. Oddly lovely.
I like the way the city smells after the rain.
I like the way it looks, too.
Have I said this before? I'll say it again. There's something very lonely about 3am. It's not necessarily a bad lonely. Maybe lonely isn't the word. There's something very solitary about 3am.
No. Lonely is the word.
There's something very lonely about 3am. It's a time when it's so quiet and still you feel like the last person on earth and all you wanna do is stand at the window and watch the rain come down. And look for signs of life outside. And reflect.
I find that word interesting: "reflect". It's interesting because when you reflect, physically, you never really see yourself as others see you because you see a reverse, a mirror-image. When I reflect mentally, is it the same? Do I see a mirror-image of myself and my deeds? Do I judge myself in reverse?
Disturbing concept.
I'm unpredictable.
Of course, I also ruined the precise mathematical arrangement of my posts: 7 in the first month, 4 in the second, 2 in the third, and 1 in this month. 7 - 4 = 3; 4 -2 = 2; 2 - 1 = 1. Which means next month, I shouldn't post at all. Ever again. Dun dun dun...
But then again, I screwed that pattern up. So fear not, I'll continue posting.
I'm not as drunk anymore. Small wonder; I spent the last 2 hours playing with the HTML on my page. BTW, if you want it to look right, you need to have these fonts:
1. Viner Hand ITC
2. Eras Light ITC
I suck at HTML. I spent forever figuring out how to make the damn thing do what I wanted it to. And, of course, I never stopped to ask/look for directions.
I'm a self-sufficient beast, I am.
...okay, maybe I'm not SOBER just yet...
I just stretched. Hard. The big muscle on my back almost cramped up. Thank God it didn't. If THAT muscle cramps--you know, the huge dorsal muscle that spans the entire lower 2/3 of your back--I would be in trouble right now. I'd have to force my abs to crunch together and pull the dorsal muscle loose. I wonder if my abs are capable of overpowering my back. Hmm. I don't want to find out.
It'd be one hell of a workout, though. Agonizing pain's a good motivator. Smirk.
I need to stop drinking Mountain Dew. The stuff's so loaded with caffeine it takes funny. But it's damn addictive. Ick. But I don't HAVE to drink Mtn Dew. I can stop anytime I like!
Oh, wow. I got booted offline and I never even noticed. I'll climb back on so I can post this entry.
It's kinda cold tonight. My windows are steamed up. It rained, too. There's one of those big round globe lights on a post outside. The globe is beaded with water, and it casts a shimmering whitish glow on the wet pavement. Oddly lovely.
I like the way the city smells after the rain.
I like the way it looks, too.
Have I said this before? I'll say it again. There's something very lonely about 3am. It's not necessarily a bad lonely. Maybe lonely isn't the word. There's something very solitary about 3am.
No. Lonely is the word.
There's something very lonely about 3am. It's a time when it's so quiet and still you feel like the last person on earth and all you wanna do is stand at the window and watch the rain come down. And look for signs of life outside. And reflect.
I find that word interesting: "reflect". It's interesting because when you reflect, physically, you never really see yourself as others see you because you see a reverse, a mirror-image. When I reflect mentally, is it the same? Do I see a mirror-image of myself and my deeds? Do I judge myself in reverse?
Disturbing concept.
I lied.
I didn't go to sleep. I downloaded a few mp3s and then came here. Now I'm writing a diary entry. It's 1:57am right now. I should be in bed. I should be asleep. I'm going to wake up in about 4 hours.
I don't wanna sleep.
I don't wanna wake up in 4 hours.
I wanna run away. Pack all the necessary gear into one huge duffel bag--necessary gear being, of course, 3 katanas (we'll pretend for the sake of argument I already have the 2 that are currently en route here), 1 ninja-to, 1 knife, 1 subwoofer and 2 tweeters, 1 laptop computer, about 250 CDs, my skis, my blackbook, a huge bottle of advil, and my cats. And...yeah, that's all I can think of right now.
That's all that matters to me at 2am, apparently.
Oh, and I'd bring my pager along. And my credit cards, bank cards, phone cards, safeway card, blockbuster card, health insurance card. But only because I'd put it behind the rear wheel of my car and back out of the parking space in a very precise, very straight line so as to run over the pager not once, but twice.
I think it'll be quite dead after the first time, but just to be sure, I'll crush it a second time.
The demise of the credit cards will come later.
Then I'll roar down the road with my only possessions thrown into the backseat and my cats wandering around the spacious (yeah right) interior of my car, yowling and puking because they're carsick. I'll stop by Sara's apartment and honk until the lights come on in at least 10 different windows and then I'll jump out of the car and leave the engine running, pound up the stairs and hammer down her door.
She'll be sleepy and beautiful. She say, "What the fuck, Damon?"
And I'll say, "I'm going away, far away, and I'm never coming back. Are you coming with me?"
And she'll say, "This is insane."
And I'll say, "Are you coming with me?"
And she won't say a word. She'll put her hand in mine and we'll leave and we won't even shut the door behind us. Down the stairs and into the car, where we'll share a single steamy wordless conspiratorial kiss over yowling cats and the stick shift and the handbrake and the artful sprawl of little plastic cards on the ground.
I'll back out of the drive, then, all the way backwards until I back into the street. My fender will scrape the asphalt and sparks would fly, and then we'd zoom off. I'd take the 101 north and I'd pop a CD into the stereo and we'd blast tunes all the way to San Francisco, where I'd take my last look at the greatest city in the world.
Then we'd take the 80 east to I-5, and swing south from there. The sun'll come up with us in the middle of the Central Valley, and we'll stop somewhere and rob an Arco gas station, just take the money and three bottles of mountain dew and run, run for the border. By nightfall we'll be crossing into Mexico, no problem. We'll go past Tijuana and then stop at some seedy motel where the owner has a wandering that won't look you straight in yours. We'll get their best room, which isn't much better than a room outta motel-6, and I'd kick off my shoes and she'd slip into something more comfortable while I dug a good Mexican tequila out of the icebox.
"Wanna tell me what all this is about?" she'll ask me.
"No," I'll tell her.
Pour her a shot. Pour me a shot.
Slam it down. Slam the glasses down. Take out my 2 billion and 1 plastic cards, testament to my past life where just about everything I did, everything I bought or rented or sold, was encoded in a compact magnetic bar. Take 'em out and build a house of cards.
Set fire to it.
Watch it burn slow and sickly and purple.
Watch it burn for a minute and then meet her eyes through the curling collapsing frame of the cardhouse. And we'll go to bed. We won't say a word. We'll make a hell lotta noise.
Next morning we'd head north again. Rob all along the border. Rob and run. Rob and run. Leave a trail of crime behind us as long as our 5 o' clock shadows across the desert sand. Get filthy rich. Light a cigar with a rolled-up hundred dollar bill. Drink out of a $2000 Gucci slipper.
Get caught one day, of course. Get caught in some bank holdup somewhere, 'cause the FBI's been on our tails for 16 months now and our luck finally runs out.
Won't go down easy. Pull a gun. Start shooting. Get shot. Get shot down. Get shot dead. Watch it all fade away. Gunsmoke and slanting afternoon sunlight. Blistering desert heat and dust devils dancing with the tumbleweeds. Lover/partner in crime/slick looking goth that'll get off with 10 years, get married and settle down to a respectable life, but won't ever forget her 18 months on the run with me. And that's the last I'll see. And I wouldn't regret a thing.
Not a thing.
And then?
And now, actually?
I realize it's 2:20, and I've got about 3hrs 40min left to sleep.
This was one hell of a weird diary entry. I meant to write about living the idyllic life on the coast of Baja California. Man, goo-goo juice does weird shit to your head.
Time for bed.
I didn't go to sleep. I downloaded a few mp3s and then came here. Now I'm writing a diary entry. It's 1:57am right now. I should be in bed. I should be asleep. I'm going to wake up in about 4 hours.
I don't wanna sleep.
I don't wanna wake up in 4 hours.
I wanna run away. Pack all the necessary gear into one huge duffel bag--necessary gear being, of course, 3 katanas (we'll pretend for the sake of argument I already have the 2 that are currently en route here), 1 ninja-to, 1 knife, 1 subwoofer and 2 tweeters, 1 laptop computer, about 250 CDs, my skis, my blackbook, a huge bottle of advil, and my cats. And...yeah, that's all I can think of right now.
That's all that matters to me at 2am, apparently.
Oh, and I'd bring my pager along. And my credit cards, bank cards, phone cards, safeway card, blockbuster card, health insurance card. But only because I'd put it behind the rear wheel of my car and back out of the parking space in a very precise, very straight line so as to run over the pager not once, but twice.
I think it'll be quite dead after the first time, but just to be sure, I'll crush it a second time.
The demise of the credit cards will come later.
Then I'll roar down the road with my only possessions thrown into the backseat and my cats wandering around the spacious (yeah right) interior of my car, yowling and puking because they're carsick. I'll stop by Sara's apartment and honk until the lights come on in at least 10 different windows and then I'll jump out of the car and leave the engine running, pound up the stairs and hammer down her door.
She'll be sleepy and beautiful. She say, "What the fuck, Damon?"
And I'll say, "I'm going away, far away, and I'm never coming back. Are you coming with me?"
And she'll say, "This is insane."
And I'll say, "Are you coming with me?"
And she won't say a word. She'll put her hand in mine and we'll leave and we won't even shut the door behind us. Down the stairs and into the car, where we'll share a single steamy wordless conspiratorial kiss over yowling cats and the stick shift and the handbrake and the artful sprawl of little plastic cards on the ground.
I'll back out of the drive, then, all the way backwards until I back into the street. My fender will scrape the asphalt and sparks would fly, and then we'd zoom off. I'd take the 101 north and I'd pop a CD into the stereo and we'd blast tunes all the way to San Francisco, where I'd take my last look at the greatest city in the world.
Then we'd take the 80 east to I-5, and swing south from there. The sun'll come up with us in the middle of the Central Valley, and we'll stop somewhere and rob an Arco gas station, just take the money and three bottles of mountain dew and run, run for the border. By nightfall we'll be crossing into Mexico, no problem. We'll go past Tijuana and then stop at some seedy motel where the owner has a wandering that won't look you straight in yours. We'll get their best room, which isn't much better than a room outta motel-6, and I'd kick off my shoes and she'd slip into something more comfortable while I dug a good Mexican tequila out of the icebox.
"Wanna tell me what all this is about?" she'll ask me.
"No," I'll tell her.
Pour her a shot. Pour me a shot.
Slam it down. Slam the glasses down. Take out my 2 billion and 1 plastic cards, testament to my past life where just about everything I did, everything I bought or rented or sold, was encoded in a compact magnetic bar. Take 'em out and build a house of cards.
Set fire to it.
Watch it burn slow and sickly and purple.
Watch it burn for a minute and then meet her eyes through the curling collapsing frame of the cardhouse. And we'll go to bed. We won't say a word. We'll make a hell lotta noise.
Next morning we'd head north again. Rob all along the border. Rob and run. Rob and run. Leave a trail of crime behind us as long as our 5 o' clock shadows across the desert sand. Get filthy rich. Light a cigar with a rolled-up hundred dollar bill. Drink out of a $2000 Gucci slipper.
Get caught one day, of course. Get caught in some bank holdup somewhere, 'cause the FBI's been on our tails for 16 months now and our luck finally runs out.
Won't go down easy. Pull a gun. Start shooting. Get shot. Get shot down. Get shot dead. Watch it all fade away. Gunsmoke and slanting afternoon sunlight. Blistering desert heat and dust devils dancing with the tumbleweeds. Lover/partner in crime/slick looking goth that'll get off with 10 years, get married and settle down to a respectable life, but won't ever forget her 18 months on the run with me. And that's the last I'll see. And I wouldn't regret a thing.
Not a thing.
And then?
And now, actually?
I realize it's 2:20, and I've got about 3hrs 40min left to sleep.
This was one hell of a weird diary entry. I meant to write about living the idyllic life on the coast of Baja California. Man, goo-goo juice does weird shit to your head.
Time for bed.
I just DLed one of those lost-favorite-songs...you know, those songs you liked before you realized there were mp3s? Anyway, here are the lyrics to Free Falling, which I think are really poetic in a sorta simple way:
She's a good girl, loves her mama
Loves Jesus and America too
She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Elvis
Loves horses and her boyfriend too
It's a long day living in Reseda
There's a freeway runnin' through the yard
And I'm a bad boy cos I don't even miss her
I'm a bad boy for breakin' her heart
And I'm free, free fallin'
Yeah I'm free, free fallin'
All the vampires walkin' through the valley
Move west down Ventura Boulevard
And all the bad boys are standing in the shadows
All the good girls are home with broken hearts
(CHORUS)
I wanna glide down over Mulholland
I wanna write her name in the sky
Gonna free fall out into nothin'
Gonna leave this world for a while
CHORUS (repeat to end)
--You know what this song reminds me of? Route 66. Or at least the connotations of Route 66, all the myth that surrounds it. The movement from the Heartland to the southwest to Santa Monica by the sea.
Santa Monica has such an evocative name. More so than LA. LA's too modern, too often-heard, too recognized. But Santa Monica...you think lazy summer days, palm trees and surfing and sunsets, margaritas, 1960s convertibles and, yes, sex. By the sea.
Santa Monica's like the soul of Southern California. As much as I want that to be San Diego...eh, well, it's not. Santa Monica. Summer City, USA.
Hmm. Okay. That's all I have to say for now.
She's a good girl, loves her mama
Loves Jesus and America too
She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Elvis
Loves horses and her boyfriend too
It's a long day living in Reseda
There's a freeway runnin' through the yard
And I'm a bad boy cos I don't even miss her
I'm a bad boy for breakin' her heart
And I'm free, free fallin'
Yeah I'm free, free fallin'
All the vampires walkin' through the valley
Move west down Ventura Boulevard
And all the bad boys are standing in the shadows
All the good girls are home with broken hearts
(CHORUS)
I wanna glide down over Mulholland
I wanna write her name in the sky
Gonna free fall out into nothin'
Gonna leave this world for a while
CHORUS (repeat to end)
--You know what this song reminds me of? Route 66. Or at least the connotations of Route 66, all the myth that surrounds it. The movement from the Heartland to the southwest to Santa Monica by the sea.
Santa Monica has such an evocative name. More so than LA. LA's too modern, too often-heard, too recognized. But Santa Monica...you think lazy summer days, palm trees and surfing and sunsets, margaritas, 1960s convertibles and, yes, sex. By the sea.
Santa Monica's like the soul of Southern California. As much as I want that to be San Diego...eh, well, it's not. Santa Monica. Summer City, USA.
Hmm. Okay. That's all I have to say for now.
I was heating a Marie Callender's TV dinner--country fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy--and for some strange, inexplicable reason I suddenly remembered this little snatch of a moment from my childhood. I guess I was maybe thirteen, fourteen then, just starting to rebel against parental authority. Actually, by then I was just starting to really rebel. I'd been subtly rebelling for a while. But anyway, the point is for some reason my parents and I weren't getting along all the time anymore, especially my mother and I. We used to be really, really close...and we still are, I guess, but it's different now that I've grown up and the change came in my teenage years when I sort of pushed Mom away and tried to stand on my own.
The way I say it makes it sound justified and normal, but it's really not a time I'm proud of. Now that I think about it, it must've really hurt my mother. Impatience, surliness, snappishness, all that great teenager stuff...
I've drifted off the subject again.
My memory: thirteen, fourteen years old. Lotsa tension most the time. My mom's a pretty frugal person. Now my parents are pretty well-off, I'd have to admit, but they weren't always like that. When I was a toddler we lived in a two-bedroom apartment and worked our way up from there. I won't say how much my parents' house is worth now, but I will say I'm damn proud of my parents. My father's really a pretty brilliant guy, and incredibly hardworking, and my mother is the glue that holds the family together. They've come a long, long way in the space of twenty years.
And I've gotten off topic yet again.
Anyway, my mom's always been kind of frugal. If she wasn't, we wouldn't be where we are today. But along with that is this sorta curiosity to try new things. As a result, when she sees a big sale at the grocery store for something she isn't really sure of, she usually buys it and takes it home to test out hoping we'd like it.
Anyway, this memory comes from this time when my mother bought these instant mashed potatoes home. Actually, they weren't mashed potatoes. They were seasoned potato flakes, or something. I think my dad was on a business trip, and my sister was at a sleepover, so it was just me and my mom. We were making these potato flake things, mixing milk and laughing and talking.
I don't know why it suddenly came back to me, or why I'm even writing (so disjointedly) about it, but I think I should write it down because it's a very bittersweet experience. The memory itself is beautiful. My mom's one of those people who deserves more joy than she has. Not that she's depressed, or anything--just that if we're proportionate, then for all the good that she does, she should be repaid with more joy in her life than a human life can hold. But the memory was one of those times I like to think my mom was really happy. And that's why it's a beautiful memory.
It makes me so sad to think about this, but sorta in a good way. I can't even really explain why. It has something to do with the fact that she was trying to save money, but still hoping that her family wouldn't get the short end of the stick because of it, or something...and I really can't put it into words, the whys of it all. It just is.
I think I'm also sad because it reminds me of an earlier, better time. Early childhood. Best friends. Nowadays she's my mother, and I love her for that, but way in the beginning when I was little she was my mother, my best friend, and my hero. That's how it was like in this memory of mine. She was my mom, my best friend and my hero for a little while, but then the general timeframe of the memory was when I started pushing her away, and by the time I woke up and realized what I was doing I'd already distanced myself too much for her to be a best friend and a hero anymore.
Argh. I think I'm kind of rambling in circles. It's pretty irrational, how much I miss my mom right now. I almost wish we didn't have to grow up. Didn't have to go through the teenage years where we start exploring independence.
...
I'd like to call my mom right now and just say, "Hi, Mom. I love you." --and really mean it. I'd really like to do that.
But it's 3:30am. So I'll just write in here and go to sleep. When I read this tomorrow I'll probably wonder what was wrong with me tonight...heh.
Well, okay. Bedtime. Goodnight.
The way I say it makes it sound justified and normal, but it's really not a time I'm proud of. Now that I think about it, it must've really hurt my mother. Impatience, surliness, snappishness, all that great teenager stuff...
I've drifted off the subject again.
My memory: thirteen, fourteen years old. Lotsa tension most the time. My mom's a pretty frugal person. Now my parents are pretty well-off, I'd have to admit, but they weren't always like that. When I was a toddler we lived in a two-bedroom apartment and worked our way up from there. I won't say how much my parents' house is worth now, but I will say I'm damn proud of my parents. My father's really a pretty brilliant guy, and incredibly hardworking, and my mother is the glue that holds the family together. They've come a long, long way in the space of twenty years.
And I've gotten off topic yet again.
Anyway, my mom's always been kind of frugal. If she wasn't, we wouldn't be where we are today. But along with that is this sorta curiosity to try new things. As a result, when she sees a big sale at the grocery store for something she isn't really sure of, she usually buys it and takes it home to test out hoping we'd like it.
Anyway, this memory comes from this time when my mother bought these instant mashed potatoes home. Actually, they weren't mashed potatoes. They were seasoned potato flakes, or something. I think my dad was on a business trip, and my sister was at a sleepover, so it was just me and my mom. We were making these potato flake things, mixing milk and laughing and talking.
I don't know why it suddenly came back to me, or why I'm even writing (so disjointedly) about it, but I think I should write it down because it's a very bittersweet experience. The memory itself is beautiful. My mom's one of those people who deserves more joy than she has. Not that she's depressed, or anything--just that if we're proportionate, then for all the good that she does, she should be repaid with more joy in her life than a human life can hold. But the memory was one of those times I like to think my mom was really happy. And that's why it's a beautiful memory.
It makes me so sad to think about this, but sorta in a good way. I can't even really explain why. It has something to do with the fact that she was trying to save money, but still hoping that her family wouldn't get the short end of the stick because of it, or something...and I really can't put it into words, the whys of it all. It just is.
I think I'm also sad because it reminds me of an earlier, better time. Early childhood. Best friends. Nowadays she's my mother, and I love her for that, but way in the beginning when I was little she was my mother, my best friend, and my hero. That's how it was like in this memory of mine. She was my mom, my best friend and my hero for a little while, but then the general timeframe of the memory was when I started pushing her away, and by the time I woke up and realized what I was doing I'd already distanced myself too much for her to be a best friend and a hero anymore.
Argh. I think I'm kind of rambling in circles. It's pretty irrational, how much I miss my mom right now. I almost wish we didn't have to grow up. Didn't have to go through the teenage years where we start exploring independence.
...
I'd like to call my mom right now and just say, "Hi, Mom. I love you." --and really mean it. I'd really like to do that.
But it's 3:30am. So I'll just write in here and go to sleep. When I read this tomorrow I'll probably wonder what was wrong with me tonight...heh.
Well, okay. Bedtime. Goodnight.
We all have sleepless nights sometimes. It's nice to remember the days when you could pad down the hall to Mommy's room and wake her up. And then she'd make you some hot chocolate, tuck you into bed, and read you a story.
Well, let's pretend you're having a sleepless night. One of those nights when all the world seems asleep, except you. Let's pretend you've tried everything, and you still can't sleep. So I'm going to tell a story now. It's a scary story--only not really. You may think you've heard it already.
But you probably haven't.
So turn out the lights. Snuggle up in a quilt. Warm your hands on a big mug of hot chocolate. And listen:
You know how it begins...long cold country road in late November. The trees are bare and frosted. The moon's full. An owl's hooting somewhere in the distance and there's a car coming down the road. An old sedan.
There's a guy inside, getting pretty tired because it's 2am. So he turns up the radio as loud as it goes and tries to sing along but his eyes keep drooping.
But then he sees her--long black hair and a pale white gown, barefoot at the side of the road. He blinks, because he can't trust his eyes anymore--is she real? What's she doing out this late? He gets closer and closer and she turns and she's beautiful, utterly exquisite, and she raises a hand to hail him.
So he slows and stops and rolls down the window on the passenger's side.
"Need a ride, miss?"
"Yes. I live far away, though, so you can just take me as far as is convenient."
"That's all right, I'll take you home. It's no trouble."
"Thank you."
And she gets into the backseat and he starts driving, and she speaks only to give him directions.
And it gets later.
And the night gets colder.
And he's driving opposite the direction he needs to go. He's turning down roads he's never seen before, and the forest is thickening around him until he could only see the moon above and the branches clawing at the sky, and the road stretching away. Every mile is a mile farther from the world he knows. Every mile is a mile further into a world bathed in blue-white and scored with shadows.
And that's when he takes a look in the rearview mirror--just out of habit.
And she's not there.
So he turns around, and there she is, smiling gently at him. It must be my imagination, he tells himself. I'm up too late.
And he looks in the mirror again.
She's gone.
He turns around.
She's there.
Smiling.
He's scared now; he's heard the stories, just like you have. The ones about the women that wander lonely country roads just like this one. The ones where they've been dead for twenty years, killed on their prom night...or their marriage night, or...
...or even the ones where they drag unsuspecting travellers to hell with them in their loneliness.
His hands tighten on the wheel. The radio's still blaring, but it's breaking up because they're so far from the station and the static comes in ear-shattering bursts. He's sweating, breathing fast, scared shitless--and he dares to look into the mirror just one more time.
Nothing.
That did it. He SLAMS on the brakes and the car goes into a tailspin, tires screeching, smoke billowing. He hears a scream and can't tell if it's him, or her. The car goes into a ditch and he turns around, half-mad, and he screams, "I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE BUT PLEASE, JUST GET THE HELL OUT--"
--and he breaks off.
Because there was the girl, sitting in the backseat...
Bloodied...
...with her finger up her nose.
Well, let's pretend you're having a sleepless night. One of those nights when all the world seems asleep, except you. Let's pretend you've tried everything, and you still can't sleep. So I'm going to tell a story now. It's a scary story--only not really. You may think you've heard it already.
But you probably haven't.
So turn out the lights. Snuggle up in a quilt. Warm your hands on a big mug of hot chocolate. And listen:
You know how it begins...long cold country road in late November. The trees are bare and frosted. The moon's full. An owl's hooting somewhere in the distance and there's a car coming down the road. An old sedan.
There's a guy inside, getting pretty tired because it's 2am. So he turns up the radio as loud as it goes and tries to sing along but his eyes keep drooping.
But then he sees her--long black hair and a pale white gown, barefoot at the side of the road. He blinks, because he can't trust his eyes anymore--is she real? What's she doing out this late? He gets closer and closer and she turns and she's beautiful, utterly exquisite, and she raises a hand to hail him.
So he slows and stops and rolls down the window on the passenger's side.
"Need a ride, miss?"
"Yes. I live far away, though, so you can just take me as far as is convenient."
"That's all right, I'll take you home. It's no trouble."
"Thank you."
And she gets into the backseat and he starts driving, and she speaks only to give him directions.
And it gets later.
And the night gets colder.
And he's driving opposite the direction he needs to go. He's turning down roads he's never seen before, and the forest is thickening around him until he could only see the moon above and the branches clawing at the sky, and the road stretching away. Every mile is a mile farther from the world he knows. Every mile is a mile further into a world bathed in blue-white and scored with shadows.
And that's when he takes a look in the rearview mirror--just out of habit.
And she's not there.
So he turns around, and there she is, smiling gently at him. It must be my imagination, he tells himself. I'm up too late.
And he looks in the mirror again.
She's gone.
He turns around.
She's there.
Smiling.
He's scared now; he's heard the stories, just like you have. The ones about the women that wander lonely country roads just like this one. The ones where they've been dead for twenty years, killed on their prom night...or their marriage night, or...
...or even the ones where they drag unsuspecting travellers to hell with them in their loneliness.
His hands tighten on the wheel. The radio's still blaring, but it's breaking up because they're so far from the station and the static comes in ear-shattering bursts. He's sweating, breathing fast, scared shitless--and he dares to look into the mirror just one more time.
Nothing.
That did it. He SLAMS on the brakes and the car goes into a tailspin, tires screeching, smoke billowing. He hears a scream and can't tell if it's him, or her. The car goes into a ditch and he turns around, half-mad, and he screams, "I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE BUT PLEASE, JUST GET THE HELL OUT--"
--and he breaks off.
Because there was the girl, sitting in the backseat...
Bloodied...
...with her finger up her nose.
Ya know, I think I'd like to live in the 1800s, when the west was still wild. I'd like to be a farmer in Oklahoma. Grow fields of wheat and barley, just like that Sting song, beneath a sky made all the more dazzling blue by all the gold on the ground. Get up with the dawn, work all day, come back and eat dinner by firelight, every night, tumble into bed with my laughing bright-eyed wife, whom I'd love with all my heart.
Except I think some nights when the October moon is full and the wind's blowing across the fields, making the wheat bend, making it bend like waves on the ocean--
I think then, I'd remember some other woman I've loved from afar in my youth. Someone highborn, above the station of a humble farmer. I think I'd remember her and I'd dream of her and when I'd awake I'd go to the window, which is probably a hole in the wall we'd cover up with boards and paper in the winter, and I'd look over my autumn fields and I'd think how much they looked like her hair in the moonlight, because she's a blonde.
And I'd know how her hair looked in the moonlight because I'd known her before for just one night, on some other October night years and years ago before I left to go west, on the edge of her father's plantation in Virginia while the cotton bloomed all around us and fell like snow.
I think that's a good way to spend a lifetime. Or a heartbreaking one, depending on how you see it.
Except I think some nights when the October moon is full and the wind's blowing across the fields, making the wheat bend, making it bend like waves on the ocean--
I think then, I'd remember some other woman I've loved from afar in my youth. Someone highborn, above the station of a humble farmer. I think I'd remember her and I'd dream of her and when I'd awake I'd go to the window, which is probably a hole in the wall we'd cover up with boards and paper in the winter, and I'd look over my autumn fields and I'd think how much they looked like her hair in the moonlight, because she's a blonde.
And I'd know how her hair looked in the moonlight because I'd known her before for just one night, on some other October night years and years ago before I left to go west, on the edge of her father's plantation in Virginia while the cotton bloomed all around us and fell like snow.
I think that's a good way to spend a lifetime. Or a heartbreaking one, depending on how you see it.
It's been hot these days.
Really.
Really hot.
You get used to sweat. You just get used to it. You don't mind it anymore. You're sweating. You're covered in it. You're sticking. Maybe you've even gotten past the sticky stage. Maybe you're so sweaty you're slick. But you're used to it.
You don't even feel it anymore.
That's how it was here.
Hot.
And dry.
Nights are nice, though. Nights are cool. The wind's cool. It's sweet. You live for the nights. You go through the days ducking from air conditioned building to air conditioned building and you lay in the grass when you can't get into an air conditioned building and you just...pant.
But night. Night's your savior. Night, and the Pacific takes over. Sucks the heat out of the air. And the stars come out. And the wind's cold. And inside it's still hot, fucking hot, sweaty hot, but outside...
Outside, it's night.
Really.
Really hot.
You get used to sweat. You just get used to it. You don't mind it anymore. You're sweating. You're covered in it. You're sticking. Maybe you've even gotten past the sticky stage. Maybe you're so sweaty you're slick. But you're used to it.
You don't even feel it anymore.
That's how it was here.
Hot.
And dry.
Nights are nice, though. Nights are cool. The wind's cool. It's sweet. You live for the nights. You go through the days ducking from air conditioned building to air conditioned building and you lay in the grass when you can't get into an air conditioned building and you just...pant.
But night. Night's your savior. Night, and the Pacific takes over. Sucks the heat out of the air. And the stars come out. And the wind's cold. And inside it's still hot, fucking hot, sweaty hot, but outside...
Outside, it's night.
I don't think there's ever a doubt as to what season it is in San Diego. It's summer.
Forever.
But here. Here where I am right now. San Jose. It's strange. North California has seasons. South has summer. In the Bay, you get strange mixed seasons, esp. at the junctions of summer and fall, winter and spring.
Take yesterday. It was cold yesterday. Really cold. So cold I had to wear a jacket. And overcast. Gray above, everywhere, stained here and there with that ugly purpled black that just oozes storm. Windy. I thought it was going to rain, and rain, and rain, until next March.
But then take today. 24 hours later, not even. This morning, the day broke so clear the sky was crystalline overhead. Literally. Not in that way English majors mean when they sit in the grass and rhapsodize about the summer sky; not just clear, or beautiful. I mean LITERALLY crystalline, in an edged, hard way that hurts the eyes when you go outside in the morning and get in the car and drive off. Crystalline. Like there were crystals in your eyes, brilliant blue ones, nothing but blue, grating, scraping, and it hurts to look up but then damn, you just have to look because that blue--who knows if it'll ever be that blue again for you?
The ability to perceive color decreases as we age. I find that sad, that every day the sky's a little less blue.
And it's hot today, so hot I can't imagine anything but that it's gotta be late summer still even though it's September. It's gotta be that fabled last gasp of the hot days. Except you can't really call it a last gasp because that really suggests some degree of weakness. I think of drowning men grasping at straws, starving people wasting away in gutters, and if you were here right now, you would not think of that at all when you went outside.
Summer's still here, at least today. Summer's an amorphous, hot drug that hangs in the air and collects in your joints and under your skin, until you feel kinda heavy, kinda daydreamy, and mostly lazy. Summer isn't just heat, and it's not just that crystalline blue sky I told you about. It's not ballpark hot dogs, either. You can't really describe summer, and even if you could, it won't be the same as someone else's description of summer. But that's okay. When it's summer, you KNOW it's summer.
Sometimes it can be mid-July, and feel like fall.
And then sometimes it can be mid-September, and be summer.
Goddamn, I do love the summer in California. There's nothing like it, ya know, and the best thing is that the memories get sweeter and hazier every passing year. It's walking outside and getting blinded not by the sun but just by the sky; it's sitting inside and wishing you were outside because it's so bright out there and the sky is so blue. It's a heat wave that you hate right now because you can't go 20 minutes after a shower before needing to shower again, but also a heat wave you're going to look back on and remember fondly because godDAMN, night felt good that night when the temperatures dropped and the crickets chirped and you looked up into the sky and the Evening Star was still there and so was Orion and the Milky Way and Jupiter and Mars. It's daydreaming about sitting outside on your nonexistent balcony tonight, sipping a margarita you can't possibly mix, at least not well, eating chilled melon and talking but not really talking to, just being with, your girlfriend and listening to sugary tinny little beats coming out of your 8-year-old boombox with the broken tape deck while the moon slides down the sky and falls into the sea that you can't actually see from your imaginary balcony. But you can pretend.
I think, when I'm old and shaky and sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing home, I'd like to die on a day like this. Warm, drowsy, full of buzzing bees and the whizzing dragonflies, crystal-hard blue skies and blazing sunshine, green grass, young people walking around and falling in love even though they've got a world of problems waiting for them, streams and mountains and the shimmering sea. That'd be a good way to die. Close my eyes on a scene that convinces me the world is still a damn good place to be.
Summer's a beautiful time. Late summer takes that beauty and tempers it with age, gives it a laziness that stretches the days out like taffy even though you're working and busy and sometimes frustrated. Late summer laces summer's beauty in a certain sadness, that maybe the sky won't ever be this blue again for you, that maybe you'll be too busy next year to enjoy the warmth and the sunshine. Late summer's one of my favorite times of the year.
The sky's still that dazzling crystalline blue...
Forever.
But here. Here where I am right now. San Jose. It's strange. North California has seasons. South has summer. In the Bay, you get strange mixed seasons, esp. at the junctions of summer and fall, winter and spring.
Take yesterday. It was cold yesterday. Really cold. So cold I had to wear a jacket. And overcast. Gray above, everywhere, stained here and there with that ugly purpled black that just oozes storm. Windy. I thought it was going to rain, and rain, and rain, until next March.
But then take today. 24 hours later, not even. This morning, the day broke so clear the sky was crystalline overhead. Literally. Not in that way English majors mean when they sit in the grass and rhapsodize about the summer sky; not just clear, or beautiful. I mean LITERALLY crystalline, in an edged, hard way that hurts the eyes when you go outside in the morning and get in the car and drive off. Crystalline. Like there were crystals in your eyes, brilliant blue ones, nothing but blue, grating, scraping, and it hurts to look up but then damn, you just have to look because that blue--who knows if it'll ever be that blue again for you?
The ability to perceive color decreases as we age. I find that sad, that every day the sky's a little less blue.
And it's hot today, so hot I can't imagine anything but that it's gotta be late summer still even though it's September. It's gotta be that fabled last gasp of the hot days. Except you can't really call it a last gasp because that really suggests some degree of weakness. I think of drowning men grasping at straws, starving people wasting away in gutters, and if you were here right now, you would not think of that at all when you went outside.
Summer's still here, at least today. Summer's an amorphous, hot drug that hangs in the air and collects in your joints and under your skin, until you feel kinda heavy, kinda daydreamy, and mostly lazy. Summer isn't just heat, and it's not just that crystalline blue sky I told you about. It's not ballpark hot dogs, either. You can't really describe summer, and even if you could, it won't be the same as someone else's description of summer. But that's okay. When it's summer, you KNOW it's summer.
Sometimes it can be mid-July, and feel like fall.
And then sometimes it can be mid-September, and be summer.
Goddamn, I do love the summer in California. There's nothing like it, ya know, and the best thing is that the memories get sweeter and hazier every passing year. It's walking outside and getting blinded not by the sun but just by the sky; it's sitting inside and wishing you were outside because it's so bright out there and the sky is so blue. It's a heat wave that you hate right now because you can't go 20 minutes after a shower before needing to shower again, but also a heat wave you're going to look back on and remember fondly because godDAMN, night felt good that night when the temperatures dropped and the crickets chirped and you looked up into the sky and the Evening Star was still there and so was Orion and the Milky Way and Jupiter and Mars. It's daydreaming about sitting outside on your nonexistent balcony tonight, sipping a margarita you can't possibly mix, at least not well, eating chilled melon and talking but not really talking to, just being with, your girlfriend and listening to sugary tinny little beats coming out of your 8-year-old boombox with the broken tape deck while the moon slides down the sky and falls into the sea that you can't actually see from your imaginary balcony. But you can pretend.
I think, when I'm old and shaky and sitting in a wheelchair in a nursing home, I'd like to die on a day like this. Warm, drowsy, full of buzzing bees and the whizzing dragonflies, crystal-hard blue skies and blazing sunshine, green grass, young people walking around and falling in love even though they've got a world of problems waiting for them, streams and mountains and the shimmering sea. That'd be a good way to die. Close my eyes on a scene that convinces me the world is still a damn good place to be.
Summer's a beautiful time. Late summer takes that beauty and tempers it with age, gives it a laziness that stretches the days out like taffy even though you're working and busy and sometimes frustrated. Late summer laces summer's beauty in a certain sadness, that maybe the sky won't ever be this blue again for you, that maybe you'll be too busy next year to enjoy the warmth and the sunshine. Late summer's one of my favorite times of the year.
The sky's still that dazzling crystalline blue...
been up since 6am and i'm tired already
i wanna go home, but hell look it's only 2:17pm and i still have 17 hours to go and i'm really starting to wonder why the hell i decided to do THIS with my life, of all things
the air conditioned air here suddenly smells the way airplane air smells at the end of a very long flight...you know what i mean, that stale funky rubber-tinged-with-smoke-and-plastic-with-a-few-floating-molecules-of-shit smell that makes you mildly nauseous, and makes you wanna throw up...that smell
that's how it suddenly smells here where i'm sitting and no, i don't like it
i don't like periods anymore, either, nor capitalizing certain letters, but commas are all right
instead of periods, i'll use paragraph breaks
2:21pm
they ask me what time it is in this little script box above this big one i'm typing (ranting) in right now...date and time...date's easy, but time, what do you write? the time you started, or the time your ended?
question marks are nice
they're curvy and pretty
but anyway, back to time--it's 2:22pm now--am i supposed to use that time in that box? some random intermediate time?
what the hell is time, anyway, this unknown substance that always goes forward, forward, endlessly forward, sometimes so fast when you're having a good time and sometimes so damn slow when you, say, WANNA GO HOME
then sometimes you look back on a slow day and it seems fast after all and sometimes you can't even remember the passage of time and when all is said and done no one (except maybe the dead, who've run to the end of their time) really knows what the hell this "time" thing is
is time a state of mind?
so anyway we invent this thing, this clock, this measurement of time that splits it into little pieces, to help us understand a concept we know as well as our own minds, but will never understand
then again, how many people DO know their own minds?
what's it about the human mind, that needs to split things into small pieces to understand it? dissections, measurements, calculus, everything
2:26pm
i'm a little hungry, but not really...there was something i wanted to rant on about a minute and a half ago but i've forgotten it...isn't it weird how that happens? you think of something, you make a note to yourself--ah, rant on ___ later--and then you forget it
2:29pm
still don't remember what i wanted to say
just got paged
end rant
i wanna go home, but hell look it's only 2:17pm and i still have 17 hours to go and i'm really starting to wonder why the hell i decided to do THIS with my life, of all things
the air conditioned air here suddenly smells the way airplane air smells at the end of a very long flight...you know what i mean, that stale funky rubber-tinged-with-smoke-and-plastic-with-a-few-floating-molecules-of-shit smell that makes you mildly nauseous, and makes you wanna throw up...that smell
that's how it suddenly smells here where i'm sitting and no, i don't like it
i don't like periods anymore, either, nor capitalizing certain letters, but commas are all right
instead of periods, i'll use paragraph breaks
2:21pm
they ask me what time it is in this little script box above this big one i'm typing (ranting) in right now...date and time...date's easy, but time, what do you write? the time you started, or the time your ended?
question marks are nice
they're curvy and pretty
but anyway, back to time--it's 2:22pm now--am i supposed to use that time in that box? some random intermediate time?
what the hell is time, anyway, this unknown substance that always goes forward, forward, endlessly forward, sometimes so fast when you're having a good time and sometimes so damn slow when you, say, WANNA GO HOME
then sometimes you look back on a slow day and it seems fast after all and sometimes you can't even remember the passage of time and when all is said and done no one (except maybe the dead, who've run to the end of their time) really knows what the hell this "time" thing is
is time a state of mind?
so anyway we invent this thing, this clock, this measurement of time that splits it into little pieces, to help us understand a concept we know as well as our own minds, but will never understand
then again, how many people DO know their own minds?
what's it about the human mind, that needs to split things into small pieces to understand it? dissections, measurements, calculus, everything
2:26pm
i'm a little hungry, but not really...there was something i wanted to rant on about a minute and a half ago but i've forgotten it...isn't it weird how that happens? you think of something, you make a note to yourself--ah, rant on ___ later--and then you forget it
2:29pm
still don't remember what i wanted to say
just got paged
end rant
I know this girl.
I wanna tell you about her.
I've never seen her with my eyes, or heard her voice, or touched even a hair on her head.
But I know her.
She lives up in my head. I thought her up, I suppose, but that doesn't mean I own her or even understand her. She grew out of a random lustful fantasy. She grew out of a stereotype. Dominatrix, almost. But not quite. Not the kind you see on TV and hear on 1-900 numbers. Cooler. Reserved. Vicious and perfect.
She's got burgundy hair, you see. This dark, dark burgundy, darker than blood, dark as wine. Streaked with crimson highlights. Worn straight, parted in the middle, cut short in the back, falling loose to an inch, two inches, below the chin at the front.
Maybe it falls forward into her eyes sometimes. Like a curtain of beads. I don't know what color her eyes are.
I know her, though.
She's got the body of a cat, a weasel. Sleek. Lithe. She can shoot a fly off a cow's ass from thirty yards away; she can snap the flame off a candle with a whip. She can use her own body like a whip.
She wears leather. Black leather. And when we make love--but we never really do--she's the one in control.
That's how she started out. That was all. A framework, a snapshot, a coin with just one side.
That's not how she stayed.
Lemme tell you about this girl I know...
Here's the weird part. She doesn't fit in with anyone I've really known and loved, you know. She's not someone I'd have a real relationship with. She's too different. She wouldn't fit in my life. In fact, the only thing she's congruent with...
...is everything else I dream about.
So this is what I figured. She's not a stereotype. Maybe she's an archetype. I'm not too sure what that means. But what I do know--she's an embodiment of the random things my brain cooks up when I'm up too late. Worlds with three moons and a dying red sun. Rivers that flow upstream. But it's not as if these things were somehow in her. It's like, she's in them. She's the core, the spirit. She's somehow all the things I'm not, and yet created by something in my own head. A summation, a distillation, of all I imagine. Or the root of all that I imagine.
So which came first, the chicken or the egg?
I wanna show you this girl...
This is something that came to me a little earlier, while I was talking online. And I don't know if I can top the first telling, so I'll just tell it the way it was told, the first time around.
And this is how it goes:
picture some little town in the southwest
arizona, new mexico. somewhere like that.
hot as hell.
dustdevils and tumbleweeds.
i'm driving out of the east. i'm driving straight into the sun.
air conditioning's broken in my car.
and i'm getting sick of my cds, getting sick of the road. i'm sweaty, windblown, there's dust everywhere in my car. i need a shower. i need a bed, actually, because it's late afternoon and i've been driving all day and i'm tired--of the road, of driving, just plain old tired.
i run out of gas
long straight road
mirage makes it seems to split and waver and float above itself, far down the road
the sun's setting the horizon on fire
there's a single little gas station
dirty as the rest of this world
old.
gas pumps are 1970s or so, big huge numbers, unattractive.
the windows are cloudy with dirt.
the storekeeper's unshaven, in a wifebeater and worn jeans, has a cigarette and a nasty attitude
takes my money and gives me a suspicious glare
me, i could care less. i just want some gas and a stinkin' motel-6
there's an overhead fan inside, and some food and drinks. i take a turn, decide i'm better off not eating anything that's got dust on it
flies are buzzing
i go back out
i open the gas door and start pumping gas, but i do it slowly, kinda lethargic, because the sooner i finish the sooner i hafta keep driving. but then it's not like i wanna stay here, either.
gas starts going, really, really slow.
i try to sit on the hood but it's too friggin' hot
so i sit on the back, which is also hot, but not as bad.
and so i'm there. weary and dusty and hot and squinting down the road the way i came, trying to tell myself dammit, i came a long way already, not much further to go, gotta be a motel around here somewhere
and then i notice this flickering on the road. like a sun off a mirror.
and there's been nothing, absolutely nothing, on the road thus far, so this catches my attention
i watch it.
it gets closer. a little bigger. it's the sun gleaming off a windshield.
i have nothing better to do, and anyway i'm getting a little interested. so i keep watching. and it gets closer.
it's one of those big american sportsters from the 60s. mustang, firebird, something before the world decided to make sleek-looking cars. this one's just classic. and it's not one of those museum pieces, not one of those gleaming perfect ones that some middle-aged upper-middle class man has in his driveway to remind him of the youth he never had. this one's real; it's seen use. it's dusty and roadbeaten, dented.
convertible? i don't know. no, actually...or if it is, the top is up.
so i can't see anything except the sunlight flashing off the windshield until it's very close
and then it passes, not tearing down the road, but not going slow either. just cruising.
and there's my burgundy-haired girl inside...
one wrist on the wheel
the other elbow resting out the window, the fingers splayed on the cusp of the door
and i'm squinting to get a better look, and she doesn't see me at first. i don't know if she has music going; maybe she does, but she's too cool to move to it.
she kinda glances over, then
this lazy, unaffected sideglance, like she couldn't care less if she was looking at a tumbleweed.
and her lashes are long, low, swept low because her eyes are narrowed against the searing light--not quite squinting, but almost
it's a glance that inadvertently smoulders. sets fires. and then she's passing, and i don't know if this is my imagination, or if it really happened, but i could swear, just swear, that right before she looked back at the road--still unaffected--her lips (and we all know whose lips they look like...) twitched a little, like they were considering smiling, but didn't deem the cause worthy of it.
and then she's past the gas station and still cruising down that road in her car, and i'm just watching, just staring, until she's a dot on the road, and then gone, flinging up a trail of slow-settling dust behind her.
...I know this girl.
She's not someone you ever forget.
I wanna tell you about her.
I've never seen her with my eyes, or heard her voice, or touched even a hair on her head.
But I know her.
She lives up in my head. I thought her up, I suppose, but that doesn't mean I own her or even understand her. She grew out of a random lustful fantasy. She grew out of a stereotype. Dominatrix, almost. But not quite. Not the kind you see on TV and hear on 1-900 numbers. Cooler. Reserved. Vicious and perfect.
She's got burgundy hair, you see. This dark, dark burgundy, darker than blood, dark as wine. Streaked with crimson highlights. Worn straight, parted in the middle, cut short in the back, falling loose to an inch, two inches, below the chin at the front.
Maybe it falls forward into her eyes sometimes. Like a curtain of beads. I don't know what color her eyes are.
I know her, though.
She's got the body of a cat, a weasel. Sleek. Lithe. She can shoot a fly off a cow's ass from thirty yards away; she can snap the flame off a candle with a whip. She can use her own body like a whip.
She wears leather. Black leather. And when we make love--but we never really do--she's the one in control.
That's how she started out. That was all. A framework, a snapshot, a coin with just one side.
That's not how she stayed.
Lemme tell you about this girl I know...
Here's the weird part. She doesn't fit in with anyone I've really known and loved, you know. She's not someone I'd have a real relationship with. She's too different. She wouldn't fit in my life. In fact, the only thing she's congruent with...
...is everything else I dream about.
So this is what I figured. She's not a stereotype. Maybe she's an archetype. I'm not too sure what that means. But what I do know--she's an embodiment of the random things my brain cooks up when I'm up too late. Worlds with three moons and a dying red sun. Rivers that flow upstream. But it's not as if these things were somehow in her. It's like, she's in them. She's the core, the spirit. She's somehow all the things I'm not, and yet created by something in my own head. A summation, a distillation, of all I imagine. Or the root of all that I imagine.
So which came first, the chicken or the egg?
I wanna show you this girl...
This is something that came to me a little earlier, while I was talking online. And I don't know if I can top the first telling, so I'll just tell it the way it was told, the first time around.
And this is how it goes:
picture some little town in the southwest
arizona, new mexico. somewhere like that.
hot as hell.
dustdevils and tumbleweeds.
i'm driving out of the east. i'm driving straight into the sun.
air conditioning's broken in my car.
and i'm getting sick of my cds, getting sick of the road. i'm sweaty, windblown, there's dust everywhere in my car. i need a shower. i need a bed, actually, because it's late afternoon and i've been driving all day and i'm tired--of the road, of driving, just plain old tired.
i run out of gas
long straight road
mirage makes it seems to split and waver and float above itself, far down the road
the sun's setting the horizon on fire
there's a single little gas station
dirty as the rest of this world
old.
gas pumps are 1970s or so, big huge numbers, unattractive.
the windows are cloudy with dirt.
the storekeeper's unshaven, in a wifebeater and worn jeans, has a cigarette and a nasty attitude
takes my money and gives me a suspicious glare
me, i could care less. i just want some gas and a stinkin' motel-6
there's an overhead fan inside, and some food and drinks. i take a turn, decide i'm better off not eating anything that's got dust on it
flies are buzzing
i go back out
i open the gas door and start pumping gas, but i do it slowly, kinda lethargic, because the sooner i finish the sooner i hafta keep driving. but then it's not like i wanna stay here, either.
gas starts going, really, really slow.
i try to sit on the hood but it's too friggin' hot
so i sit on the back, which is also hot, but not as bad.
and so i'm there. weary and dusty and hot and squinting down the road the way i came, trying to tell myself dammit, i came a long way already, not much further to go, gotta be a motel around here somewhere
and then i notice this flickering on the road. like a sun off a mirror.
and there's been nothing, absolutely nothing, on the road thus far, so this catches my attention
i watch it.
it gets closer. a little bigger. it's the sun gleaming off a windshield.
i have nothing better to do, and anyway i'm getting a little interested. so i keep watching. and it gets closer.
it's one of those big american sportsters from the 60s. mustang, firebird, something before the world decided to make sleek-looking cars. this one's just classic. and it's not one of those museum pieces, not one of those gleaming perfect ones that some middle-aged upper-middle class man has in his driveway to remind him of the youth he never had. this one's real; it's seen use. it's dusty and roadbeaten, dented.
convertible? i don't know. no, actually...or if it is, the top is up.
so i can't see anything except the sunlight flashing off the windshield until it's very close
and then it passes, not tearing down the road, but not going slow either. just cruising.
and there's my burgundy-haired girl inside...
one wrist on the wheel
the other elbow resting out the window, the fingers splayed on the cusp of the door
and i'm squinting to get a better look, and she doesn't see me at first. i don't know if she has music going; maybe she does, but she's too cool to move to it.
she kinda glances over, then
this lazy, unaffected sideglance, like she couldn't care less if she was looking at a tumbleweed.
and her lashes are long, low, swept low because her eyes are narrowed against the searing light--not quite squinting, but almost
it's a glance that inadvertently smoulders. sets fires. and then she's passing, and i don't know if this is my imagination, or if it really happened, but i could swear, just swear, that right before she looked back at the road--still unaffected--her lips (and we all know whose lips they look like...) twitched a little, like they were considering smiling, but didn't deem the cause worthy of it.
and then she's past the gas station and still cruising down that road in her car, and i'm just watching, just staring, until she's a dot on the road, and then gone, flinging up a trail of slow-settling dust behind her.
...I know this girl.
She's not someone you ever forget.
I keep coming to this page because I seem to want to write something.
Sometimes a sunset is only spectacular after the sun is gone. Sometimes the paleness of the western sky only flushes the flaming red of a sunset after the sunset itself. I wonder if there's a lesson in that?
I keep going away because I can't seem to remember what.
Sometimes a sunset is only spectacular after the sun is gone. Sometimes the paleness of the western sky only flushes the flaming red of a sunset after the sunset itself. I wonder if there's a lesson in that?
I keep going away because I can't seem to remember what.
Geez, figures. I spend all this time getting an online diary, and then realize I don't know what the hell to write in it. What DOES one write in an online diary? Kinda an intimidating task, if you think about it. Here it is: online diary. Infinite blank pages, just waiting to be written on. And everything you write could theoretically be seen by EVERYONE in the world. Scary.
So what do I write in this?
Hi, my name is Damon. I was born in December and I like pizza.
Hi, my name is Damon, and I just saw the most beautiful sunset in my life.
Ah, there's a way to start. I can rant from that. Someone once told me I rant (babble, go off) wonderfully. Very...what was the word? Uh. C'mon, think--it's at the tip of my tongue, and I can't remember it. The same person that said I ranted very whimsically (THAT's what it was! Whimsical!) said that's what all of life is. Something that's at the tip of your tongue, corner of your eye, deep in your head, and you can feel it, but you can't describe it, grasp it, take hold of it. Life's an ever-fleeing thought.
I'm not sure I always understand everything she says, but I love what she says anyway because she has the most ...*fascinating* ideas.
But anyway. Back to the sunset. I always say that, ya know? That thing about the most beautiful sunset in the world. I see a sunset, and I think it's the most beautiful in the world. Then I see the next...same thing happens. And on and on. What does this mean, anyway? Is this, what, some sort of indication of my basal instability, indecisiveness, capriciousness?
Ya know, modern psychology sucks sometimes. Fuck you, Freud! Freud? Frued? Great, I can't even spell anymore. Freud. yeah. I just had to look away for a minute. Sometimes that happens. You look at something, and it looks wrong, even though you know it's right...you look again, two minutes later, and it looks right.
But, okay. I've decided something. I hate psychology. The whole therapy shit, at least. Labeling people. You're anal-retentive, he's manic depressive. I like the idea of psychology, of course. It was one of my favorite courses in college. I like probing human minds, figuring out what makes people tick, I guess. But--making it into a science?
The human mind, a science?
Bullshit!
--not to mention, a science that seems bent on finding all the problems in your head? Shit. We have enough problems. We don't need someone to point them all out, and we do NOT need to blab them to said person, and hope by doing so, said person can fix it all. Therapy, my ass. Therapy teaches us to rely on others, doubt ourselves, that sorta stuff.
I don't believe in therapy. It's a great idea--figuring out the human mind--but it just seems too damn negative for me. Maybe that's just cuz I don't see it in its fullness, or something. But like I said, I don't like how it limits us. Psychology tells us we're all flawed, flawed from birth and childhood, and the only chance we have at fixing ourselves is to empty our pockets and open our darkest secrets to some bored stranger. Fuck that, I say! I'm one of those folks who think people can do anything they put their minds to.
Ever see Gattaca? There is no gene for the human spirit, stuff like that? Well, I think whoever thought up that slogan was mentally impaired. There, that's my official anti-therapy doctor's opinion. I have a better slogan for it. "There is nothing the human spirit cannot overcome." THAT's what the movie's about, and I love it for that.
Not to mention Uma Thurman has never looked better...
BTW, folks, I rant on this all the time. This human spirit stuff. You'll hear it often if you keep up with me. This is a belief I hold dearer than any other, I think, and really, it's the basis of all my other beliefs. Yeah, yeah, I'm an optimist, I couldn't be bitingly sarcastic the way some of my favorite people could if my life depended on it, but hey--ya can't change that.
I believe in human creativity.
I believe in human capacity.
I believe in the human mind.
I believe in the human spirit.
I believe in the ultimate beauty of the human soul.
I believe in humanity.
Man, that sounds pretty good. Maybe I'll put it up on my homepage, huh?
So, yeah. The sunset. See, I have a point to all this...
I say I think the sunset is beautiful because it is. Cuz hey, look, I survived another day, I've lived another day, lived to see another thousand new things, lived to feel the sunlight fade from the sky. I've lived. Hey, I believe in life, too. I believe in all sortsa shit. Maybe I shoulda been a hippie poet or something. Right now, that doesn't sound too bad. It's the weekend, but I'm exhausted, I have the flu, and I have another, oh, three years of residency ahead of me. I bet it'd be better to be a hippie poet. A drifter. See the sunset in California today, hitchhike east and be in Arizona tomorrow just in time for the sunrise. Stuff like that.
Okay, server's dead. Rebooting time.
End rant.
So what do I write in this?
Hi, my name is Damon. I was born in December and I like pizza.
Hi, my name is Damon, and I just saw the most beautiful sunset in my life.
Ah, there's a way to start. I can rant from that. Someone once told me I rant (babble, go off) wonderfully. Very...what was the word? Uh. C'mon, think--it's at the tip of my tongue, and I can't remember it. The same person that said I ranted very whimsically (THAT's what it was! Whimsical!) said that's what all of life is. Something that's at the tip of your tongue, corner of your eye, deep in your head, and you can feel it, but you can't describe it, grasp it, take hold of it. Life's an ever-fleeing thought.
I'm not sure I always understand everything she says, but I love what she says anyway because she has the most ...*fascinating* ideas.
But anyway. Back to the sunset. I always say that, ya know? That thing about the most beautiful sunset in the world. I see a sunset, and I think it's the most beautiful in the world. Then I see the next...same thing happens. And on and on. What does this mean, anyway? Is this, what, some sort of indication of my basal instability, indecisiveness, capriciousness?
Ya know, modern psychology sucks sometimes. Fuck you, Freud! Freud? Frued? Great, I can't even spell anymore. Freud. yeah. I just had to look away for a minute. Sometimes that happens. You look at something, and it looks wrong, even though you know it's right...you look again, two minutes later, and it looks right.
But, okay. I've decided something. I hate psychology. The whole therapy shit, at least. Labeling people. You're anal-retentive, he's manic depressive. I like the idea of psychology, of course. It was one of my favorite courses in college. I like probing human minds, figuring out what makes people tick, I guess. But--making it into a science?
The human mind, a science?
Bullshit!
--not to mention, a science that seems bent on finding all the problems in your head? Shit. We have enough problems. We don't need someone to point them all out, and we do NOT need to blab them to said person, and hope by doing so, said person can fix it all. Therapy, my ass. Therapy teaches us to rely on others, doubt ourselves, that sorta stuff.
I don't believe in therapy. It's a great idea--figuring out the human mind--but it just seems too damn negative for me. Maybe that's just cuz I don't see it in its fullness, or something. But like I said, I don't like how it limits us. Psychology tells us we're all flawed, flawed from birth and childhood, and the only chance we have at fixing ourselves is to empty our pockets and open our darkest secrets to some bored stranger. Fuck that, I say! I'm one of those folks who think people can do anything they put their minds to.
Ever see Gattaca? There is no gene for the human spirit, stuff like that? Well, I think whoever thought up that slogan was mentally impaired. There, that's my official anti-therapy doctor's opinion. I have a better slogan for it. "There is nothing the human spirit cannot overcome." THAT's what the movie's about, and I love it for that.
Not to mention Uma Thurman has never looked better...
BTW, folks, I rant on this all the time. This human spirit stuff. You'll hear it often if you keep up with me. This is a belief I hold dearer than any other, I think, and really, it's the basis of all my other beliefs. Yeah, yeah, I'm an optimist, I couldn't be bitingly sarcastic the way some of my favorite people could if my life depended on it, but hey--ya can't change that.
I believe in human creativity.
I believe in human capacity.
I believe in the human mind.
I believe in the human spirit.
I believe in the ultimate beauty of the human soul.
I believe in humanity.
Man, that sounds pretty good. Maybe I'll put it up on my homepage, huh?
So, yeah. The sunset. See, I have a point to all this...
I say I think the sunset is beautiful because it is. Cuz hey, look, I survived another day, I've lived another day, lived to see another thousand new things, lived to feel the sunlight fade from the sky. I've lived. Hey, I believe in life, too. I believe in all sortsa shit. Maybe I shoulda been a hippie poet or something. Right now, that doesn't sound too bad. It's the weekend, but I'm exhausted, I have the flu, and I have another, oh, three years of residency ahead of me. I bet it'd be better to be a hippie poet. A drifter. See the sunset in California today, hitchhike east and be in Arizona tomorrow just in time for the sunrise. Stuff like that.
Okay, server's dead. Rebooting time.
End rant.
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