a manifest textual maelstrom

http://mistervikas.livejournal.com/

2006-08-28T11:21:00.000-05:00

http://mistervikas.livejournal.com/

my blog is gone.

not non-existent, just not here. i'm on livejournal. see you there.

pass the big cone hat, please

2006-08-25T07:57:00.000-05:00

i am stupid.

...i choose to ignore the stunned gasps, cries, and silence that just issued.

no, it's true. sure, i can drum out pi to 18 digits { 3.14159265358979323, in case you were wondering } but i can't calculate it that far. well, not without sitting there, sticking fingers in and out of the air as i count decimal places in my head.

i'm an idiot. for a thorough examination, here is a brief listing [not a LIST, but a LISTING. shut up, they're different]:

1) i yearn to shave my shaggy beard-growth in order to be clean shaven, yet know ahead of time and decry after the fact that i look very, VERY young when clean shaven.

2) i wasn't able to tie my shoes until 3rd grade (possibly the 4th)

3) i have shocked myself in the last six months. with electricity. from an outlet.

4) i have eaten dirt and other concoctions on a dare. not for the money, but the principle, however stupid it was.

5) i have confused a plant with a person. on more than one occasion.

6) i jump into snowbanks, huge ones, fully dressed and aiming for my face.

7) i was convinced, at the age of 8 or so, that i could build a functioning robot within one week.

8) i doubt the advice of professionals while attempting to do what they do on a daily basis (i.e. carpenters, painters, electricians and plumbers).

9) i have gotten lost because i would not stop and ask for directions (but in all fairness, there have been plenty of times where i didn't get lost)

10) i will wait twenty minutes for the slurpee machine to attain the perfect consistency demanded of my coke slurpees.

11) i am late to meetings, appointments, and parties for things like #10

12) i have forsaken much of my college education, being late after spending too much time sleeping and then ironing my clothes before leaving for class.

13) i don't think i know any state capitols. ANY! and i barely knew to spell it CAPITOL. barely.

14) i forget people's names with startling frequency.

15) i regularly try to take ALL my groceries up the stairs in one trip.

16) i feel no need to unplug appliances and devices before opening them up to troubleshoot or just generally poke around.

17) i drive twenty miles out of my way to save ten cents on gas.

18) i have found occasions in which i discover my own chewing gum caught in my hair.

19) i once tried to 'improve' a tesla coil by changing the number of turns and length of the coil on a whim...and without calculating anything remotely close to a resonant frequency or impedance differential (that one was for all you techies out there)

20) i have tried to persuade women by 'reasoning' with them (now to towel off all the spit from your boos and hisses)

21) i have tried to turn a toothpick over in my mouth, top to bottom, using nothing but my tongue.

22) i closest thing i've ever come to 'winning' in chess was when i and my equally horrible partner both had nothing but our kings left on the board, slowly moving together and apart, one square at a time.

23) WE HAD NOTHING BUT OUR KINGS LEFT ON THE BOARD. now come on, that's just plain horrible. and hence, stupid.

24) i once asked someone who was the better baseball player, Ken Griffey Jr. or Babe Ruth.

25) i have no idea who gore vidal is.

26) i once spent ten minutes trying to say 'kennator sennaty'

27) i once spent ten minutes trying to say 'senator kennedy' when i was 14...and i couldn't even do it in writing with #26.

28) i thought the store named Dulux Paints by my house was pronounced "DOO-LUX" Paints until two years ago.

29) i can calculate the intensity of the sound coming out of my mouth to around a 1% accuracy and then convert it to decibels, but i can't seem to realize that i'm always talking too loudly.

30) i spend most of my grade school years convinced that i could telepathically talk to animals and ask them nicely to obey my commands.

31) i change my accent accordingly whenever i leave the state, to match that of the geography i visit (ya'll know wher i'kin find a gas 'tation 'round 'ere?)

32) i have a deep seated fear and mistrust of any animal that is smaller than me and therefore is able to move much faster than me.

33) i keep all my eggs in one basket (laptop, cell phone, backpack...i even POP my email...)

34) i turn my air-pressure-keyboard-cleaning cans upside down and sprayed my own skin with the freezing liquid (since the pressure is so high inside the liquid becomes gaseous to leave the can, but if you hold the can upside down it comes out in droplets and is VERY VERY cold, as most natural gases when in liquid form).

35) i splattered myself with oil while attemping to deepfy things without a splatter-barrier. repeatedly.

36) i CANNOT recite the alphabet backwards. i just can't.

37) i have had to throw away phone cords because i chewed them too much.

38) ditto on headphone cords.

39) i think chewing on the little red cheese spreader that come with Handi-Snacks makes me look rugged.

40) i buy post-its so i can simply pull them off and fold them in half compulsively, to see the edges stick together.

41) i deliberately make noises with my nostrils. i attempt melodies, as well.

42) i put a pen behind my ear and then wonder the rest of the day where in the world i lost it.

43) i have dreams of walking down the monroe st. bridge, listening to the monroe st. bridge music guy banging on his plastic container drums, and then sitting down and jamming with him on the trumpet i happen to be carrying at the time.

44) ditto for the train.

45) i aim to dress like a mix between ricky ricardo, fraiser crane, bill cosby, and emmet l. brown.

46) i am incapable of roller-blading.

47) i try to fix most things by melting plastic that just happens to be laying around.

48) i talk to the characters on my tv screen.

49) it took me 10 minutes to remember the word 'scarf'

50) i have super-glued a mask to my face for halloween (phantom of the opera...) and, as a result, learned what my facial hair looks like from a third-person perspective.

so there you go. all i need is a big cone hat and a dictionary to make sure i can spell d-u-n-c-e correctly.

meri ludki bhoth achi hain

2006-08-21T07:56:00.000-05:00

I just got a new WATERMAN pen!

It's a fountain pen!

It's in a box!!

With BLUE INK!

IN A BOX!

...my girl is super awesome.

i scream.

2006-08-06T06:11:00.000-05:00

i like ice cream.

seriously. like you wouldn't believe.

that is all.

john hancock was clearly enamoured

2006-08-06T03:13:00.000-05:00

what gives the average man any right to document some vested interest in the topic of love?

possibly when he realizes, from time to time, that it is not an at all easy topic, something formally understandable or cogent.

it just says something when you love a person, a principle, a place so intensely that it frightens you sometimes. it says something when the thought of you losing it brings you to tears, without any provocation, logic, or rationale. and it definitely says something when you choose it all with open arms.

just close your eyes and swim in it.

pardon my zinger

2006-08-02T12:22:00.000-05:00

it seems that i'm not used to people laughing at my ignorance.

i mean, i'm the subject of jokes and jibes, yes. but i'm not used to simply being laughed at outright. the example:

"vikas, did you go to 30th Street?" someone asks me, here in Philly. she sounds surprised; given the heat, i figure she thinks i walked a far way to get the food currently in my hand.

"oh, no, i went to the train station."

and so she laughed. and then a passerby, being told of the situation, also laughed. a serious sort of laughter, chorts and chuckles and a very hearty core. for you see, although we are on a cross street that is not close to the number 30, the train station i went to is nevertheless called the 30th street train station.

hence, i was ignorant. hence, i was laughed at.

now this wasn't mean or malicious or anything close to that tint. it's more of a sort of unexpected laughter, an unheard laughter. i'm just not numbed to the sound of someone saying "you don't know such-and-such?? hahahahahahaha"

and i'm fairly sure i don't do it to others. i usually try to get other people to laugh, rather than find a reason to laugh myself. so if i do jab at someone, it's only so that they laugh with me.

maybe that's what they were trying to do, and maybe i just wasn't laughing. not like it matters, it's just making me aware of the fact that there are things that go on in normal life that i'm just not a party to as much as most.

sometimes i look out the plane and see my ambition flying overhead

2006-08-01T21:24:00.000-05:00

when i get back to school, i'm either going to get very, very bored or very, very excited. since that's such an odd way to introduce an entry, you are, no doubtedly, shaking your head or rolling your eyes. possibly sighing.

so, i explain. you see, i do not study physics because i have a test coming up. or a job that requires me to keep up to date. i don't even have a single person in my life that will challenge me on the topic, causing me to out-do her/him in an effort to save face or claim superiority. so the fact that engage in the activity at all must be very obvious of the fact that it, quite simply, my calling.

why aren't you focusing professionally on it then? you clearly must be asking.

well, a calling doesn't necessarily require engagement on a constant basis. i mean, it's a calling; if it weren't a calling then it would just be some thing i kinda want to do, or some thing i have to do. instead, it is what i do out of choice and what i do out of personal interest. therefore, it doesn't have to be what i do every hour of my life in order to be the most important thing i can do with my mind.

making a film is a life goal. i may have lost interest in another few years, i may have been haunted by the thought of 'maybe if i'd made that movie' for the rest of my life. i don't know. but i have never pretended that i can't have what i want. it may take sacrifice and dedication and the sort of work that makes some people tired at the thought. but those are the costs of doing anything important. so if it's something i honestly want, i do everything possible.

so, i take my time with physics. my only worry with this is that i will have wasted the most potential of my life, squandering my youthful imagination and insights (no laughing) on things like movies and romance and financial juggling. but i made my choices. and i am happy with all of them.

getting back to the first sentence, finally: i study physics outside of career interest. therefore, i may be overstudied for my first year or two of grad school. this would keep me bored.

but if i'm lucky, really really really really lucky, i can land that special class, that special teacher. that special research project that will give me an honest shot at getting what i want. and what do i want out of physics? i want to make a difference to the lives of everyone in the world. even slightly. i never pretended to dream small. i just don't expect it to happen without a lifetime of effort, sacrifice, and intense choices.

back to work.

even lazarus had to stay in the ground a couple of days

2006-07-26T08:39:00.000-05:00

did it really take this long? have i been mulling and idling and whiling and whistling and wary and worried for over three months without a post?

looks like i have.

but the assumption here is that the teeming masses (ha, i bet you don't even know what teeming means, otherwise you'd be criticizing my obviously incorrrect usage of the term) have any interest whatsoever in my quote-unquote life. and you know me, i pander to the masses. especially if they're teeming.

seriously, look it up already. you're embarrassing the both of us.

besides, i've been catching some flak from my regular readers (read: 1-2 people) about not posting in awhile. which is an especially mixed mention from a certain someone who receives my panderings via snail mail these days, wink wink nudge nudge hug hug kiss kiss. you know who you are.

so let's try to displace all the rumors and heresay and non-commital moans that might be circulating about my last few months:

- firstly, this is not a list. i don't like lists, if only because so many other people like to put lists in their blogs. so this is not a list.

- we finished production of the film on May 14th. it was a stressful last weekend for everyone involved; there was an outdoor scene in the rain at 3am, a domestic violence scene taking up an entire day, and lots of moving and shaking.

- for that last day of shooting, i got a haircut. yes, a haircut. i had been growing my hair out for almost 9 months or so and it was incredibly volumnious. but we hit the flashback scene that weekend, and in order to push back the years and make me seem the doe-eyed young beat cop, i cut my hair, shaved, and took off the glasses. all were impressed with the change. so, alls left is editing, color correction, soundtracking, and i'll have a finished film. throw in some trailers so i can attract further gigs, whatever i can muster for a premiere, and i've got myself a lifelong goal squared away into a neat little package (approximately the size of a dvd. approximately)

- consulting now takes me to philadelphia, PA four days a week. i'm working long hours, missing my home, missing holly terribly, and basically at a loss for what to do with myself when i leave the office. i don't leave the office at an hour appropriate for roaming most of the city, and yet early enough that i have a couple hours to kill before having to go to bed. i try to work out, but even that can't always happen if i'm dead tired when i get back.

- i've been slowing working on my next feature script; it's coming together, to be sure, but it's slow going with working long hours and constantly being too tired to feel enthusiastic. but it's coming along, and i get that giddy little thrill once a week or so when i add another page of dialog to my notebook (mind you it's a very small page, but i'm still giddy nonetheless)

- i'm paying off my movie debts slowly. surely, slowly, but surely. but so very slowly. but so ever surely.

so that's the nutshell. what kind of nut? who knows. but those are the overarching themes. also of note are my attempts to come home the past two thursdays:

on july 20th, my flight was delayed 3 hours. at first. my 5:00 flight turned into an 8:15 flight. fine, i think. i'll just wait it out by watching something on my laptop or writing a letter or staring at my latest equations in consternation. but then, at 6:00, i get a text from holly telling me that my flight was cancelled.

um, i'm sorry? cancelled? because you see, poor, poor, naive reader, i had never been informed of any cancellations.

so what to do? the line to the counter was inCREDIBLY long, since about four flights were coming through these gates and everyone had a bone to pick. so the gate counter? not an option. the next best thing, then, is to head downstairs, to the ticket counter...

the art of waiting has never been perfected so well as by those attempting to get to the ticket counter lady. never. ever. so, needless to say, i spent an hour in line for the ticket counter lady while simultaneously on the phone with the airline, trying to get another flight. the first flight out, it was rumored, came on saturday morning. this is was not good, given that i had a wedding to attend friday afternoon. so what to do? i stayed on the phone, through the woman on the other line attempting to get me a new flight. at first, the plan was to: take the train to DC and fly out of Dulles by 8am friday morning, then get into White Plains, wait 3 hours, and fly out to O'hare, getting into chicago around 2pm. just barely enough time to get to the wedding. this plan was accepted.

but then the woman on the phone put some more work into it because she liked the sound of my voice so much (i was nice, she says). so after some work, she landed me a flight at 8am straight out of philly, getting me into o'hare around 10am friday morning. even better. better still was immediately afterwards going straight to another airline and catching a flight an hour later. yes, much better still.

so i made it home that first thursday, around 10pm.

***

on july 27th, the story was slightly different. my 3:00pm flight was delayed by 15 minutes, so nothing horrible. but the problem lay in wait at o'hare; my friend from france was coming to visit my city, arriving at noon. but she said she would be fine waiting until i arrived at 4:30pm. so, a slight delay but nothing horrible.

not horrible, that is, until we actually got into the air. delays upon delays upon delays; chicago was hit with a deluge of biblical proportions, water water everywhere. this delayed us in the air, forcing the pilot to circle around and take alternate routes, keeping us airborne until we were allowed to land.

not to spoil things prematurely, but we weren't allowed to land. instead, after having been delayed in the air by about an hour, we land in, bum ba da bum...

milwaukee.

why in milwaukee? because fuel costs money, and we were burning by flying around the city whilst it rained. so we landed to refuel and await approval from chicago and the milwaukee landing strip we were on to leave. these approvals took about 4 hours. we couldn't get off the plane because there was nothing to get onto; we were on a landing strip, not a gate in site. so we sat and sat, waiting and waiting. waiting and waiting and waiting.

remember when i said the art of waiting could never be perfected so well as by those waiting for the ticket counter lady? yeah, well, i was wrong. it's equally well perfected by those waiting for two traffic control towers to approve your right to leave the state of wisconsin.

so, after about 8 hours of sitting in the same airplane chair, i get to o'hare. at about 10pm, after adding in checked luggage retrieval time and the line to get a taxi (which was so long as to shock the least shockable person on this or any other planet).

what will this next week bring? when trying to meet holly at the airport before her trip? when trying to get home in time to enjoy anything at all? only the future knows, my friends.

here's my hundred...you know where to put it

2006-04-18T22:16:00.000-05:00

the general consensus seems to be that i should post more often, laid bare and so succinctly stated by certain salty someone: (i didn't mean the salty bit, it just went with the alliteration. go with it.)

'ah you should post more often'

it is the simple statements that compound upon the poundings aside my salty head (see, now i called myself salty so we're even). statements that include, but are not limited to, the following:

"vikas, why do you look so tired?"

"vikas, why are you eating so much ice cream?"

"vikas, how did you manage to bite your own tongue without actually eating anything?"

"vikas, you're a prideful, pedantic poseur. a pathetic palindrome of paltry, pasty penances. the same forwards and backwards without being any more interesting."

"vikas, you need a haircut."

and for your information, that tongue thing? never happened. no, not that tongue thing, the other tongue thing. the tongue thing three paragraphs up. up, up, wait no too fa...yeah, that one.

and now that the weird simple-statements-that-compound-the-salty-whatever thing is boring me, we move on.

ahem.

it's almost foreign, typing for myself again. the passing of january took with it the last of the real keyboard titterings. did i just type titterings? i mean come on, honestly. typing and typing and diving into code, emails and emails and shooting calendars and speeding my palms over a sea of plastic keys. filming became winter's final coat of snow, looking very nice from a distance and feeling great when you've got a fever. but a layer over the world that you would feel differently about if it became permanent. except without all that drama i put into it just now.

it's more like i'm glad to be all the things i am with this film. calling me a producer and a writer and an actor and an entrepeneur and all the other shiny little gold labels that i've been given over the past six months doesn't impart the particulars of each job. there is difficulty and ease and a hundred other shades. sometimes i sound like i'm complaining, sometimes like i'm proud.

most times i sound like a damn fool.

but you get past trying to do it all and knowing it all and having more pies than you can put fingers in. you get past the point of being a perfectionist and you start being a realist. or a humanist. whatever the word is for knowing when to quit and knowing when to flick off the laws of life.

and i just saw a jetta commercial that ended in a car crash. caught you by suprise, didn't preach and didn't say a thing. just kinda happened, laugh laugh har har BANG. way to go, jetta commercial. way to go.

but the next few days are waiting for the final location, the last three weekends of shooting. so that brings me to weekday work. a blurb from my day (note: if you don't know SQL then this won't make any sense. and if you do know SQL it still won't make sense, but that's for a whole other reason).

select star from table comma table comma when thingie AND thingie AND thingie equal junk. thingie.

mind you it's a little more elaborate than that, but what isn't elaborate these days. am i right? okay well maybe summer isn't that elaborate. and breathing: if you're lucky then breathing isn't elaborate at all. i also hear that toupees aren't very elaborate but i don't have the energy to find out.

oh yeah and ice cream, ice cream TOTALLY isn't elaborate.

but commentary on life doesn't seem to thrill me the way it once did; it was the pedagogical meanderings of euphemism and mental pronunciation that tipped me over and kept the words spilling out of my head like some sort of little teapot without handle or spout.

the lack of thrill might be simple exhaustion. maybe complicated exhaustion. maybe i'm actually happy and i don't need to dive into phraseology as a distraction for life. maybe i'm horribly unfullfilled and the dank depression of life has clogged any and all creative pores.

...right. let's stop for a moment and think about the possibility that i have clogged pores. i mean honestly. think about it. can't think about it? exactly.

but with these things it's an exercise in exaggeration and elaboration. they call it putting a hundred on ten. being a volcano yourself to get a rise out of someone else. make 'em laugh, make 'em cry, get a look or a laugh or a sigh. get them to listen by putting on the show. it might be a freak show, but i hear freaks get to eat lots of ice cream.

ha...ha?

2006-03-21T13:42:00.000-06:00

there is something just plain funny about not laughing.

think about it for a second. when you're sitting there, all the elements viable, everything around you screaming in hysteria over the fact that you're just not laughing your spleen onto the dining room table.

hmm, maybe you just don't get it.

because when you find something funny, you laugh, right? your funny bone is tickled and the resultant symptom is a chuckle and a chort.

simple bimple goggity blap flap. sizzle bizzle whizzle iggy dingle bop? hibbity. jungarupfazy?

that's what i thought.

spot me a philosphy, would ya?

2006-03-17T16:12:00.000-06:00

i am the definition of tired,

the personification of sleepy, a tribal statue erected in honorarium of sloppy exhaustion.

tired and sore. were soreness a painting, would be i the paint. if achyness a trumpet, i the limber keys. if pedantic nonsense had a name, it would be vikas.

anyway.

yes, so tired. and sore. a good kind of tired and sore, in a way, but also not good in another way. just the kind that obstructs things, the kind that prevents you from holding your arms up without having to try and stretch them out first (think village people and YMCA but pretend that one of them was doing the letter 'T'. that right there, that move, is what i'm talkin' 'bout)

there are clouds outside my window and a fog inside my head. i'm running on automatic. or maybe manual; whichever one implies that you're running along without request of actual independent thought or imagination. where your agenda for the day is

1. breathe
2. eat (maybe)
3. sit at desk
4. breathe

with the occasional bout of typing. but those things are okay, when it's nice looking out.

sure it's a little chilly, but "chilly and chili and chile are all good things," i've always said, "so keep 'em coming." honestly, i've always said it. i even wrote it to amber g. in her middle school year book while she simultaneously wrote "have a nice summer" in mine.

freaking middle school. the paths i could have taken, had anyone responded to my enthusiasm about chilly, chili, and chile.

the week has progressed. there have been many trips to gymnasiums, grocery stores, hardware stores, big stores little stores stores that climb on rocks. etcetera. but none of them have captivated my spirit, none of them have rocked my soul and sent me vaulting into hopeful expection of my next trek to the ____ store.

but maybe i'm expecting too much. maybe shopping catharsis has no reality, maybe i'm looking for something that doesn't exist. like a jackalope or jimmy hoffa's gold fillings.

fine, fine, i take back the jackalope thing. it's not right to make fun at the non-existence of such an obviously realistic creature.

blufarumbum.

live and let

2006-03-07T20:44:00.000-06:00

sometimes, i think, you just lose all track of time and tenets. you forget all the things that you were hoping to do and all the people you were hoping to meet. you end up living without all the big things that you wanted for yourself and, somehow, you got through the months and years on the little things that you've been too busy to pay attention to.

and it's not a question of whether you're happy, or a question of whether you're wasting your life. at least not the important question. because with enough time you end up asking the important questions, and realizing that all the planning and hoping and dreaming and wishing and wanting and wasting and whiling away hours only amounts to a big chunk of time spent living in your head. all the time wishing that you could forgive the hurts, forgive love, forgive god, and be forgiven all the same.

i may spend too much time being happy with increments. i may spend too much time having dinners and laughing and just swimming in bliss to realize that there's something else that i should be doing instead. that maybe laying in bed for that extra hour next to warm skin is actually stupidly wasteful, that i should be out selling my company or doing volunteer work or reading that book on QFT that i still haven't finished for 6+ years now.

i may be too flippant with how i want to live my life. it's not like i don't plan to marry, it's not like i don't plan to have kids. so why aren't i saving my money, so why aren't i making sure that all the things i want for my family will definitely happen. i may be living out the dream in my head in one hour segments, living with complete disregard for future and past. just embracing every touch and taste i've waited so very long to enjoy.

but no matter whether your life is perfect or in shambles there's a few things that have to be put away before you can move on to tomorrow. because there have been so many people that have hurt you and so many people that have loved you and so many people that could have been so much more. there are so many places that you want to see and so many sights that you want to find. but the world is too big, and people are too human. so it's important when you get a chance to come to grips with that, to see the tapestry and enjoy what sections you can before the sun sets and you're left with darkness.

and it's nice when you get to take a breath, close your eyes, and wait out the night because, for the most part, all has been forgiven.

pass the butter, please.

2006-02-28T15:42:00.000-06:00

on a roll. a textual roll, i'm on a textual roll. a literary kaiser, a phraseologic sesame seed bun. a lettered brioche. alphanumeric baguettes with creamy written interiors.

yeah, that's all i got.

come on in, the water's fine

2006-02-20T15:58:00.000-06:00

i am in need of something to need.

well that's not really true. i need lots of stuff. dimmer switches, more lights, more crew, more cast, more production assistants. more pants, more shoes, more gloves, more scarves, more shampoo.

more cufflinks, definitely more cufflinks.

sometimes i need more gas in the car. sometimes in need some ice cream. sometimes i need to watch tv. sometimes i need to sleep. sometimes i need to NOT sleep (wink wink, nod nod, chuckle chuckle).

but that's not the case right now. because i never really need those things. they are wants and preferences and hopes and weird dreams. but i'm using the fully forced aescetic meaning of the word right now.

NEED

the way we need air. or water or food. the way we need a good set of teeth. the way we need a toothpick. i need something. i just don't know what it is yet.

but who ever does know what they need? not need-need, but NEED-NEED. maybe i need surgery. who knows? maybe i need a new sense of self. maybe i need to relax more or i need to buck up more.

maybe i need a mansion. or a yacht. or a really big ocean.

maybe i need a student, or a teacher. maybe i need fish.

i'm talking NEED-need. like how, sometimes, you NEED coffee? ten times more need than that. crazy, huh? exactly. that's what real need is. it's crazy.

therefore, i need to be crazy.

how do i go crazy? maybe i should drive on the wrong side of the road or try to fit twenty people into a phone booth (a small phone booth, not one of those big ones, because that'd just be stupid and easy...like your mom. BOO-YA!). maybe i should make more bad jokes. maybe i should do a headstand at work.

maybe i should take a running jump and kick the glass wall in front of the pseudi-cubi-cle (a cubicle with low walls, mind you) and cause it to crash and crack and just sit there while everyone stares and wonders what just happened.

or eat cheese, maybe i need to eat cheese.

maybe i need to make up sounds and sing a fake song with them (boom bamg piggle pop bant, hibbity joogle kalk, tyup dyup rup rup, nah-ga nah-ga nah-ga villy cix. triggy womp womp. luggaluggga lug. opfisticacky. ung.)

there are paperclips on the wall and nothing holding them up. is that paradoxical? a tool for attaching being attached to something without having anything attaching it to the thing to which it is attached?

crazy isn't a state of mind, chief. it's only the puddle of sanity being splashed all around after you've jumped into it. it's the drops of water from swimsuit or salad dryer, spattered little splotches of rationality retched onto the walls of the cage, all ready to form a pool again at the bottom...but not just yet.

i can't get no-oh...sat...is...fac...shun

2006-02-15T08:01:00.000-06:00

so the last couple months i've been all over the map. an example:

me: hey
friend: yo
me: what do you call those things that you wrap around your neck to keep warm??
me: i REALLY can't remember, i don't know why
me: SCARF!!!
me: nevermind
friend: are you doing drugs?

a short but sweet IM conversation detailing my inability to grab a toehold onto basic vocabulary. at least not right away. the film has kept me preoccupied and so have the long hours i've been throwing at everything on my plate. so the question you have to ask yourself is "so, like, seriously....who cares?"

well i guess i care. there's been a lot of ice-cream eating at work, lots of making sandwiches at work. lots of coming home and emailing and calling and gazing into eyes and falling asleep. lots of sleeping without sleeping. lots of dreaming without closing my eyes. the only suggestion i have for those of you missing out on such things is this: you're totally missing out.

new folks at work, old faces at work. the weekly grind in filming but that's coming along nicely. the finished product will be quite the finished product, i think. very much worth...well worth everything.

i have two more films to write. i want to shoot more, obviously, but in terms of acting and investing i'm only going to stick with my stuff right now, thank you. it's been cold outside, which is nice though badly timed. we have an outdoor shoot in a bar alley that will not be nice for actors if it's colder than cold outside. so that is something to be considered.

beyond that, well things are just a matter of time. i have ten minutes to breathe today, so i write. some people seem to think that is impressive or some other malarky; more like it's what i do and that bears no semblance to intentional or ambititious paths. it's more just something that must be done, like bathing or taxes.

i want to help other people some more. family and friends, those that are more than family or friends. help people get through school, help people get out of school. help people take chances, help them learn to rein it in some. help people laugh. help people do what they want. help them just be important in the ways they would like to be important.

so all in all, there's a lot on my plate. but it's a massive plate, reader. massive and tough as granite...no way i'm cleaning my plate right now.

wow is 'wow' spelled backwards

2006-02-13T07:36:00.000-06:00

wow.

weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and then a day or two. then weeks and weeks. i'm not posting, i'm not sleeping, i'm not eating, i'm not watching any television and less than any movies. i'm not reading. i'm not fixing things (well, mechanical things at least). i'm not staring into space. i'm not sweating equations in my sleep. i'm not writing. i'm not cutting my hair. i'm not shaving. i'm not lounging.

but i'm liking it.

no more wishing for something to do, no more feeling powerless. no more waiting for something to happen. no more wishing there were something to come home to. no more wishing there were someone to talk to. no more feeling trapped and no more feeling unable.

no more being alone. no more bitter or jaded shards of nostalgia whipped with longing. no more watching everyone else pass by.

i am shooting my film. i am buying a house. i am writing more scripts, i am reading more scripts. i am planning ahead and i am being spontaneous. i am not worrying and i am not being careless. i am working hard. i am sleeping well (when i sleep). i am not alone and i am not going to be abandoned. i have stability and the chance to do anything.

oh yorick. too bad you were a tool.

2006-02-08T08:30:00.000-06:00

there are more things, horatio. seriously, just, like, stop being a jerk and expand your mind or something. because (and i'm not trying to be that guy here, horatio. just saying)...well because your philosophy sucks.

like, honestly.

more things, horatio, in heaven and earth. plenty of things and lots of things and so very many things in heaven and earth, more than are even DREAMT of in your philosophy. so really, seriously, honestly, just, like, get a new philosophy.

or visit heaven. or roam the earth. dream more or want to dream more. just dump the philosophy and check out all the stuff.

honestly, horatio.

freaking freak freak

2006-02-02T09:03:00.000-06:00

freaking groundhog's day.

just, just...freaking groundhog's day.

first of all, who the hell decided to give one of my days to some over-hyped rodent with a shadow-casting complex? who the hell maintains the authority, not to mention has the need, to hand over 24 of MY hours of MY week of MY year every year for MY entire lifetime?

and what the hell is all this shadow/no-shadow business anyway? why is that no one waits in suspense when i wake up and walk around naked for about twenty minutes trying to find a lightswitch? why is there no audience waiting in silent suspense and overcoats, a mass of rural boony-boons hovering and shivering and gripping their breaths to see whether or not i notice my shadow cast on a wall or floor or ceiling? (i have a light that shines upward, so shut up)

okay okay, so maybe i'm a little peeved because i take this occasion to the extreme, maybe i'm a little miffed because every year i want to play the movie of same name over and over and over.

and over

and over and over and over and over and over and over

and so on for however many loops may loop in a day. maybe i'm a little scorched because i've only managed to pull it off one year (thank you USITE computer labs at UofC), maybe i'm just furious over the fickle fancy and fact that it would be nice to be prepared and ready and totally on top of the game when it comes to doing something completely trivial and pointlessly entertaining.

but still, it's a freaking groundhog, people. it's a hog, on the ground. seriously, get a life.

...freaking groundhog's day.

as close as i am with lewis carroll, i don't call them looking glasses

2005-12-27T22:42:00.000-06:00

i have a short to write.

not so much having a short to write, but more like i have to write a short. it is requisite, it must be done.

ha. seriously, ha. have to do something? me? have to do something? me? maybe you should go look me up in your who's-who-among-people-who-don't-give-a-frick. yeah, look it up. bad picture but it gets the idea across.

i'm reading neil gaiman. i'm liking things so far, but i'm just about finished and i have the sinking feeling that he's going to pull an arthur c. clarke in that the climb up the mountain is fantastic but once you get up top you're kinda thinking "yeah. so yeah. yeah. well, um, yeah. this is mostly...well it's the top of a mountain, isn't it. not much going on. yeah. so, yeah. hmm. mountain, huh? yeah. yeah see it's the top, i get that, but...yeah. so. yeah." almost word for word, that digression, from when i finished a fair bit of clarke series.

nothing going on today. which i guess is nice. but i'm getting used to being busy, or at least having my hands covered in pie (a finger in every pie? get it? meaning i'm doing lots of different things? get it?) so downtime is a bit like thinking "yeah. so yeah. yeah. down time, huh? well, um, yeah. this is mostly...well not much going on, huh? yeah, down time. so, yeah. time that's, um, down and stuff. yeah. pie, huh? that's interesting. yeah. yeah."

but otherwise it's been getting busier and busier. i'm sitting here and knowing how much good there is, what chances i have, what a time awaits me. but it's all in the distance and i look through binoculars at a life that is not my own.

a bit like wonderland, maybe. but i can't stand smiling cats. they distract too much from my being distracted.

i prefer my stuffers in fishnets, thank you

2005-12-21T19:24:00.000-06:00

buying presents.

the thing with buying presents is that you like to buy them. well, if you're me or many of the people i know. or if you're santa. or if you're mother teresa. or if you're a parent. or if you're a grandparent. or if you a big brother. or if you're a little sister. or if you're a girlfriend. or if you're a mentor. or if you're poor. or if you'recently weathly. or if you have lots of wrapping paper. or if you want lots of wrapping paper. or if you're a greeting-card writer. or if you're a greeting-card publisher. or a greeting-card marketer. or if you're me.

the thing with buying presents is that you put the extra effort sometimes that will, quite frankly, go unknown, unseen, and unheard. but who the heckums cares, anyway (let's not cuss with the holidays right around the corner. right there, on the corner. hiding behind the lamppost. pipe in mouth, gloves and hat and smile on face).

proper present buying is an art, obviously. but subtle and without the extensive training requisite of the classical arts. instead, it is an air mixed of observation, creativity, timing, preparation, intuition, and plain luck. true of the others, yes, but distinctive all the same.

the art has been good. i like.

plans are in the works. dealing with the film, dealing with the production company, dealing with UPS (see the previous posts, reader. it's something, to be sure). dealing dealing dealing, the lady's got a pair of queens, the gentleman with the fedora just scored pocket aces.

more stuff and stuff. the equipment is all here now, now we have to prep auditions for the killer and interview crew. but that's all in january, folks...for right now it's buying presents.

the thing with buying presents is that you have to have a tree under which to place them. but the thing with christmas trees is that, not only do they cost money, they also cost space. meaning the apartment is a little less than little. meaning that there just isn't room for a twenty footer if you know what i mean.

wink wink. nudge. nudge.

so a trip to ace hardware on a whim (next to the subway that my father used to own. the ace hardware that kept me entertained for hours and hours and days and days, during all those times being babysat by a 13 inch television and maps of manhattan on the walls of the franchise. the ace hardware where i dreamt of owning swiss army knives and wire cutters, voltmeters and all sorts of funny lookin' tools) threw me into the world of faux trees and far too many decorative lights.

but a little searching and i found them; little lawn trees, fake little ones with a minimum of built-in lighting and a central trunk of wire that is meant to jut down into the ground and keep the little guy planted in the dirt. they come in two to a box. the perfect size and two of them, to boot.

but meanwhile at the office a crisis has been averted. what crisis? the coffee crisis.

the thing with the coffee crisis is that it's not a full-fledged crisis. it's more of a problematic problem. an itch. a scabby scab. a loose thread that just needs to be picked. etcetera.

this scab revolved around having to leave the building to get any decent coffee. this loose thread is wrapped within the sweater that is francise coffeehouses. no coffee at work is worth a second glance, simple as that. as un-elitist as i am when it comes to the stuff (shut up) i nevertheless like to drink coffee that hasn't been burnt or sitting in a vending machine, thank you very much.

so what do i do? i buy a bag, bring it back, and make my own. any time, at any point. there are coffeemakers in the lounge, there is plenty of space to do my whole lets-make-coffee dance, there's even a sink and junk. crisis? averted.

but the coffee escapades coupled with presents, joined with movie plans, epoxied with production problems, superglued with house buying, nailed to dry cleaning problems, paperclipped with car problems, all hanging from a mop of ever-longer hair and tongue-on-flag-pole stuck on my continual scruffiness...see now i forgot what the point of the paragraph was.

see the thing with blogging is, you gotta keep it short. yeah.

the wall will always end, no matter how high you want to climb it

2005-12-14T00:41:00.000-06:00

so i'm at work, right?

sitting here at work, right? so i'm here, at work, sitting here at work, and i decide to check on the boxes. the equipment. the film equipment, in boxes. coming via UPS. three boxes came yesterday, 11 more yesterday.

11 boxes, very expensive boxes. 11 boxes, all left outside, all huddling on a lawn on the verge of rain overhead. 11 boxes, all full of film equipment, left on the lawn, the delivery confirmation FORGED BY THE DELIVERY GUY in his effort to just not come back the next day.

11 boxes and a forged signature. what can i say about UPS? nothing, it seems. nothing at all. because all the angry phone calls, all the waiting and the managers and the peons and the back and forth and back and forth and back again...the end result? there is no end result.

work has been full days. full days and full nights and full full full. for two days at least. come on, stay and stay and stay and leave and sleep. and come back.

roomie and self went out for sushi, good and good and good. the nights are coming along, the days are full and taut. i'm feeling good. the movie is soon to come and i have to set up things. but i come home and feel so relaxed and at home.

i sing songs.

i finally feel like i'm on the verge of making or breaking myself. living on the edge of a cliff where i fall over or drive all the way back to some place i've never known. i feel like there's undiscovered territory at every junction.

all while working 50 hour weeks. all while planning new years parties and buying film equipment.

what's weird is how i feel weird talking about it. shy, i guess. when people ask me "what's the movie about" or "what's your company do?" i tend to start shrieking internally. it's unnoticable until ten minutes later, clammy hands and cold sweats. wiping my brow and all that jazz.

and the company now has a new name.

i finally feel like i'm in a modicum of control. and now all i need to do is just find a gym. i'm learning new things at work: legacy stuff, coding stuff, analysis stuff. inter-employee-sorta-kinda-stuff. and so on. i'm finally coming to grips with the things i didn't want to think about.

but see, i need to write shorts. something short, horror or scifi or even a western. something, anything, just a short to shoot.

learning that things don't turn out the way you want, but i'm prepared for that. so maybe i'm not learning it at all.

but most of all, i smile ever time a christmas song starts up.

that house of pancakes doesn't seem very international to me

2005-12-12T05:32:00.000-06:00

perhaps someday there will be a little plaque outside, a neat little copper-colored mix of metals. a plaque that details in fine and simple letters the fact that our band of few patroned this establishment so regularly as to have practically laid its brick and mortar. perhaps there will be a little plaque, or a sign. maybe just some plants or something.

or a statue. yeah, like a really big and matte and imposing statue. titanium, or something.

it snowed this weekend. lots of snow. it's the kind of sight that makes me remember things with that foggy recollection of hopes and dreams. the kind where you go "this reminds me of that...thing. you know, with the guy." the not-so-memorable memories. anyway, snow. snow that i looked at while driving to ihop, snow i looked at while at ihop. snow and snow and snow and snow.

i met with the director, our new hair/makeup person, and a few other friends from times past and present. it's been awhile, so it was nice to get together and laugh and laugh and blah bippity blah blah. the suggestion was even made to throw a hotel party, all the gang getting a big room and just having a space where you know you'll have fun amongst friends. so i'm gonna look into it.

afterwards? came home and all that. today some boxes came, three of them. the film equipment is either going to trickle or tsunami, what with there being thirteen boxes or so in all. it's all so terribly exciting, yes, but i've been up late and just can't get the will to wail and wow myself over such things. yawn.

otherwise, i've decided i need a new name for the company. my previous company name met with distasteful glares and confusion, and even some multi-colored remarks about my ability to fornicate with myself. but sunday took the wind out of whatever sails i have...the ihop audience was not impressed. the constant barrage of discouraging responses was basically a sign to realize when to just let go. so i let go, and i'm thinking of new names for the company.

i've even been twiddling with ideas to change the movie title...gasp. no, seriously, gasp. i'm asthmatic, shut up. jerk.

right, whatever. anyway, ideas and ideas and ideas. more ideas and scratching out ideas and erasing the scratching out then scratching out again with a deeper scratch...you get the idea. the topmost concern was whether or not to keep a 'THE' at the beginning of the title.

think about it, what if it had been named just "Wizard of Oz" or "Shawshank Redemption" or "Green Mile"...but, by the same token, what if they had been named "The Top Gun" or "The Magnolia" or "The Fight Club"...there's a subtle art here, friends, and it should not be taken lightly, to say the least.

but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and no one puts it as well as the brother did when asked about the "THE":

"fuck articles, man."

i salute you, bruh. wholeheartedly.

what kind of clay is that stuff made out of, anyway?

2005-12-12T00:41:00.000-06:00

the intentions of mankind are myriad and unwavering in their attempts to appease the ego. i do what i do because i want to do what i do. i do what i do because i'm a sick and twisted mass of sapienic flesh that is only concerned with the self.

what a load of crock. and i don't mean the pottery.

i don't care what anybody says, 90% of the things i do in a day are for somebody else. mostly because i don't give two whiffs about myself and because i'm more concerned with the people i care about. it is my job to take care of those who are placed in my care, intentionally or not. it is my way to simply help those around me feel better about any part of their day.

which, again, may be a load of crock.

there is always the convoluted mess that vomits out of any interpretation of these things. the fact that doing things for others so that you feel better about yourself is really just helping yourself. the fact that doing things for others to do things for others to do things for others to make everyone all happy-go-lucky is really just a pathetic god-complex hiding behind a mask of benevolence even though it's all just wanting to make yourself feel superior and pedegogical.

there is always the narcissim behind the saint, the saint behind the narcissist, and all the foggy malfeasance on the part of your righteous intelligence.

and then there's the pedantic ramblings of a goofball who barely wants to make sense.

i say gooday, sir

2005-12-10T03:03:00.000-06:00

haha.

christmas songs are awesome, simple done.

taking two hours to get to work 20 miles away is ridiculous, period.

realizing that i'm happy for people that...well for people that i wasn't thinking i'd be happy for in the past is splendiferous, end of story.

and looking at the next year from this end is just as exciting as it gets.

over and out.

crash, maybe not so much with the burning

2005-12-07T17:34:00.000-06:00

new new new new new.

what's new? well, lots of stuff. this week, at least.

i have bought all our film equipment. and i mean ALL. lights and lights and flags and nets, mics and mixers and monitors. a tripod stand, XLR cable. headphones.

ladies and gentlemen and ladies...we are now in business.

of course it's a matter of time, waiting a week or so for everything to get here. but we can officially start on working now, filming and shooting and writing and directing, acting here and gripping there. what's my motivation? what's my motivation?

monday, though, was intensely uncool. sunday night, you see, i spent at the director's house, until roughly 4:30am, going over every single piece of equipment that i bought, making sure there was nothing to miss and nothing to switch.

came home, slept an hour or so, and off to work. halfway down the street i accept and come to grips with the fact that my cell phone is upstairs in the apartment, all warm and powered and whatnot. but i left it and headed out, more concerned with traffic times than the location of my phone. big mistake, of course, but that comes later. i took my break to order all the equipment, the various processes taking hours and hours and hours to confirm that the order had gone through. order numbers and phone numbers and validation and confirmation. when you drop so much money there's red tape, you see. and i was wrapped up in so much of it you might have well called me tapey-mctape. (fine, so that was a lame nickname. just let go of it, already. sheesh)

so then, lunch. on my way to lunch? my tire falls off my car.

cough. MY TIRE FALLS OFF MY CAR. disentegrates, falls apart. hanging off the wheels, little strings coming off the checkerboard underneath the rubber. kathunk, kathunk, screech boom skraaaaaaaaaaaaclump. the embarassed looks as i pulled into the jewel parking lot (right across the street from my dad's old store, to boot).

mind you, monday was cold. very very cold. subzero temps and me without anything but a coat and very thin slacks. so i go into jewel and call my dad to see if he can pick up the car (being that i borrowed it from him for the week, of course) but given that my cell phone was at home i had to use the pay phone in jewel.

pause. just to ask, is it common knowledge that pay phones are now $0.75 FOR THE FIRST THREE MINUTES????? after that's another $0.50 or something like that. so it comes as no surprise that i had only three quarters on me, and hadn't finished planning my rescue within three minutes on the phone. forget this, i think. i'm just gonna walk back to work and call from there and not worry about anything until later today.

yeah. right. not only was work two miles away, temperatures subzero, me cold already even in the store...not only all that, i didn't even know how to get back without taking the highway. which became a moot point after about 3/4 of a mile, because i find out by then (after trekking through my share of knee-high snow banks and bundles) that the ONLY way to make it further south without some horrendous detour is to cross the highway.

double yeah. triple right. so i head back to the jewel, manage to get some change from a guy outside, all sighing and thinking that things might smooth out now.

when i walk right into the glass automatic door. smack, smoosh. blumph.

back to the payphone, quarters in one hand and my nose in the other. call the dad, get things settled, and wait half an hour. he gets there, i get to work, and things progress.

without my cell phone, though, things started falling all over the place again. not only could i not call my credit card company to let them know that i hadn't recieved my new card in the mail (because i don't have my new account number and, hence, couldn't navigate the voice menu), the only way i knew how to was to call with my cell phone, since that was the number they had on file for me.

throw in some more being-cold stuff, a dash of film equipment mayhem, and that's pretty much the day. the rest of the week went along alright, more changes to my order; i switched mics and shockmounts and boompole, juggled credit around a bit, and basically kept chugging along and here i am.

last week i wrote up a new scene for the film. a quick insert that will drastically help with character development, i think, and a new way for me to throw a few controvertial subjects around while i'm at it.

as for this weekend, there's gradschool apps, more writing, cleaning and cleaning and writing and eating. waiting for the equipment, waiting to hear from companies. waiting for a lot of stuff and waiting for a little stuff.

while i'm waiting i've been rehashing the recent past. looking at my old spec for Scrubs, looking at some old letters and notes. looking to see if some friends were on, wondering what i would do if they were. realizing that i saw two movies since i got home and i'm just not all jumpy to see another one. thinking about all that i still have left to do, and how exciting that is.

this look is the best thing i can to do phase myself right now. there's not a soul on the planet who's unfamiliar with me as clean-cut, the three-piece kinda guy with a penchant for talking the way he writes. but now i still walk around with the slacks and tie, the wool topcoat and the shoes and the whole bit...

...all with this mop on my head and shag on my chin. a clean hippie, or something. shirt and tie and slacks and shoes, coupled with disheveled hair and longer-than-stubble stubble. it's kinda weird.

and we all know how much i like weird. score.

2 + 2 = you're clueless, dude

2005-11-27T14:19:00.000-06:00

a weekend at home.

thanksgiving was good. came back to the apartment and cleaned up, prepped for a certain someone's birthday, and worked on the script some. cleaned and prepped and sat and watched and other things. i sang some ray charles, an important point given that i had shelved him for a few months now and i was due for a little sonic purification.

i rushed some things, spent about four hours trekking between ikeas, and managed to see more family again on saturday. it seems that the vast majority haven't seen me in some time; mind you, 'in some time' may mean something like a month, maybe up to a year or so. but the consensus was clear and all the fault thrown at me. practically stained my sweater.

and fair commentary on the look. growing out the hair and shaggin' out the beard for the film. such classicaly cliche anti-cop tools...but like any fool, i'm liking it. the thing with longer hair, though, is that there's a month or so where it's just in the middle, a nexus where the hair isn't long enough and isn't short enough. just sitting there, waiting for me to grow more or cut it down.

as for the film, we're getting down to the equipment. all the lights and DP equipment is picked out by the director/DP himself, so i'm ordering that soon. as for the audio i have to talk to some audio guys though i don't know when that will happen. but the lights have been chosen and we're all set to order. mostly.

the slowly changing look. i wanted to for a myriad reasons, some for film and some for myself. this weekend my parents saw what the last couple weeks have done to my style-wise.

"you look like a...a...poh-it"

a what, i asked my dad.

"a poh-it"

oh, i said. a poet. a poet.

"yeah. you look like a guy with a broken heart, walking around and not cutting his beard or his hair and being depressed. you look like a poet."

there are times of insight when you simply have a hard time understanding how someone could peg you so well. there are times when someone with all the history and resources to actually understand you actually understands you, though without realizing the import of such.

there are times when you have just been coasting along and taking yourself for granted. all while everything is changing. all while your definition of self is so fargone as to be obsolete.

well after that we went to the family gathering, listening to the adults play their hindi music games, laughing with my brothers and somehow feeling comfortable without thinking.

i'm a fool, it seems. how awesome is that?

i try to give more than thanks

2005-11-25T11:01:00.000-06:00

the weekend.

we all know what i'm talking about: food and family and friends and fondue and feeble feeble flibbity floobopbam. the question is whether we are in the middle of teenage angst, the middle of twenty-something confusion, thirty-something desperation, fourty-something disillusionment, or fifty-something passivity. the question is how we treat a periodic celebration, vaugely identical year after year, after time drips by.

i walk down the street and hear it from perfect strangers, let alone friends. that i am so much older than the skin on my face. that those older and younger are in tune with me and that i seem to attract those of the fairer sex with those years which make me seem all the more palatable.

along with this presupposed veil of adulthood, i figured out that if i'm not older in spirit i at least know how to fake it. maybe not consciously, mind you, and maybe not with the flare of someone who seems adult because they actually are adults. but still, the commentary gets to me. but not now, these last months of a year. familial socializing, laughing and being that which i've spent so very long keeping bundled up behind psychological camoflage.

point is, people, that i like thanksgiving. i liked it before, and i liked it this year. i revel with christmas and divali and thanksgiving and halloween and birthdays and even valentine's. a chance to do something drastically stupid and over the top (hallmarks of myself of course) with the chance of applause, or at least just not being asked if i have a psychological problem or something.

presents and gifts. jokes and cooking and sweaters. mocking brothers and then punching out a guy that starts talking trash about them. blankets and coats and gloves and fireplaces.

mistletoe and games of chance, betting with food.

the weather outside is frightful,
but the fire is so delightful.
and since i've no place to go...

...that's right...

let it snow let it snow let it snow.

say a few thanks for me, folks. i'm sure there's plenty i haven't had time to say.

Week of Silence '05: Day 7

2005-11-13T23:44:00.000-06:00

the thing about sleep is, it's very sneaky. like a wily fox all ready to pounce and bite you when you're too distracted by something shiny in the corner. it's that pretty girl, comforting and kind, whispering hot breaths and silent imagery into your head when your guard is down for just two seconds. it's death without the finality.

it's friggin awesome, the way you can get high on sleep like that.

so, of course, this is what i did. sleep. and sleep. alarm, flailing arms, muted alarm.

more sleep.

now this isn't the ideal situation for a guy who, say, needs to return a rental car by 7:15am or else he'll get charge a whole other day's worth of usage. and it isn't the ideal situation for a guy who's spent a week throwing himself about the greater fifty-state-area and, as such, has a whole bunch of stuff to finish up before returning to work.

psssst, that guy i was talking about? just me all over.

but since when have i been the fellow that swims in ideal situations, when have i drunk anything but spilt milk. when have i ever given up sleep (in a bed with just that certain warmth that should never be taken for granted) to do something as uncharacteristically me as return a rental car? on TIME, no less. so enough with that train of thought and hopeful fantasy, you. we all know what happened and that's the end of it.

sleep sleep sleep.

now it wasn't over indulging, it wasn't dionysian in the least. it was simply settling and warm and heart poundingly calm. and then i woke up.

the thing about waking up during the week of silence is, you're always afraid the night before. this kind of subtle and riptide-like fear that you'll wake up and forget for a few seconds that it's the week of silence. that some stupid commentary like "man, am i thirsty" or "bloody hell it's cold in here" or "damnit. honey, i think you threw my back out again last night" you fall asleep with the pinprick haunt in the back of your mind that nags at you to remember and not let it all fall flat because of a stupid ten seconds of being drunk on sleep. so i woke up and probably was as close to saying something as i ever get. why? because it was damn cold in there, i was friggin thirsty, and i definitely have a problem with my back. this close, i think. this close.

the day passed rather quickly. what exactly happened, i don't remember. at least not right now. roomate gone for most of the day, food to be cooked and scripts to be polished. emails and phone calls and emails and other things. a few minutes, here and there, to think about the letters and the emails and the phone calls i didn't make. and wouldn't make. a few minutes laughing out loud with every ounce of air in my lungs for the first time in a week. a few minutes of singing out loud and talking out loud.

but, all in all, it all lead back to ending the night with a few minutes of simple, silent silence.

lesson for day 7: getting back into the swing of things usually doesn't involve any swinging, the daily grind is rarely a daily grind, and sometimes the best days come after the best days.

Week of Silence '05: Day 6

2005-11-12T23:12:00.000-06:00

it's the driving. it's the driving the driving the driving that's the key. key to what? whatever, that's not the point.

the point is the driving.

denver. after denver comes kansas. after kansas comes missouri. after missouri is illinois and after love comes marriage.

then comes the baby in the baby carriage.

anyway, the reigning commentary on kansas seems to be the following:

"it's flat. like, really flat."

"yeah. flat."

but the reigning commentary was silent for this leg, mostly. the journey through kansas was mute and matte, pitch black outside with light chance for plains. no prarie dogs. no twisters. no green witches or funny lookin' flyin' houses. no sparkly red shoes. no monkeys, flying or otherwise. no curtains and no men behind them.

instead it was fairly quick and to the point. kansas has left no indelible marks and basically holds no particular imagery in my mind. it's a state, and that's about it. what a sad set of affairs...but then again you can't have every state be memorable. because then they'd all be memorable. and if they were all memorable then they wouldn't be different, so instead of states they'd just be 'that place over there that's not over here but could have been over here.'

so from 5:30pm to 9:30am i drive and drive and drive and drive and then i hit missouri.

missouri. old roomate lives in missouri, though i didn't know if it was st. louis or not. i was gonna take a shot to just stop somewhere randomly in st. louis, somehow find an internet connection, hack and crack and find out where his school is and see if there's a way to look him up. nevermind that i'm not talking all week and that me showing up randomly at his front door like a walking smile that hasn't bathed in a notable amount of time would be kinda weird. nevermind that i haven't got a clue how to start looking for him and that it would just be a stupid way to inevitably waste my time. nevermind that there's no way to confirm if he's even at home, were i to find out where that is.

so, st. louis, although arch-tastic and shiny and respectable as you are, i'm afraid this is a passing interest. another time will lead to arch inspection, another day will lead to plumbing your urban depths. but for right now i want to get home.

so i go home.

from st. louis back to chicago the traveling fray is most ripe. driving in the afternoon and basically winding your way back up the midwestern countryside, full of corn and land and land and land and land and land and a couple trees and a silo and some other junk in the corner over there and land and land and land.

but going up into illinois just beat the band. it's things like 'soy city.' what a place, that decatur, don't you think?

'soy city'

seriously, what kind of name is that? is it cool? is it dorky? is it lame and, as such, effectively dorky cool? is it just something that bears repeating, a contemporary 'cellar door' for all you darko fans? maybe it's that i'm making way too much out of something that is basically a two word phrase. basically.

and i don't know about all of you, but pseudo-country music is just somethin' else.

"i like my women
a little on
the trashy side."

honestly now, how can you not think that's the coolest kind of redneck-country-boy-son-of-the -soil-kinda-jive line? it had a good beat, too, i thought. then we move on to the country singer guy goin' on about his dream woman and her entrance into bars, gettin' in there and just grabbin' a beer, shouting at the bartender to "play somethin' country." that one had a beat too, boy. there's some knee-slapping times right there, i tell you what. good stuff, good stuff.

but it was the rush home that rushed me home. just wanted to get home, clean up, comfort up, settle up. so i drove and i drove and i drove. up through the bottom and middle of illinois, highway to highway to highway and jumping lanes as i went. i actually made a pitstop over by normal, a notable town mostly because i was there for about four days a while back.

normal coffee (in that it was coffee bought in normal, il), normal gas, normal air and normal tracks. i head back home.

so the question is whether to return the rental car today or just keep it and return it tomorrow before the corresponding rental time from a week ago? either way it's charging me a whole day, it's just a matter of wanting to return it now or later. the question, it seems, was willing to wait.

so i get home. right about 5:30pm, i get inside, roomate all a busy getting ready for a thing. i get in, plop down the bags, rush to the bathroom and shower like a madman (or, like, you know...myself).

and then, my friends, the day was spent in silence amidst my city once again. i decide to return the car later and basically crash.

oh crashing. what a pleasant way to end the day.

lesson for day 6: there's no place like home, there's no place like kansas, and there's no substitute for putting an end to things.

Week of Silence '05: Day 5

2005-11-11T23:30:00.000-06:00

okay, so where are my glasses.

seriously, where are my glasses?

i was wearing them last night; i went to sleep in my car, wool coat all blanket-like and warm with the car heater buzzing away into the oily hours. so i wake up, right? right. i look around, smack my lips and get out of the car to stretch.

so really, where are my glasses? come on, i left them right here. look in the front, look in the back, look in the coat pocket.

okay this totally isn't funny. where the hell are they. look in the other pocket, look in the first.

second, third, fourth and tenth (lots of pockets, if you've ever met me). front seat, back seat, other seat other seat.

trunk. I LOOKED IN THE TRUNK. this is totally not cool.

a thousand miles from home, no glasses, a rental car, no glasses no glasses no glasses where the hell are my glasses this is so not cool.

okay this is messed up. where the hell are my glasses. under the front seat, behind the front seat, glove compartment cushion spaces.

on top of the car. underneath the car. this totally is not cool at all.

okay, seriously, seriously, really this is just what the hell. where are my glasses?

where are my glasses?
where are my glasses?
where are my glasses?
where are my glasses?

where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses? where are my glasses?

front seat back seat front seat under over behind inside outside. tenth pocket fourth pocket seventh pocket.

...first pocket.

oh hell no. hell no. the fact that i find my glasses in the first and last place i look...i'm surprised i don't get free stamps in the mail with LOSER embossed in red rubber on the front, $12.99 for ink. free shipping.

i need food. coffee and food. but not too much, i'm not dying or anything. so get out of the car (for the eleventh time, but now with glasses secured to my face as they should be) and get back in (after realizing i wasn't parked as close to the gas station as i thought) drive about fifteen feet (because sometimes it's okay to be lazy in colorado or wherever the hell i am at this point).

utah, right. utah. anyway, i get out and go into the gas station/diner (how in the world can you not just burst into awesomeness over such a little amalgam). first, peruse the menu. second, wait about half an hour for a waitress to actually look at me for more than five seconds before heading back into the rear of the kitchen. third, think 'to hell with this' and go buy cheap coffee and powerbars inside the gas station half of the gas station slash diner.

fourthly, the coffee was alright. so now, awake and with a proper ability to actually see things (20/20, suckas, in your face) i mosey on down the block to the

MUSEUM OF WESTERN COLORADO'S DINOSAUR JOURNEY

and then think 'crap' for not even knowing what state i'm freaking in. seriously, what's up with that.

but to be brief and summarize the museum: friggin awesome. scratch that, i want to be brief-ier: awesome.

there is a T-Rex {short for Tyrannosaurus Rex for those not in the know [Tyrannosaurus Rex meaning "tyrant lizard king" for those further not in the know ('terrible' being a word meaning "awful: causing fear or dread or terror" for those of you who never graduated...oh, let's say third grade)]} leg standing by the southern wall of the place, just sitting there upright and with a cross sectioned musculature.

seriously, friggin awesome.

moving on we go past the velociraptor info, the stegosaurus mockup that moves and gyrates his hips like a sugar-doped five year old elvis presley with a nervous disorder. moving on, and this is the best part, a utahraptor RIPPING THE HEAD OFF A SMALLER VELOCIRAPTOR! i'm talking bloody little veins and muscles, ribbons of red and weird sounds, the full effect just there on display, easily seen by any two year old who happens to waddle on by. i'm talking bloody teeth, tearing out organs with visceral splunges of destruction. f-r-i-g-g-i-n a-w-e-s-o-m-e.

oh and the people, reader. the people were the best. a few choice quotes from the trio that tailed me:

"it's creepy."

"really, those eyes and the way it looks at you, it's creepy."

"what do you call those things? the ones with the beaks, the flying ones? oh, they didn't fly? but they have wings. but maybe they did fly. well how do you know, are you an ornitheologon?"

"that one is still so creepy, no matter how many times i keep going back to it. it's the eyes."

"okay that one is too creepy, let's go to the next one."

and like any red-blooded whosits, the final stop was the giftshop. the giftshop where i ponder and pine and pour over all the gifts that can be bought. all the little googaws and giggitygacks that i was never able to gawk and giggity over as a kid.

which little piece of re-plasticised bone fragment should i buy, i ask myself. which fiberglass claw or paw or fossil or dropping should i pay up for and throw into some hidden corner of my new apartment? not only that, where are the patches? seriously, where are the patches?

right, so i'm not going to do all that again. needless to say there was much patches-searching and many fossil-pokings until after about an hour (bite me, yeah it was an hour. so what.) i picked out a fiberglass allosaur claw and a pterosaur pin. there were no patches, i'm afraid, so it was about all i could manage just to get a pin. it'll still be able to stick into my canvas bag, though.

gifts pour moi in tow, it's back to the car. funny thing, seeing clearly what with having your glasses and gifts and all: you tend to not want to drive and junk. call me crazy, but it took me, like, almost a whole minute to get over wanting to stare at fake dinosaur parts and not oggle the researchers who're working in the back of the museum on their day off. those researchers, honestly. why do they wear white coats? no clue. why do they seem incredibly cool when we all know that they really really really really really really really really really aren't? even less of a clue. but still, the dreams of oggling are hard to fade. so very hard.

driving. listening to the last vestige of comedy-on-cd. some nameless pieces of work that don't deserve repeating. well actually they do, if only to describe how only i can manage to find awesome stuff that isn't awesome. laurel and hardy, abbott and costello. the greats, the bestests, the legends. radio sitcoms, suspense and drama packed into a voice. everything you could hope for in a car, right? well, maybe? come on, not even a little? well fine then, who asked you. sheesh.

laurel and hardy? a cd of interviews with them. badly recorded interviews. abbott and costello? not actually on the cd, more promo material, the way steven segal was plugged for Executive Decision and who, we all know, had so little to do with the film that it makes you want to protest if only because everybody deserves a chance in the movies. even a less-than-popular steven segal. (no offense, stevo; big fan, honestly. honestly, big fan. huge. just huge.) so after the whithered attempts at comedy i sigh and put in the inevitable...

physics. on cd. brian greene's latest, if you are familiar with the man's prior publishing gems. mostly because i can't actually finish a broad-audience physics book these days without wanting to see the math and scratching my head then buying a math book then reading all of that without understanding what i just did just so i can go back to the physics book and read it again and realize that he was using said-maths in an illustrative context only and that it didn't really apply to the problem of that particular chapter. so, book on tape. cd. whatever.

the final verdict? brace yourselves...i liked it. finished it and everything. didn't actually learn anything new, mind you, just kind of filled in a few historical holes (progress of string theory, the whole hour spent over the fact that nobody knows what the M in 'M-THEORY' stands for, etc.) the important part, though, is that i had ideas. oh sweet sassy molassy does it feel good to roll around in the mud of theoretical physics again. college does nothing for the dreamer; it sucks away all life from the starry-eyed physicist. it takes questions and points them to actual numbers rather than outcomes. it throws you at a problem and says

'how many degrees/inches/seconds/kilograms/ergs/newtons/milespersecondpersecond/square meters/cubic centimeters/watts/ohms/coulombs/barns will such-and-such particle
rotate/drop/live/obtain/push/pull/accelerate/span/cloud/discharge/cause/encounter/take up?

rather than just ask

'what will happen?'

for the next few hours, i asked 'what would happen' and it was good. i pumped gas while factoring equations over general relativity, turned on the wipers while i contemplated the importance of virtual pair production in an 'intense' metric. i wondered about the lifetime of the sun but then got distracted and almost got pulled over because i kept trying to write down an equation on the windshield of my car instead of just letting the heat take over and evaporate it away.

more thinking. more gas. the last gas station i went to had, get this...a little pizza place inside. and i mean like little-little. the kind of fast-food mini-pie fare that you'd find at college campuses or mall food courts, with the little hotdog rollers filled with cardboard boxes housing ready-to-go lunch personal panned pizzas. but since when do i settle for personal pan, i ask myself. instead, i point to the "ultimate-everything-on-it-monstrosity-of-grease-and-cheese" 15inch on the menu behind the counter.

the girl looks at me, realizes i'm not going to say anything, and tells me it'll be about half an hour. here. in a gas station. in boo-bumk-town-village. half an hour now in a gas station with nothing to do (saving the cd for the road, you see). right. so after darting into the back to go through "mute boy's adventure in scary bathroom land" and walking back and forth between said bathroom and the car to get my brush and brush my teeth and junk, time passed just as easily as it should have. and i got my pizza. and bolted.

hours and hours, listening to the last of my cd. watching the mountains go by, slowly and steady and looking at all the restaurants that i didn't hit before and that had no hopes of seeing me now. more and more, mountains and mountains, highway highway rails and rails and dark and dark and cars and cars and mountains and mountains.

then, no mountains. what happens when you're going east in colorado with mountains and mountains and mountains and then BOOM! there's no more?

denver happens.

after about fifteen minutes into denver-seeing range i take a turn at the first recognizable franchise: barnes and noble. good 'ole bookstore, like that aunt that will always cook waaaaayyyyy too much food whenever you stop by in the middle of nowhere. good 'ole barnes and noble. good 'ole bookstore.

so i go in, peruse, stretch my legs. look around but still don't want anything to eat, don't even want coffee. but i'm tired, it's around 4 in the afternoon, and the light outside is beginning to go away. so what's the best course of action? sleep in the parking lot of a huge mini-mall, of course.

i get out of the store and try to find my poor self back to the rental. being a rental, i have no idea what the plates say, let alone remember anything more than whatever vague shade of color it is (on the road you only see blue, yellow, and red. green is a figment of your imagination.) so needless to say it takes me awhile to find it again. but the minutes slowed some, because there is a very very peculiar thing about all the cars in denver parking lots:

they all have colorado license plates. now hold your horses, there's even more...they're all DIFFERENT. i spot about 3 different designs so far, fifteen feet out of the store. is it a yearly change, do they offer different flavors of plate?

5 different designs. there's a lot more driving to do, but denver is a bit of a way station, a 'go any more west and you're, like, west and junk' kind of town. 7 different designs. sure, i'm probably not in the heart of denver right now, 8 different designs, but i feel like i fit in a little. suburban, still kinda midwest.

10 different designs. honestly, what's up with that. and where the hell is my car? seriously, this isn't cool.

oh, there it is. wedged between the identical buicks, one with a blue denver plate and the other with a yellow. more driving to be done, but it's all the midwest from here on out right? so i away to sleep in the parking lot and rise with the setting of the sun.

lesson for day 5: there's nothing wrong with physics, there's nothing wrong with pizza, and where there's a mini-mall, there's a nap.

Week of Silence '05: Day 4

2005-11-11T03:39:00.000-06:00

waking up at 11am in a very tightly tucked and very warm bed in the middle of vegas after having gotten over the brunt of your sickness while not talking is...notable.

so i wake up. clean of nose and in more healthful health. to all of you following these travails:

YES, i have gotten mostly healthy. this includes the coughy/scratchy/monstrous throat and the various forms of nasal hatred.

YES, my ears still pop, though not as much anymore. such is the life one leaves, when migrating the tumultuous sea levels of the western USofA.

time reports are due for work. being on the road, though, doesn't make for ease of reporting. the trick is to find a way to get online whilst on the road, fill out my time report, send it off, and continue on my merry way. that's the trick.

back to the morning. right. so i wake up. now, i have to tell you, it did cross my mind, the idea of taking a hotel towel in case i find myself lake-bathing again before i get home.

oh yes, it crossed my mind.

but from what i can tell, the boys are back in tow-ow-ow-ow-own. the boys are back in town. i can tell this mostly because the song is stuck in my head, source unknown.

breakfast. something for breakfast. a diner, for breakfast. a good, boothy, old-fashioned, buck-tooth-waitressed diner. and an omelette for breakfast. with these requirement s in hand i promptly turned around and walked to the diner next door to the hotel.

score. Coco's, the place was called. and oh so cold, the place was. the import of this decision, though, was in dining at a place that looked like it could afford at least one pair of gloves for the cook. not my kind of place, the kind that can afford things. but given how i'm in vegas and given that lord only knows what sort of new cooties are spawned hourly in this region of the world, i'll play it a littler safer today.

my server was a scant asian woman, a kind of i-ate-something-sour scowl on her face that did nothing to dampen her laid back demeanor. irony in form, i guess. i scanned the menu, looking and looking and realizing that, not only can this place afford gloves for the cooks, the fully laminated menu complete with well photographed menu items and a dash of graphic design unmistakably signaled how nice this place was in comparison.

ugh, a nice diner.

uuuuuggghhhh, a nice sunday diner, at that.

so to hell with it, i thought. i'm gonna eat wheat and starch and all the other blood sugar hiking stuff that turns me into wheezy mcweeze. i'm gonna eat every last scrap.

anyway, i found the appropriate omelette ensemble and coffee selection and pointed my heart out as she tried to comprehend the choices. let alone when i decided that, even though i was going to throw my blood sugar into a whirlwind frenzy, it wasn't gonna happen with the sugar at least. so i found the sugar-free syrup listed on the back and pointed and underlined and pointed and pointed as she squinted to try and read what the hell it was.

i practically wore a hole into the menu. laminate and everything. she squinted for five minutes, figured it out, and off she went. she comes back in five minutes with the coffee in a funny flute-y mug and a little glass of cream. that's right, a little glass. like a shot of dairy.

in the meantime i sing along with the songs on the radio playing overhead. and to the sides. and from the floor. songs and music and classic crooning from a bygone era and blah blah blah. now, is it "so let your love flow" or "so let your love go"?? i sang both versions while some random old pop song played around me, the tune in my head drowning out a song i'm sure would have gotten me bopping along if i hadn't been focused on this flow-or-go dilemma.

and the coffee comes. sweet, great, great great great great great diner coffee. i haven't had coffee in sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long, it just hits the spot so very well. the little shot glass of cream, just enough faux sugar, just the right blend of bitter and not. she plops down the coffee pot and moves on to the table behind me. i could hear the family telling a little girl to order. the waitress awww's just a little,

'whatchagonnahavehoney?'

she asks the little girl. at this point i returned to my flow-or-go fiasco, so i didn't find out what the little girl ended up having. probably pancakes or something.

then comes the food. oh, the food. hashbrowns, pancakes, sugar-free syrup and those little cubes of butter. and my omelette, my sweet sweet wonderful brilliantly crafted omelette. two minutes in and i've finished my coffee. eat eat eat swallow eat eat eat

breathe

eat eat eat. i'm eating too fast and writing too fast and looking too fast and singing too fast and fast fast fast fast BOOM. food's almost gone and coffee's long gone and songs all a blur now. and here she comes. with more coffee.

more. coffee.

time almost slows down when you're pouring a cup that really don't need to be drunk. and i guess that applies to all sorts of drinks. look over and see the waitress smiling as she hands over another straw, the oddly preppy couple here on a sunday morning in vegas watching everyone around them (too worn out from the night to be worried about making small talk), seeing the smoke rise from the cigarette in the corner and the almost flashing equations in your brain (diffusion, then osmosis, then pH balancing, then hormonal cascades, then waterfalls, then TLC, then cyclops, then odysseus, then poseidon, then water, then diffusion again...). fifteen minutes later and the cup still half full.

enough already, i say, and chug the cup. wipe my mouth, pay my bill, and off i go to arizona.

about two hours out i decide to make a pitstop; i got the idea after remembering the roomie suggesting that i visit the grand canyon since 'it's only about 100 miles off the highway.'

honestly, how can you not get all warm and fuzzy over such incredible logic? well i mean other than being sane and junk.

right. so pitstops. i felt like making it a chock-full-of-pitstops kinda return trip. and so pitstops were made.

first stop, the first suburb of vegas that i happened across. i'd have to go look up the name of the 'burb again but i don't feel like being all specific. point is, i happened across said un-named suburb and took a veering right.

that's right, veering.

so what did i do in this nameless suburban utope? firstly, i drove. drove and drove until i found a place to quench my thirst for americana.

so i'm not sure if it's a suburb-of-vegas kinda thing or a suburb-in-the-desert kinda thing, but it was a different kinda thing either way. corrugated steel houses, the kind that look like they're made within four days and can withstand a hurricane (or at least come apart in big, solid pieces). random colors, pink and blue and purple and white. lawns of sand and gravel, neighbors to an acre of sod and clearly displaced grass.

a high school for a town of maybe 1000 people. a library, a bookstore. odds and odds and the occasional end.

secondly, i stopped. right outside the cozy almost-diner with big signs announcing the availability of ice cream and various forms of sandwich. taking ten minutes to park because of the five i spent watching the ice cream man unload his wares by the back. the air conditioning inside, the second half of the diner crowded with knicknacks because it is also an ANTIQUE STORE.

******

a quick aside: the country is erupting with antique stores. so many that i'm beginning to doubt the country is anything less than 500 years old.

******

the sugar free butter pecan ice cream, the huge scoops and the juggernaut of a plastic spoon. the cashier behind the counter whose life i try to imagine, the high school girl who may only have a couple hundred other students in her entire school. working in an air conditioned diner and then leaving into the stripped desert air.

so i ate the ice cream and then left it on the table to peruse the antique store in the other half (no food allowed, you see). this close to buying the typewriter, a portable guy that was such a staple even a decade ago. almost.

instead i returned to the ice cream, finished, and moved onward to the Lost City Museum in Overton, NV, south about one town over. more driving more driving more driving, little roads and bigger roads. and then i get there.

and i liked it. i go inside and look at the entry price but can't grasp which price applies to me, so i walk up to the cashier, let her tell me what is expected, pull out the wallet and collect my change. and then onward into the museum.

how arrogant and lame and naive, how bourgeois and pretentious to say the place was amazing. it is history, simply put, propped up and dusted off to give us an idea of what it means to be alive. be human, conscious of past and future. so i'm not gonna say all that.

carved stone and sand outside, petroglyphs carried over from other sites and embedded around the museum. just so very simply nice to look at.

the pueblos have stood stolid for so long it just leaves me in a bit of a silent awe. kings of kings, ozymandias and his ilk, all gone and forgotten. and here's a hut of clay and mud that stands taller than so many other long-gone monuments. to remember some mother and father and child, nameless and unknown, of all things.

inside i bought a patch, the start of my own future log. the way i would have bought huge stickers saying 'ITALY' or 'GREECE' back in the 20's.

and then back to the highway. what a thing, to notice shadows on the mountains themselves. trailing a valley for five miles and then seeing it curve off away from you into another direction. the driving kept up until utah and Zion National Park. by now it was 4:00pm and trying to find my way to the grand canyon would not only take about two more hours, it would also be in pitch black dark in about one hour and along some dirt road after half an hour. combine random dirt road, pitch black dark, and a really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really deep canyon and you get me not going there.

so instead i head to Zion National Park. being the tourist attraction it is, i of course travel the requisite touristy shops: places that sell dream catchers and leather wares, restaurants and trailer parks, an ostrich farm and a little bar off in a corner. i told myself i would go to the bar on my way back, but soon enough i was focused on the trip itself.

i got to the park around 5:00, minutes after the place closed down and left me unable to even get a patch. no tours, no multi-colored sunset shows, no silent oggling of countryside with seniors and hippies in an overcramped bus.

but i parked the car outside the visitor center anyway and walk around. the place is closed, of course, so i figure the least i can do is use the bathroom and fill up my water bottles using the facilities outside. walking to the bathroom, it becomes very obvious very quickly that there are no lights to be found anywhere. getting to the bathroom and finding it completely dark makes one not want to plumb the depths and hope for the best. so i head back to the car.

five seconds later, the lights go on; i can see where i am now, i can see the water fountains and the bathroom and everything between. so back to the bathroom, use of the facilities, and outside. outside and looking up, the stars smiling back at me again in one of the few places i can see them untainted.

trying to find my car with almost no light is no picnic, either. i ended up turning the alarm on and off so that the headlights would flash and point me back. go technology.

back on the road, back towards the highway. i picked up some coffee and a patch at a little coffee shop/antique store/random native american crafts store. good coffee, good patch. good all around.

ten minutes and i cross the bar i had decided on earlier.

man oh man. man. take a moment, my friend, and just sit down for this bit. it is not outrageous, not incredible, just simply without retort.

the bar was a dive without the atmosphere. the bar itself on the opposite wall when i came in, about 6 or 7 older folks sitting there chatting and socializing. the bartender standing there with her hands on the bar, straight out and supporting her when she says 'hi there.'

'what'll it be?'

i look at the wall, at the older folks' hands, and all i see is beer. beer in their hands, beer on the bar, beer bottles on the wall, beer cans in the trash.

and something told me any signals to her as to wanting otherwise would just get messy for no reason. so i point to a coors light, make it clear that i can't talk, watch as she grabs one and as she pops it open.

'i'll need to see some ID.'

so i produce ID.

'illinois, huh? we got another illinoian here too, funny huh?'

she points to an older woman at the far right end of the bar. the pointee looks up at me and smiles, we tip our drinks to each other, and i take my bottle to a table.

about three minutes later another woman from the bar comes over, pen and pad of paper in hand. she sits down, takes the pen, writes on the pad of paper. and she slides the pad over to me:

'how long deaf?'

i laughed. the third time or so that someone has thought i was deaf, the third time in ten years, all three during the last four days. after i finished my chuckles i waved my hands, a quick sweep across the throat that shows that i can't talk.

'oh, you're sick or something?'

a brief nod.

'oh, see i thought you were deaf. i used to date a deaf guy, see.'

she turns and makes eye contact with those at the bar whom she left behind.

'he isn't deaf.'

'yeah, we know,' a man and the bartender reply.

'yeah i thought you were deaf. i used to date this deaf guy. i had to break up with him, though, drove me nuts after awhile. thing was whenever we went out he always kept asking about what everybody around was talking about. i mean i can barely keep up with one conversation at a time, so he sees some people laughing and wants to know what the joke was and looks in another corner and wants to know what they're saying to the waiter and all that sort of stuff. i just couldn't take it anymore!'

i laugh. she continues on. wanting to know whereabouts in chicago i live. continuing on, about how she used to live around rockford, trying to remember the way back to chicago from Zion. asking if i went to the park, if i saw the colors in the sunset, if i took a tour. asking what i do for a living, where i work, how long i'm on the trip.

i wrote down five words or so the entire time. she kept on after i handed her my business card and wrote down the word 'computers.'

'oh i've had a computer for so long. i had a commodore as my third computer, i've been around them forever.'

she continues on, the trials and tribulations of laptops and desktops, the husband's technical skills and habits, formatting and defragging and the like.

'it's so funny though, how that sort of thing works out. my oldest, he's a little older than you, doesn't know a damn thing. last year he wanted to look at this porn site,'

oh yes, reader, we've suddenly turned in that direction.

'so he tells me he needs to use his credit card to prove his age. i told him "no, don't do that, here's another site that's free" but he keeps saying that they only want it to prove his age. about a month and $700 later he finds out what really goes on. should have listened to me, right?'

oh the laughter, my friends. the laughter and the laughter and the laughter. whether she knew that i was laughing at the absurdity, whether she instead thought i was laughing at his naivete, who knows. either way, the laughter was plentiful.

we ended some time later, about an hour, hour and a half in total. she ended wanting to know if i used ICQ.

ICQ. sweet googly moogly, how awesome is that? honestly.

so i left her with my business card and her intentions to email me some time later. why? who knows. these are the sort of things that i do, i guess, so let's not dwell on them.

and so i left. onward and onward, back towards the highway. by this time i was somewhat hungry but i didn't feel like a full fledged meal. so what to do? stop by the grocery stop next door to the gas station when filling up, clearly. what to buy?

pepperoni. sliced pepperoni. pizza pepperoni. a pound of sliced pizza pepperoni.

a pound in my pack and back in the car, ready to drive and snack and keep on till morning. so that's what i did. drive and drive and drive. and i come across Southern Utah University.

you see, the plan was to stop at each college/university that i could spot from the highway, randomly roaming and seeing if any parties or craziness or any collegiate activity was brewing whilst i happened to be in the state. so, seeing the signs, i of course had to make a pitstop.

first building i found was the athletics. students working out, other students working out. a couple students manning the equipment checkout counter. walking around, though, i somehow didn't feel like writing out my intention to find a party or a bar to the kids working behind the desk. so i thought about it for a few minutes, didn't really feel up for it, and left.

more roaming campus, driving about and see what's around. there must have been some sort of event, though; one of the auditorium/gym buildings was packed, people leaving en masse right around 9pm or so as i drove around. more driving. after about half an hour i come across a bar somewhere in the town. going in, it was definitely not my place for the moment. spread out, older people there, no students or revelry. just people sitting around, maybe playing pool. just not up for it. so i left.

and the rest is history. more driving, more driving, more listening to books on tape. by the end i decided on my next pitstop in the morning, a dinosaur museum. i'm parking at a rest area across the street and sleeping until the place opens at 9am. perfectly reasonable, i think.

lesson for day 4: there's nothing wrong with learning who you are, learning what you're like, or learning what spur of the moment really means.

Week of Silence '05: Day 3 - Vegas and So On

2005-11-09T23:59:00.000-06:00

okay.

right.

okay.

yeah. so i'm trying to word this in a way that does not denote something worse than what i'm going to end up saying.

i'm not impressed.

see? it's hard. it's not that i'm disappointed or struck down from whatever imagined high i had over the glory that is vegas. or something. actually i've found things more engaging than i would have thought before.

but a few notes:

YES, i am the type to think lots of gilded paint and bright yellow lighting is lacking of tact. i'm not awed by big statues and lots of shiny gold wallpaper (though shiny-ness does have its place among things, i guarantee you). point is, most of what i saw was not like that. so i was interested in architecture and design and colors and materials. they were nice, and not over the top.

YES, i do realize that being alone is obviously veiling the appeal of the place. this is practically the definition of obvious. besides, nobody asked you anyway.

YES, i am not big on slot machines and three card poker. i came to vegas for good 'ole texas hold'em, and so that's what i did. slots were played, but with the half-hearted enthusiasm expected of them.

YES, i do realize that being alone is NOT WHAT VEGAS IS ABOUT. again, nobody asked you.

YES, i do realize that i could have had a crazier time had i been able to, say, talk. but at the same time, what other place is crazy enough to enjoy while not talking? full of enough people doing enough random things to be engaged while silent (literally and figurtively engaged, mind you)?

YES, there is more to vegas than The Strip...yeah see i can't even type that with a straight face.

YES, these notes are getting old.

this is the breakdown of every building on The Strip:

A Theme + A Hotel + A Casino + A Big Mall + Very Nice Restaurants = Some Building On The Strip

and there you have it. slots are the same, poker is the same, roulette and blackjack and cocktails are the same. the uniforms are different, the restaurants are different colors, but let's not go nuts.

so, i was not impressed. i wasn't disappointed, i wasn't depressed, i wasn't horribly lonely or bored or lazy.

i was sick, though.

remember that coughing thing from earlier in the day? yeah, well it basically mutated my throat into a pain-birthing organic factory of pain. and pain. i had two drinks the entire night: both times a mixed drink, both times ordered to cocktail waitresses on a pad of paper.

man, it would have been so sweet, my dream. the dream where i'm playing poker, sitting there, winning huge hands, gathering up the chips with a smile and muted mouth. then comes the waitress, asking if we want any drinks. i wave her over, point to the hand i just won.

in that hand would be a jack. i would point to the jack.

the waitress would say 'jack...'

i would put a finger on my nostril, pushing on it to restrict airflow, and then sniff across my palm in a straight line with the open nostril .

the waitress would say 'coke...'

"jack and coke?"

i would nod, of course, but then direct her to my left hand, with index and thumb separated a distance, as if i were saying 'i was this close to such-and-such.' i would slowly squeeze the fingers closer together.

the waitress would say "diet coke?"

i nod.

"jack and diet coke," she concludes, and i wave her on her merry way. back she comes, a chip-tip as her compensation.

...nobody said it was a realistic dream. well everything but the diet bit, i'd have to work at that one. sell it with my eyes, you see.

instead i entered the strip at MGM Grand and worked my way up north. i managed to play poker and played risky. that's it, you've found me out, you've unearthed my secret: i'm a risk-lover (all you econ people out there are licking your lips, i can tell). i play big and that's that. again, the lack of notice during the week of silence is a teacher and a heckler: nobody said a thing about me not saying a thing. nobody looked at me oddly, nodded at me oddly, asked me questions oddly. the dealer spoke at me, the players looked at me, but either they figured it was a stone-faced ploy or that i had laryangitis (not too far off, either).

i won some hands, lost some hands, but all in all threw it all down before getting a chance to even tip the dealer, all of it gone on the slim chance the guy had an Ace over my King.

go figure.

on my merry way, drink in tow. i had managed to order the drink while playing poker, writing down jack and diet to the chagrin of the player to my right. it was the only exclamation i had heard at the table, "jack and diet?"

and that was it. after losing the big hand and still without my drink, i took my time. grabbed my coat, straightened out the creases and plucked up the collar. but i left right as the waitress came back with my drink. a tip and a nod and i was off to the rest of the casino.

***********

i would like to pause for a moment here and let the reader know that i feel a certain kinship with Halls brand cough drops. they helped me that day in so very many ways.

***********

cough. yes, back to the day.

so off i went. a few more casinos, rambling around. slot machines and slot machines, win $20 and lose $5. another cough drop and another cough drop, my throat like the sahara after my drink, screaming in wretched agony over the wretched wretchedness of it all. this wandering was the bulk of my non-impressed-ness.

mostly because of the people. at poker it was frat boys and frustrated accountants, the types who live off beer bongs and delusions of agrarian grandeur. buzz cuts and big sunglasses. leather coats and shorts.

outside was no better. all around me are tourists, tshirts and old folks. no one my age, or at least no one my age who doesn't look like some stereotype i've encountered several times during the night. the teenie-bopper types at the designer retail outlets. this locale is nothing different; another gauche mall set among the myriad slot machines.

more slots, another drink, more cough drops and cough drops and cough drops. i play a 5 cent slot, win $20.

walk around some more, more and more and more and all the same. interesting, of course, and worth exploring. but lacking in...pizzaz.

then i find an FAO schwartz.

i have been in this store ONCE in my entire life. it was in chicago, during orientation for college. i noticed nothing, being worried more about the people i was getting to know and the subtleties of a newly collegiate lifestyle. so you must understand my excitement when i realize the kind of chance i have available to me this time.

the science kits. the telescopes. the stuffed animals and huge rockers. the flying toys, the dancing toys. singing toys and walking toys and talking toys. intelligent toys. messy toys. toys and toys and toys and toys and

G
A
S
P

the piano.

the piano, the keyboard, the big huge electric gather of keys arranged on the floor.

the one from Big.

gasp

i was this close, dear reader.

THIS CLOSE

this close to playing, this close to dancing and jumping and playing and playing and playing.

but those damn kids. oh those damn kids. two girls, must have been over 10 at least, both of them.

oh, those damn kids.

how can i, a 23.8333333(3) year old man walking around with 8 o'clock shadow and my damn-i-look-casual-GQ clothing, possibly get a chance at the piano when two girls (not that young, either) usurp my intentions and start on it themselves? i can't take it from them, i can't join them, i can't wait my turn. i can't watch them, i can't ask them if i can go. i can't do anything.

oh, those damn kids. this close, reader. this close.

back to the casinos. just all over the place, the blondes. too many blondes. as if being blonde makes you attractive, as if being blonde is the hip thing to do nowadays. it's not prejudice, it's saying that it's all i'm seeing. like miniskirts or alligator shoes. all over the place.

and then the one brunette that reminds me, a little too much, of somebody else. and then i start to think that maybe i should chill out and get back to meandering.

i wanted ice cream. some of you will think nothing of this, that wanting ice cream is fine, if a little out of the blue. some of you, at most two or so, will think this is 'just so typical vikas' and that for me to go ten seconds without ice cream is remarkable. to both flavors of you i remark the following: whatever. i just wanted ice cream.

so imagine the bliss when i found the one place with no sugar added ice cream. mint chocolate chip, at that. oh, and was it ever good. so very, very good. my throat threw down its sword for a time, gyrating and enjoying the ice cream i delivered unto it.

the ice cream and the walking just gets the mind to drift. i keep thinking about somebody. kinda wishing she were here. or that maybe, some other time, we can come back here together. but then i look around and finish my ice cream and get back to gawking. like everybody else.

so i retired to the lower levels, walking out and into the night. more and more buildings, casinos and themes and uniforms. no more drinks. still more cough drops. walking and walking and walking. i spot a chinese buffet, remembered my vow for the night, and handled myself as best as i could. and it was good.

with vegas i just realize that it's not my thing. i'm more into quiet exploration. i can't plan to make a day special...not to say there haven't been some more special than others. just that i'm so crazy normally that i can't go on vacation...i'm always on vacation.

wander and wander and one last cough drop. back to my room. sleep, tapped out. sick. want to actually heal before leaving.

i spent the last twenty minutes thinking about tomorrow. wondering if i should finish the drive or do that which has been the point all along: be spontaneous. return the rental here, in nevada, and hop a plane back home. or somewhere along the way, renting a car the rest of the way instead.

something else.

thinking maybe about flying home, but i'm not going to. instead i'm just going to sleep and put behind me the day's thoughts and experience. the 6 hours of swimming amongst the waters of sin city. then, tomorrow, i head back home.

lesson for day 3: cough drops can be your best friends, slots your least enthusiastic, and your muted dreams the tempestuous lovers you've known for so very, very long.

Week of Silence '05: Day 3 - Into Vegas

2005-11-09T16:27:00.000-06:00

utah is something else.

i ended up driving about fifty or a hundred miles into the state late last night, pulled into some hotel parking lot, slept, and woke up.

i woke up to a sight i never expected.

the night had masked so much of the mountains, the dry earth and the sparse sprouts of grass. so much of the colors and the air and the sky. so much of everything around me. i woke up with a grey sky and a suddenly tumultuous landscape. jarring, to say the least. kinda jarring, to say the most.

i almost ran out of gas last night. well, not really. but there was a stretch of about 200 miles or so where i couldn't have gotten gas if i hadn't had just enough to get me past. all i ask is the maddest of props for accurately estimating how much gas i had, along with the mpg and tank size of the car. go me.

so yes, ann coulter. i'm almost finished with the audiobook and it's something else.* sure there's the rant that has nothing to do with me or anything about which i care, but there's also the rants that just settle down and have coffee with my inner logician. the discourse and arguments that i've made before, making sense now. and, even if i don't agree with the conclusion, i invariably respect the way she said it (sans pointless name-calling and scandal embellishment, however infrequently i feel they are used).

i feel this is not true of al franken. i tried listening to his book for something like fifteen minutes, mostly because i had realized in fifteen minutes that i had fallen asleep ten minutes ago. dangerous thing to happen, in car. on the road. in utah. on top of a mountain. with no guiderails.

on the sickness front, my sneezing is gone. gone gone gone gone gone gone gone. instead, i'm coughing. well less coughing than scratching at my throat from the outside and beating at the adam's apple whenever trying to swallow.

...i have never bought Halls cough drops. i have never bought cough drops. i have NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER bought coughing relief in drop form. not on principle and not out of religious observance. i just haven't.

and today? i did. i bought my halls from a little gas station/convenience store/diner/miscellaneous depot. i bought my halls and nodded my way through about fifteen questions from the lady behind the counter ('that all you need? get any gas? cold out,huh? you don't like the cherry cough drops? i like the cherry cough drops. do you have anything smaller than a five? did you try tea and honey? if you want i could look and see if we have other flavors. you don't feel cold, just wearing that thin little coat there?) to the lady behind the counter, my silence was immaterial. to the lady behind the counter, my existence was simply existence in order to countermand any illusions that she was, indeed, talking to herself. to the lady behind the counter this wayward oasis in the middle of utah is as fast-paced as any city-slickin' nightspot. to the lady behind the counter, a headset and microphone at a gas station somehow makes sense (given that she was wearing one at the time, you see).

but i soon get tired once again and decide to pull off to the side of the road atop a mountain, sans any railings, brake, park, and sleep.

i slept fitfully. or fully, whichever one means that it was good. good sleep. good good roadside i'm-on-top-of-a-mountain-with-nothing-holding-my-car-in-place-two-feet-from-a-cavernous-cliff sleep. i woke up occasionally, half expecting a police officer to be standing outside, staring through the window, chewing on tuh-backy or a straw or something, and smiling with his oversized shades, mocking me and my inability to communicate efficiently.

more driving. the road to vegas is slowly shortening, taking me closer and closer and closer. deeper into utah, further through and through. utah, nevada, state lines and power lines. so many power lines.

they came upon me suddenly: over a hill and suddenly the masse of wires and poles and safety cages ambushes you.

it was incredible.

it makes perfect sense, of course. the city needs power day and night, not to mention the quality of those lights (neon takes a LOT of power). but you don't think about it until the massive, throbbing intestine of electricity is staring you in the face. so much power, so many lines. awe inspiring, if you're like me. fairly boring and just out of place, if you're anyone else.

more driving, more isolated electric colonies, more more more. more and more and more and more and more and and and and and and

vegas, baby. vegas.

i have no idea where i am. not a clue. i haven't seen a map of the city, haven't made any semblence of a 'plan' as the hip kids call them. nothing. nothing at all.

how awesome is this?

first stop was to pull into the first exit that looked even remotely inviting. i figure out later that this exit is still about ten miles away from 'The Strip,' but let's allow for the fact that i didn't actually know where i was or that there even is a strip. such is the memory of men who dedicate their lives to physics, scripts, and simpsons quotes.

so yes, the exit. i exit, look around, and pull into a mcdonald's. i'm this close to going inside and buying something because i haven't eaten in a day or something, but instead i go inside with my roadmap (thank you, roomie!) and try to figure out where in the heckums i am. i figure out quickly that there, is in fact, a strip, that i am still a few miles off, and that i'm not hungry. so i look around, not even wanting a pop, and leave. but outside said fast-food-place there is an actual framed map of the city, so i spend some more time looking at it and searching for a hotel that might suit me for the night.

a couple things to note:

YES, i threw away the living-like-a-bum plan for my night in vegas, wanting a shower and a bed to cast away the last vestiges of my illness before hitting the road again.

YES, that was the last and only note i actually have for the time being.

back onto highway 15 and back into the world of the traffic jam. it is the middle of the day, something like 2pm, and there's a traffic jam. i half think 'hey, this is vegas, baby. vegas,' and that such is to be expected. but about a half an hour (read: half a mile) later, i find that there was an accident and people are still clearing the way, blocking off most of the lanes in the highway. the things you notice while waiting for cars to move: license plates that all hail from Nevada, Canada, and, oddly enough, Wisconsin. no joking. all that coupled with these non-chicago pansy drivers while listening to a recording of a seinfeld on stage...it was powerful, alright. mostly because i have noticed that in chicago we are all very quick to exploite the 'bottleneck mystique' as i like to call it.

you see, the 'bottleneck mystique' is the assumption that two lanes merging ahead of you means you should start to merge as soon as possible, often leading to one lane being empty well before the actual point of merger. but in chicago we jump and jostle and run full force into the merge, clogging up the other lane and driving as far as possible before being forced to merge by the road. this is how we drive, and this is how we treat such situations. but alas, there are no chicago drivers here. they simply wait back, merging hundreds of feet before the lanes themselves merge, leaving open that left lane. wide and clear, with almost as many holes as a liberal argument (ouch, did that hurt). onward and upward, it seems. after about an hour i make it the ten miles to The Strip, and start to traipse around for a super cheap place to sleep for a night.

"now vikas," some of you are asking, "why a cheap place, and just for one night? come on man, it's vegas, baby. vegas."

oh just shut up.
honestly.

it's mostly just because of the trip mentality. living like a bum all week and wanting to stay as low to such as possible. not that i haven't packed the damn-do-i-look-GQ clothes, of course. but that doesn't mean i should drop money on a room that will only be slept in and that i am not sharing (wink wink, nudge nudge). i'm the only one on the trip, i'm sick, i'm not here for the room, and i'm alone. so what's the point? i'd far more enjoy an incredibly cheap set of digs for the night, meander about the town, and drop money in stupid pursuits of chance. the american dream, really.

to summarize: hotel should be inexpensive and for one night, food during the stay MUST include a buffet at some point, and the vast accountancy of funds will be lavished on lady luck.

so first comes the first hotel. the rates on the incredibly huge sign outside say something about rooms as low as $19.95 a night, plus some food prices that make a buffet look regal.

i'm practically drooling.

so i go in. of course the requisite mini-casino in the lobby, the waitress and the registration guy who looks like a trucker that fell off his truck and into this job. the odd look and feel of the place just didn't sit right. i felt like being a bum; this place was more for someone trying not to be seen at all. so i left.

i spotted a small chain hotel a couple blocks over, a block due east of the south end of The Strip, right by the MGM Grand. i go in and try to figure out my strategy for reserving a room. you see, the thing is that when you have a reservation, it's easy. you walk in, flash your ID and a credit card, and in you go. standard week of silence stuff. but i had no reservation, and the chance that the person behind the desk would want some colorful promulgation of intent is thus higher. so what to do?

i turn my head to ponder the question and look straight at the two computers on the right wall of the lobby. the sign posted says something about the internet rates, two dollars for ten minutes or some silly thing. but this makes no sense if you want to see the hotel's own site, right? so i take a chance. i get out of line, go to the computers, and pull up the hotel's website. after a few minutes, i manage to make a reservationf for the very same hotel. i click on the internet rate.

and i save 25%. that's right, i save 25 percent on my room because i made my reservation on the computer in the lobby as opposed to trying to mime at the staff member behind the desk. i save 25% by simply turning around. so i make my reservation, flash my ID and my credit card, point to the floor i'd like, nod politely at the questions the girl behind the desk has while securing my room, and BAM! i have a place for the night. a cheap place, at that.

i go to my room, shower, clean up. i warsh away all the oils and buildup from a day or so of coughy-ness and lack of 'small lakes.' i trim the scruffy shadow, shave off the excess, and brush my teeth. i clean my hair. i trim my fingernails, change clothes. i groom myself with a modicum of effort.

after finishing all this, i look at the clock. 3:30pm. and then i remember that i'm two hours ahead of chicago (it being 5:30pm there, you see). something in me thinks it's lame to walk around the strip at 3:30, but there is nothing left to do. so i go online.

check my mail, jot down a few notes to blog later, and watch a few minutes of television. i drink water, i rest my head on a pillow. i rest there, clothed in only one article (three guesses as to what). breathing slowly, letting my eyes close a little and my thoughts wander over the last three days.

this gets boring quickly. very quickly. "alright, vikas," i say to myself.

"...let's go." and off i go.

*NOTE TO LIBERALS: i'm not one of you.

Week of Silence '05: Day 2

2005-11-08T23:33:00.000-06:00

i've been subsiding on the car-made sandwiches, meal-shakes, and chili.

all three flourish in the halls of convenience marts and gas stations, you see; given the sickness and the opportunities along this road we call 'the highway,' it's just the type of straight-'n-narruh thinkin' i'm stickin' to.

but that doesn't mean i haven't wanted to stop and eat and drink and be ever-so-merry with the other gravel warriors along the way. i have wanted to so badly, passing by those signs:

"TRUCKERS WELCOME "

"WHATSHERFACE'S DINER "

"OPEN 24 HOURS "

sigh. any attempts toward eating or drinking or even flopping about around other folks would just end up being wasted on me. i'm so stuffed up and weak that i can taste nothing, let alone enjoy the mindless conversational spittle that shoots at me every week of silence. but such is the luck of the draw, i guess.

double sigh.

but the scenery and pockets of terrain i've been passing are fully interesting; coupled with the audiobooks (oh no, the conservative is enjoying himself, man all the battlestations...) i'm practically singing in the car whilst listening to rants and watching barns and silos pass me by. without the singing, of course.

so to answer a few questions:

YES, i have been sleeping in my car. roadstops, hotel parking lots, various other venues...all provide a cozy little alcove i call "the sleepy-time car spot"

YES, it has been something like two days since i've showered. more like a day and a half, though if you know me at all then you know how phenomenal this is. given my penchant for showering at least once a day, if not more frequently, this information might have scared you a little. rest assured i have found an immediate solution, though: natural bodies of water.

after finding an exit to rest my weary bod, i drove into a 'rest area' that turned out to be a camp ground. prices were listed and apparently i had to go through some big process to rent an area for a night. but i didn't need a night, i just need a few hours to catch some sleep and then be on my way. so i start driving through the camp, hoping to see another sign to let me know if i actually had to go through said process just to crash for awhile.

that's when i came across the ponds or, as i like to call them, 'small lakes.' a quick look around (the kind where you look from side to side as if someone is going to come across your newly undug gold) and i stripped down, walked twenty feet across really really really really really pointy gravel rocks, and dumped myself into the 'small lake' that looked the cleanest. swashed around a little bit, a fast rubbing over various areas of skin, and i was done. whether or not i used shampoo is something best left to the imagination. the bathing cleared up my sniffle-ly-ness enough that i felt good enough to throw away my hopes of sleep from ten minutes previous.

YES, it's been an indolence-fest just sitting in a car for howevermanyhours at a time. but i did manage do run a few laps upon my entrance into colorado.

all in all, i've been feeling better after meds and swimming and running and driving. the current plan is to run down to vegas quick as i can; given my sicky-ness it makes sense to run through the roads that i can't enjoy as much, spend however much time i like in vegas, and then enjoy the road on the way back. very sensible, i'm sure you would agree. but the plan is a little splotchy, only because i've been sleeping a little more than i would like and so it's screwing up my timetable.

also of note is an addendum to the list from the day previous of things that invariably become important after you've decided that they will not be:

-chapstick (when you're absolutely sure that you've moisturized the hell outta your lips, enough to last for weeks, stickin' away till the cows come home, you find out that getting the flu dehydrates you to no end)

not only did i leave a perfectly good little tin of INCREDIBLY awesome lip balm at home, i inevitably needed to go and buy another one from a store along the way. but c'est la vie, as the germans are wont to say. but on the plus side i totally know which are the best lip balms so i ended up buying some totally great stuff that totally satisfied my totally crappy flu-induced chappiness. but lip balm wasn't the only kind of medicine: i ended up buying flu pills by the dozen when i bought the balm. plus some candy or straws or something, i can't remember.

throw in lip balm, flu pills, chili, car-made sandwiches, and the occasional 'small lake' and things start to brighten up. i did manage to get into one diner so far, a kitchy little 50's imitation place in the middle of colorado. a quick point and i managed to order some hot tea from the under-worked waitress, plug in this computer, and check my mail with the little-wire-thing-that-connects-the-cell-to-the-comp. the tea was good and soothing, the computer finally got turned on after a day or so (minus whatever email checking i did at the rest areas in iowa), and i at least got to see a diner. not too bad.

the problem, though, is driving through utah. see, the terrain is something else, to be sure, but i won't be able to see it. it's darker than dark outside and i'm driving through a lot of the state tonight before i sleep. i will get a chance to look around in the morning, though, so i'll do what i can.

it's the stars, that's what gets me. driving around in pitch, looking up from my the inside of my car every few seconds to catch a glance upwards without the interference from a city full of lights. i've never taken the chance to look at the stars like this before, at least whenever i've been out of the city. not in india, which is the last place i can think of where i had an appreciable chance. i've been driving down the road and waiting until no one is ahead or behind and turning off all my lights to catch a glimpse, i've been stopping at exits periodically and looking up, trying to mark off as many constellations as i could despite a lack of any astronomical knowledge (as much as my studious ilk tend to know these things by the volume). i saw my favorite constellation every time i looked up. made me feel better. made me feel a little more grounded. made me feel good.

lesson for day 2: don't leave the house without some lip balm, swim and run and jump as much as you can, and never be afraid to turn off every light in your car to feel a little starlight before you move on.

Week of Silence '05: Day 1

2005-11-07T23:56:00.000-06:00

ugh. with a bug and a shrug and no hug.

and a tug. maybe a mug.

basically traveled something like 650 miles today and nothing monumental to tell. why, you ask?

because i'm sick, jerk. that's right, what i thought was some sort of nasal-allergy-cayenne-pepper mutant of an affliction actually turns out to be something more akin to, say, the flu. not just any flu, THE flu.

so tick one more on the list of things that invariably become important after you've decided that they will not be. other things on this list include:

-umbrellas (when you're absolutely sure you don't need one, it rains)

-swiss army knives* (when you're absolutely sure your glasses have no chance of getting a screw loose, you need that little screwdriver from the corkscrew)

-that little wire that connects your cell phone to your laptop (when you're absolutely sure you don't need to go online in the middle of boonie-mc-boonland, you need to check for a reply to some mindless email from three months previous)

-a pen (when you're absolutely sure you won't do any writing, you need to make a pitstop at some diner for five hours with nothing but a notepad and your own psychoses to keep you company)

it was interesting, though, the kind of mentality that sprung up during the day. given my sickness, the plan is to rush to LV as fast as i can, stay however long i like, and then take my time on the return trip and make up for whatever was missed currently. thing is, the definition of 'missed' depends on whether the thing in question is worth not missing. for most people, the random diner (announcing itself with only the word 'diner' on a sign, with the best locales) noticed from a highway will not inspire an urge to suddenly eat some sort of greasy meat.

since when am i most people?

but with my plan in tow, i had to turn a blind eye to these places and focus on the sneezing/thirst/chappiness incurred by the sickness.

so the day consisted of driving, a gut wrenching apprehension over entering iowa (i won't go into it here), actually entering iowa and being all, like, "whatever, this is whatever." more driving, stopping at convenience stores for any soups that i could handle, stopping at some out-of-the-way grocer and buying sandwich materials enough to last me about ten wraps or so (tortillas, cheese, meat, and a good dijon spread), and checking my mail at the numerous rest areas equipped with wi-fi all through iowa.

the foremost entertainment on the road was due to a well planned foray into the audiobooks at my suburban library. i rented roughly thirty audiobooks or so (don't call me on that number, though). leaving chicago threw me into the comedic stylings of lewis black, bill cosby, george carlin, and something-or-other. the magnitude of the trip after chicago, though, was devoted to ann coulter.

oh no, did he just say ann coulter? ANN COULTER?

relax. first off, don't get all liberal on me. second, i brought along some al franken, too. i have books ranging from The Complete Idiot's Guide to: The Bible to a gaggle of old-tymey radio sitcoms. for the purposes of politics, i got ann coulter and al franken.

and for the record, i like ann coulter. that's right. you all know i'm conservative, and you all know that i stand for the fact that i'm conservative. i might not staunchly agree with every word that launches from her mouth, of course, but for the most part i find myself mentally agreeing with them. this might be due to her skills to persuade through logic, or it might be due to the lack of a dynamic landscape outside my window. this requires further investigation.

not too many interactions with people today; the most eventful was with a lady i met in the parking lot of some department store. i was entering a spot with a shopping cart smack at the end of it, but there was enough space that i could park up to the cart and still be fairly well within the spot. so i did. as i got out, a woman started apologizing to me for leaving the cart there. she couldn't get it over the little concrete median that separated my spot from hers, so instead she left it in the spot i was currently taking and took everything out by hand and put it into her car. as she took the last item from the cart she apologized, all without making too much of a face at the fact that i just nodded along for the whole exchange. i went to help, grabbing the cart and pulling it over, taking about a minute or two to actually get it over the median while she watched. all without responding to her thankyous.

an offshoot of the week is always to realize just how much i talk about nothing. every year there's this forced pause whenever anyone is around because there's always something going unsaid, commentary and jokes and questions and other jabber, pointless or imperative, doesn't matter.

a few brakes at restaurants and rest stops to sleep, and the day ends. getting some sleep, waking in the morning, and then off to more miles in the morn.

lesson for day 1: the plains don't bore me, conservative thoughts just make sense to me, and i really can manage this whole sleeping-wherever-i-want-like-a-bum approach to my day.

*swiss army knife mishaps are to be excluded, especially those involving airports and certain state laws with certain no-tolerance statutes. certain crappy state.

it's the waiting

2005-11-06T23:30:00.000-06:00

i haven't been this excited about a week of silence in a long time. maybe even never this excited.
one obvious reason is the format this year: roadtrip. i've had my fill of sitting around in my head and home the last couple years, not having any stimulation revolving around silence other than to get used to it. incredibly used to it.

but now the impetus and the drive, the complete and utter lack of planning...it's the itch i've had for over a year now that developed into a rash, never getting scratched.

random diners, trying to order food without saying a word. random strangers, all taking in my mute meanderings with so very little surprise that it makes me always believe in the adaptability of people in general. but that's probably because it's more intriguing when i tell someone that the silence is intentional, rather than just miming some minimal gesture to cut me off from a verbal conversation.

las vegas, 1-3 days depending on my whims along the way. poker, drinks, interaction without a single sound. i'll be entirely out of place in the one place where it's not so out of place to do so. most likely nothing will come of it but, damn it all, i can't wait to just see for myself.

30 minutes and then i'm on my way.

like sands in the hourglass

2005-11-06T16:00:00.001-06:00

memories are a funny thing.

they make you want to stop what you're doing, they make you welcome the crutch of nostalgia. they make you think you've been forced into a mental reverie when in fact you've wanted the distraction for some time.

i've been remembering and reliving and, yes, even rehashing. what specifically, you ask? old grades, old test scores. women come and gone, friends won and lost.

recollecting all the notions i held about life. the principles i promised i would maintain, the attitude i swore would never falter. for the most part these things haven't left me. it's the endurance of it all, the mettle requisite to make promises and swear by things. the strength behind that will is gone and, as such, the will weakens.

i'm remembering how i used to react to people and their approaches towards life/themselves/me. so involved, so invested. i would live or die with the look on another person's face. and that's not entirely gone...it's just far more selective as to who those people are.

i'm remembering what it was like to search the library for an hour to find that one random physics book, scouring and scouring to pick out words like time and parallel and dimensions, quantum this and hyper that. and of course, above all, that pantheon of titular words:

theory

because any physics book with theory in the title is clearly far above par.

everywhere you look

2005-11-05T15:23:00.000-06:00

there's something about family sitcoms.

to know me is to know that i take swan dives into the pool of television. renting entire seasons of sitcoms and dramas and miniseries, watching them, nay, shotgunning them like a sailor with a bar tab. the last weeks drew me towards the familial situation comedies with which we all grew up.

full house. who's the boss? ellen (less formally familial, but nevertheless).

the cosby show.

there's something about family sitcoms. sitting there, watching them, analyzing them, structuring them, my screenwriter's ambition tugs at them with a trained hand. but something isn't right. i'm enjoying myself too much.

full house. we've all seen it. we've all noticed it. we've all aged with it. i sat there, watching, forgetting all about act breaks and plot runners, all about comedic timing and seeing the lines on the page. instead i watched this family of actors and felt the same way i felt however many years ago. with all the years, with all the strife and distraction and ambition and dreams and disasters...there is a point in your life, whether to come or long gone, when you had a home. a life, self contained, a little bubble of interaction and happiness that somehow got you through a day or two.

somewhere, sometime, somehow, there's family. the household of kin, through blood or other bond, that bear the loyalties and trust and simple love we all need. a living, breathing edifice. a foundation that lets us venture out into the world and still hold our bearings. it's the home you want to see at the end of the day. it's the people you want to see. the broken fence or crooked faucet in the kitchen that whispers "i am familiar" when you reach for the handle. it's the place where you can cry and the place where you can sing, all without missing a beat.

the one place on the entire planet where you are the definition of yourself.

and that's a powerful thing. there's no reason to rant over all the hats and masks and fake smiles we throw on the second we walk out the door. the show we put on. it's behind that door that's important, it's what we are before those things are riveted to the skin. it's that person inside that we used to let roam free. it's the person that family would remember and hug and praise. it's the person who was too self-aware to let anybody mould them; not here, not at home, not at home.

what in the world has happened to this little bubble, that you cannot even feel comfortable in your own bed? what happened to wanting to trek back to your door, taking out your key and plopping your things down onto the couch. what happened to forestalling your own ambitions and goals because you're genuinely interested in another person's day? what sanctuary is there left, without a home full of life?

things take time, i'm learning that. comfort and familiarity and loyalty and trust take time. mostly because they're worth it. with any luck the time passes quietly and quickly, and you're left staring around you at all the things that you've grown to keep in the back of your mind, now realizing that they're just what you wanted for so long.

a wise man

2005-10-24T05:27:00.000-05:00

i've never had a pet. does that say something about me?

thing is, i don't actually care if it says something about me. not really. not at all. but there is an interest. a bit of wonder.

i've always been one to wonder. it makes me question things of late. like whether i've had as many ideas as i used to. whether i should keep the same little notebook that i used to, whether i should jot things down in pen the way i used to.

whether i should run towards the same goals, the same people, the same locales that i used to. something tells me that far less are reading this as were before, yet i don't actually *care*. as if this were anything but self serving. as if this were anything but private and unyielding.

even in private letters i couldn't be candid. or so i was told. when you're sitting here, the way i am right now at least, it's hard to distinguish between lies and fabrications made to answer questions to which you don't have an answer. like when someone asks you 'why' and you have nothing to say except a lie. even though you know what the truth is.

but i do have to ask...if you had a choice, between telling the truth and lying, which would you chose? would it depend, on whether you were lying to protect feelings, whether you were lying because you didn't think you knew the truth? whether you wanted to blame someone else for your own shortcomings, whether you wanted something to point at because you had no idea why you felt the way you did?

are you a liar, or do you tell the truth? are you someone who comes up with excuses, or do you face up to reality and just get what's coming to you?

are you a coward, or a saint?

sing it, frankie

2005-10-24T05:21:00.000-05:00

a kiss is still a kiss.

a sigh is still a sigh.

the fundamental things apply,
as time goes by.

son of a preacher man

2005-10-24T05:03:00.000-05:00

the best and worst times of a man's life come with heartbreak.

it's a time for strength. of insight and of solidification. it's a time to understand that which eluded you and a time to look inward, look deeply outward, and basically look all around. it's a time for realization, it's a time for understanding.

it's a time for forgiveness, and a time to let go of all those wrongs that have been placed upon you.

it's a time to prove that you're not a goddamn slug, not a goddamn ant, not a goddamn anything known to the world. it's a time to just stand up and be known as something different and unique and all together too insignificant.

you are not special.

you are not worth fighting for.

you are not memorable or notable or immortal.

you are simply what you conceive. you are what you have known, all along, but have not been able to admit. you are walking compost, you are the dust of ages. you are one of billions and one amongst nothing. you are a story waiting to happen.

you are a story that's been told far too often before.

you are a figment of your own imagination. you exist only in your own mind. you are zen, you are isolated, you are nothing but a collection of thoughts and reaction. you are a microverse.

you are a walking mortality.

you are simply the connotation of existence. you are what you are, nothing less and nothing more.

just live with me and be done with it.

a simple profession

2005-10-24T04:55:00.000-05:00

yes. yes. hahahahahahahahaha.

oh yes. definitely. youth and the young, fight and the fought. simple. done. don't worry, nothing's going to happen.

if i've ever told you a secret...well then you will never be alone. i do not abandon and i do not turn away.

if i've ever told you a secret, then i am yours forever.

one of the good days

2005-10-24T04:06:00.000-05:00

i'm sitting here, back at ihop (yeah yeah, more with the foodery talk...get over it). i'm trying to write but the thoughts keep seeping in. i can't stop thinking about it, i can't do anything but steer all my focus back to her.

pink elephants, don't think of pink elephants.

the more you push away the more your arms get tired. just looking to my left, i see a couple; 15, 16 at the most. but with an older couple, maybe the girl's grandparents. her hand on his lap, his thigh (the younger girl's hand, that is). talking and laughing, old and young. a bit of society in this anthilll of a diner (it's barely a diner, even. not now, when i've been searching out real diners more and more). the girl talks, an annoying little voice that i would never be able to stand for more than five seconds.

so long, nostalgia. pink elephants.

that whole debacle above was a few days ago, thursday night i think. actually friday night. the end of a long day; i sat and started up on another film. i wrote up about a third or half of it right there at the restaurant but met up with the director later on and talked of other things. this latest project, the one i'm currently writing...there's something special about it. i don't know what, not just yet. i've finished everything but the script format now and i still can't put my finger on what exactly intrigues me. guess that's what makes it worth thinking about.

saturday i spent the night in the city. there was a comfort level, a familiarity and a simplicity that i didn't realize i missed so much. knowing you're with friends and knowing that you can just enjoy yourself for a few minutes without having to worry about the outside world. knowing that later on things will go to hell in due time but, for right now, you can breathe in scents and memories enough to overtake you.

this afternoon i ended up in an old diner for lunch/dinner/whatever it was. a good meal, floating with a fair amount of work done on my new script. i had such an outpouring of ideas and concepts, it was just great. just plain great, totally worth whatever it was that i ended up paying for the food.

i sat there, listening to the meals of all the people around me. this is definitely an old folk's diner; people coming from church i suppose, maybe just a familiar haunt for people of a certain age and a certain town. who knows. i hear the words "operating system" and i turn my head, not really caring what they're saying or who is saying it but, rather, just wanting to acknowledge that it was a momentary lapse in the thousand other conversations that i couldn't make out even if i wanted to. it was a beacon, a phrase to keep me aware of my surroundings. like a lighthouse shining in my eyes for a tenth of a second.

it was a second choice, this diner; my original intention after leaving chicago this afternoon was a little diner i'd found last week. what a place; it just dripped of anytownUSA, totally my kind of locale. thing is i was so tired when i came across it last week that now i couldn't remember where the hell it was. oh, i had a vague recollection and some idealistic notions as to where it was. but nothing concrete, and nothing written on paper.

so after about an hour of searching (an hour being an obscene length of time given the area, mind you) i finally find the place around 3:55...only to find that it closes at 4:00 on sundays.

from what i can gather, very few people can recite the sound of fate laughing as well as i. my gift/curse, i suppose.

so off i went, a block north and about a mile or so west, to this here old-folk's diner. where upon i realize that i have forgotten my pen and so ask the waitress for one 15 minutes later when she graces me with her presence. the waiting did give me time to think, though. i got to think about things like how drivers seem to leave far too much space between cars when entering a bottleneck; i had been on the highways for a few hours previous and about half of that time was spent watching the cars in other lanes merge and spread out as we entered three-lane-sections-merging-into-one-lane-sections. i'd complain if i could think of a way to solve the problem. after the waitress came back a few times, though, i started thinking on how she always filled up my coffee when it was halfway full.

you see, the art of coffee mixing is a delicate one, at best. a person with specific tastes will want one cream with one sugar, or some other such configuration, per cup of coffee. but when the waitress pours in more coffee when you've drank half of your one-cream-one-sugar batch...well it just screws up all the proportions of the cup, doesn't it? so now you have to add something like half a sugar and half a cream to re-adjust the mix, but that's never good enough because no one actually goes through all the maths in their head and, if they did, they would find that it's a very annoying amount of cream/sugar that needs to be added to make up for the coffee that the waitress added when she might have just waited another minute and poured a whole new cup instead, an amount like .33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333 of a sugar or something. honestly, how annoying is that?

of course this is all pointless, seeing as how it didn't really annoy me that much and how most people don't care enough to want to mix their coffee perfectly anyway. so don't worry, there was no chastising of the waitress and a good tip was left, as usual.

so, in retrospect, i will never understand I-90 or women.

after said old-folks-diner i came back home and watched as the family started on casablanca; my plan was to leave and go see some movies so i couldn't watch the whole thing with them. but i started them off and watched about fifteen minutes worth before i went to see Corpse Bride and Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. both were sufficiently entertaining and served their purposes.

after the movies i went to ihop and sat down to complete the outline/treatment of my new script. barring the fact that this is the second mention of this eatery in the same post, i nevertheless managed to finish what i had actually set out to do. rock on, right? right. so now, not only do i have a fully functional treatment outline, i can pump out a treatment in about fifteen minutes or so and feel reasonably sure that it will be met with at least mild approval. sure, there's plot anomalies to be worked out, of course, but nothing obvious yet and there's more then enough time to work on it. we haven't even started filming on the current film yet, let alone even thought about our next shoot. lots of room to maneuver.

so i have come home to enjoy myself (and the caffeine-induced insomnia), finish casablanca, and now try out another movie. all in all a very tolerable weekend. i got to spend time with a couple people around whom i feel completely comfortable, i basically wrote out my next screenplay, and i've basically moved on in a lot of different ways. not bad at all.

oh right, i almost forgot.

*ahem*

go sox.

come and knock on our door

2005-10-21T01:59:00.000-05:00

that's it! i've figured it out. i've figured it out i've figured it out.

i was brainwashed, see. i had been programmed, for so very many years, with this idyllic and outdated philosophy. it dawned on me, just now, this realization.

it dawned on me because Three's Company is on television right now. jack's simple solution to romantic intervention involves serenades and love letters, handwritten invitations and climbing balconies.

the kind of activities that today, of course, will get a pair of cuffs thrown on you. the kind of activities that, without a requisite intimacy, will blow away any chance you may have for looking like a stable human being.

brainwashed. exposed and treated and induced into believing that the world still accepts such things, that women and men and society still welcome these ideals with open arms. the subterfuge and the subliminal manipulation.

the sweet and cuddly little lies. extrapolate the rant all you like, but in the end it's simple.

if you have actually seen the episode, you'd know that jack does all these things, the serenade and poems and flowers and invitation, he does all this things...but for the wrong woman. this mistaken identity accepts the invite and shows up at his door, conventionally homely as she is, and forces jack into a floundering embarrassment that drips of the edges of the television.

if you have actually seen the episode, you'd know how very little jack is attracted to this woman, how very infatuated he is with his intended flame.

if you have actually seen the episode, then you'd know that jack gives up the woman he's lusted after when she turns vicious to the mistaken identity, he tosses her out the door to continue his date with the conventionally homely one. you'd know that, in the end, he saved face for himself and this overlooked woman.

you'd know that, in the end, it doesn't matter what anybody else says or what anybody else does. in the end you just have to do what's right, plain and simple.

the name is hindi for "Vesuvius"

2005-10-20T15:07:00.000-05:00

i'm not sure why, but i felt compelled to compensate for something last week.

i was back in hyde park, back on campus and jumping between labs and friends and coffee shops. i had a meeting downtown (blogged and blogged, if you've read it) and for day's end went down to hyde park just to go to hyde park.

i hung around until the director called (i had to remain in the city for this call) and gave me the addresses for two places downtown that sell lighting equipment.

so off i went. neither place seemed ostensibly able to meet our needs, but i took information and catalogs and came back to hyde park to watch a wong kar-wai film.

the day's compensation was in fundamental approaches to life, i guess. i sat amongst friends all day, jumped from group to group, all the while listening to those still in school and those long graduated. there were varying levels of debate and discussion, but it was always something slightly askew.

as if they were all speaking a foreign language, one i've studied and with which i am familiar, but never completely fluent. discussions on music, movies, philosophers and historians. on school politics, on global politics. on relationships and hopes and dreams and intentions.

i always seemed to be translating in my head.

but the compensation came with a little time. an excuse that i was amidst academics and intellectuals. that so many of these analyze and analyze and comment and connect and critique.

none of them, however, has created. i have seen no imagination or raging creativity other than through research (and even that's a stretch). they are mountains, solid and even capped with a little know. they are mountains surrounding a volcano. i sit and simmer, hollow and empty, smaller than the rest.

but every once in awhile, something happens. and i change. islands are borne, small villages are wiped off the map. and i grow, so slightly, just a bit taller than before.

right, so i didn't totally enjoy the kar-wai movie (that's right, i used the hyphenated last name ONLY. what are you gonna do about it?) given precedence, this makes two of his films that i find rather on the beaten path.

look out the window. check the weather. it's gonna be cold tonight.

thumper was the man

2005-10-20T01:11:00.000-05:00

i argue.

constantly.

this is not a fresh revelation, to be sure. just the closest within reach, for now. i deliberately, whether on a conscious level or not, play devil's advocate. i pick the opposite side of the majority simply to rouse and rebel. i go against the grain to see what happens.

not only that, oh ho ho ho ho, not only that. i go out of my way to create such dichotomy.

"i couldn't stand that movie," i'll say.

"i like ketchup with my eggs," i'll retort.

"you can't base your argument on that assumption," i'll expound. "you'd have to say that you believe in such-and-such, not take such-and-such as axiomatic for this argument."

and so on. i haven't spoken to another person all day, i haven't had a single discourse. so this is not a fresh revelation, to be sure. just the closest one within reach.

i went to use the washroom at a diner tonight (more on this later...the diner, i mean, not the washroom bit) and could only wonder. there, in the little alcove across from la toilette, was a baby-changing station.

it wrenches at the mind, you see; a question as to whether any man in recent history has actually brought a baby under the age of 3.5 years (as bounded by the directions of said changing station) into this washroom and sought out this baby changing station and used it. surely the odds of a man randomly using the facilities, then noticing the changing station, then going back to his seat with the information and later returning to the station with his (or heaven-only-knows-whose) child in tow, ready to change the kid, are staggeringly low? surely.

then another bit worthy of note. outlined there, on the right hand side, were the words

NEVER LEAVE A CHILD UNATTENDED.

and, below them, the sister translations into several other languages.

first note, if you please, that the punctuation at the end of dire warning is clearly a period. this trend continued through spanish, french, some other language, up until german.

the german translation, you see, had a big fat exclamation point. alright well the big and fat might be a relative assessment, though it was clearly an exclamation point.

but the german translation is the only one; the three translations above and the one below the german all have periods. all of them. period period period. exclamation point. period.

it delegates a further respect for the german people, i think, to inherently place such importance on the guardianship of children in random diner washroom corners.

the plan tonight was simple. after a short nap (completely lacking utility, of course) i had decided that enough television had been watched and that i would instead rather continue the novel i am currently reading. so off i go to my coffee shop to commence. after an hour or so, though, i was fraught with ideas for my next film storyline. so i decided to take my tidbits and garbled outline and have something produced by day's end.

first off, the day has ended, at least in calendar terms, and only a marginally clear piece has been produced. second off, i don't care because it is a very full outline that, although marginally clear, is nevertheless a very, very solid starting point. besides, this is a digression.

so i go off to the diner and plop myself down, ready to spend the night or however long writing my treatment. after about five to ten minutes, my outline was complete. i finished my coffee, hunkered down, and spent the next three hours reading the novel i had been reading previously. which ends this story presently. sitting here, full of coffee, novel close to finished, strong outline in hand, and nothing but optimism ahead of me.

i had forgotten myself. my mannerisms, my self-image. who i am, who i want to be, and how it is best projected. i forgot that i like to talk a certain way, that i like to dress a certain way, that i like to breath and work out and smile and dance and sing and write a certain way. i forgot that i don't need anybody else, no matter how much i may want somebody else around. i forgot how to lick the seconds off the clock and savor them. to sit in a corner with nothing but my thoughts and feel perfectly at ease.

hell maybe i never forgot, maybe i had a light in my eyes and simply needed time to re-adjust my mind's eye. i've been presented with new and wonderful and horrifying and amazing experiences and needed to blindly collect them all no matter what the cost to how i like to do things a certain way. i would forego talking the way i do so i could deal with a friend in need. i would forego dancing and singing to hold onto a moment that i knew would never come back.

for a year i've been a deer, stuck in headlights. now the car's gone, and it's time to finish crossing the road.

the times, they are becoming different

2005-10-18T15:37:00.000-05:00

there is something to be said for change. and it's this.

it can happen in an instant. a minute, a day. a matter of hours or weeks. your entire life, your entire outlook, your wardrobe your shoe size your tan. things can change, big or small, in durations of time unfathomable and not wanting to be conceived.

it's important to question, though, which is worse. when things change, forcing you to adapt? or when things don't change, despite how very badly you may want them to?

nor iron bars

2005-10-16T20:37:00.000-05:00

i'm starting to understand certain things, recently. but no lists, i am not making a list. no lists. so, let's begin.

the first is my city. all the memories that seem so old but that i've only actually accumulated in the last couple years. how one of the best things about being 40 stories up and looking down on buildings below is looking at the rooftops. seeing gardens and lawn chairs, umbrellas and pools and trees even. the things you see on rooftops can change your mind in ways you ways you didn't know could be managed.

i'm starting to understand the mentalities of all those people i could never understand before, or at least those people i wrote off as something else entirely. the ones who "can't handle a relationship right now" or who "aren't ready to date." the ones who simply don't want to deal with it all, the ones who i thought were just trying to let me down easy or who were severely deranged or something else that made more sense to me. i'm starting to appreciate the feeling. to empathize with it.

i'm starting to understand why someone can feel trapped. used to be that whenever i felt confined or forced or pushing in a direction i'd just go and figure out a way to solve it. or push back. but the more oppressive sort of binds have their way, too. sometimes you're forced and pushed and confined by yourself and your own sensibilities. by your responsibilities and your principles. how the hell do you push yourself back? the only way is to take it and hope that you can convince yourself to let up somehow.

i'm starting to understand being used without realizing it. time was when i'd see friends or family or characters in tv or movies or books, people whose self-worth was so invested into something else that they simply couldn't see what was going on. i would look at these guys and just stare in awe. watch them being used up, spit out, spun around, and chewed up again. watch them blame everything else in their lives on whatever troubles they had because they couldn't see the rotting core. they couldn't see that they were prostitutes, whoring themselves out, handing over dignity and integrity for money or attention or even love. i just couldn't understand how someone could be so blind. but i'm starting to understand how little that is true. nobody is that blind. they're just willing to close their eyes.

i was taking notes the other day, writing down my thoughts to put up here. thing was, every time i started on another line, i kept wanting to start my sentence with a 'p' i have no idea why, no other thoughts. just every time i started on another line, i put a hyphen to bullet it and then put down the letter 'p' as if i knew what i was going to write. but i had no idea what i was going to write, not a clue.

but that went by fairly quickly; i was killing time until a meeting but realized that there wasn't that much time to kill. so off i go, to this meeting and to a person that i realize now is almost freakishly similar to a character from the West Wing. speech patterns, pauses and accented syllables.

there are friends i can help. and there are friends i can't help. there are strangers i can pity and respect and just plain ignore. there are people that i deal with and people that i wish would deal with me. there are billions and billions of figments in my imagination that will never have seen my face. there are jerks and saints and all the years it can take to be one and then another.

there are hurts and hopes that look like they will never end. and then they disappear with some dawn that you never say coming.

and i'm starting to really understand how much more joy and how much more pain there is left to sift my hands through. like the handful of sand you focus on before you look up to see the desert ahead of you. the only thing you can do is make sure you have enough water. and a really big hat.

of course, once you start to understand something, it stops being important. which is a little sad, but a little freeing at the same time.

so much for feeling trapped.

tick. and then tock.

2005-10-13T02:00:00.000-05:00

"and life goes on."

my computer games says. the voice that spouted the proverb sounds oddly canadian, as supposedly american-living-in-prague as he is. with a goatee and glasses, no less.

there was a woman at the cash register of the store, today, while i waited to purchase a coat.

"that's a nice coat," she said. either that or something of such effect. and so small talk ensued, as i am wont to do, between said woman and myself and the cashier and the floors and the walls. a comment, a slight laugh, another comment. a slight laugh.

look at me, the amazing ball of charm, able to dispense pleasantries and commentary whilst still being completely ambivalent and mysterious. it's a longterm skill, mind you, something that must be learned over years and years. but i have had nothing, if not the time, to study such things.

the burning question, i know, that some of you ask. is he feeling better? is it fading away, the pain and the hurt and the memories and the wanton dusty dust that encrusts his skin? is he feeling better? is the counsel of friends and forum and far-fetched imagination leading him towards a thicker hide and solid objectivity?

is he feeling better?

yes and no, i must reply. yes and no and no and yes and yes. i am used to challenge, you see. i am used to problems and difficulties and overcoming complications.

an aside, for a moment, to recall the words of a very good friend of mine some years back, upon the discussion of his incredible luck, having found the woman of his dreams and my relating such to his karma:

"so there you go," i said. "something happened. you're a good person, believe it or not."

"you're good people," he then remarked. "where is your karmic justice?"

a perfectly substantial query, though i do have to ask whether or not it remains valid today.

have i received karmic justice? have i found and lost the most deserving moments of happiness of my life? or are there more to be found and lost and found? is whatever has happened so far been the most base of experience, unworthy of note or noble label? have i received my karmic justice, am i to have my karmic justice, is there such a thing at all?

i want so badly to spout off, to talk about ambition and want and need and hope and dream and all the things that make us do more than just breathe and eat and sleep. it's just such a farce though, to ramble on pedantic about a subject that i can barely spell, let alone describe. who am i? what authority do i have to talk about it? what good does it do anyone else, to read about it? how does it even help me, let alone anyone else?

it seems the time has come for something. something. but the more nagging time will come when i realize what that something is. the time has come to change, to remain the same, to learn or to teach or to mentor or to worship and fall to the floor. there is action to be executed, right this second, right now and right here. but what is that action?

what time is it?

full of sound and fury

2005-10-12T01:34:00.000-05:00

okay, that's it. time to spell it out.

i do not care how little you care. i do not care how i look. i do not care how i sound and walk and talk and present myself in my own home.

i do not care that it's all in vain. i do not care that there is more reason to veer towards disillusionment than there is to crawl to a hopeful ideal. i do not care that you have nothing to say to me. i do not care that you have everything to say to me.

i do not care that you are evil.

i do not care that you are busy and shortsighted and naive and disrespectful and innocently pretentious.

i do not care that you complain about nothing. i do not care that you're more humble than me.

I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR EXPLOSIVE INDIFFERENCE.

because that's it. final straw. that's it.

took my chances and tried my best, but in the end i'm not gonna explain myself anymore. i'm not gonna lay it all out there, i'm not gonna let anybody in anymore. i'm not gonna lift up the armor, i'm not gonna put down the sword. i'm not gonna twitch the poker face for half a second.

i am not going to disregard my tenets any longer. i am not going to let anyone get the best of me and i'm sure as living hell not going to let the reins go loose again. i am not going to fall.

i am not going to fall and i am not going to crash.

if only there were someone around to celebrate. but that's life, that's my life, and that's the pile of lemons that'll start a proverb. there's nothing worse than having to start over, especially when you were so sure about where you were headed. there's nothing worse than having to listen to the malcontents with no recourse but to put off the listening for another day. there's nothing worse than the pictures in your head, of all the joys and happiness and simple satisfaction that they are having, the ones that you hate to picture in your head. the ones that don't need to be stronger than you because they've managed to make it through the hard times without doing a damn thing.

this whole thing has become a rant, now. a sopping, soaking, dripping wet rag of asides and what-ifs. the whole literal explosion leaves a bad taste in my mouth. the whole experience does nothing truly cathartic, it just leaves me wondering how anyone can have just one post, just one drink just one hit. it's the splatterings of a keyboard junkie, the razorblade the needle of a word addict.

soldiers have their guns, carpenters have their hammers, drunkards the glass. whores have their price. and writers have their keyboards. their thoughts and their pencils and their twisted little monologues. their twisted little minds. their little, twisted souls.

when a man of science, a man of reason, a man of logic, theory, and thought loses all sense of rationale, what is left to say? what happens when that kind of man is thrown into cold and confusing waters, buoyed and bouncing and trying to understand while trying to breathe? what happens when that kind of man has to focus on the irrational and the simplistic, the childish and the pointless and the boring and the definition of malaise?

what happens when that kind of man cannot bring his mind back to reason?

because it sounds like that kind of man has to hatch into something else, if unable to do those things that are denotative of his nature. it sounds like that kind of man implodes into something else entirely.

see, now what just happened? what did all that self-serving malarky do? a whole rant, a page or more or more and there's nothing to show for it by now. no memorable quips, no endearing lines. i'll probably be at a loss to recall any special phrases, even. it's the ready-to-serve flotsum that lightens some ballast and let's me unburden so momentarily.

but, as usual, no one has any idea what i'm talking about. and so it goes, the entire game played again. with no one the wiser or the more interested.

let's not

2005-10-11T10:39:00.000-05:00

there's too many blogs that only rehash and spout off politics.

too many blogs that just take newspaper headlines and paste them on the electronic page.

pause

let's not continue that rant. let's leave it be shall we shall we?

it's time to focus on the things that haven't happened. losing my wife, losing my job, losing my kids, getting prostate cancer, being on the front lines of a war. watching someone sick, watching someone die. forcing my way through all the rest for whatever selfish reason i deem worthy. losing an unreignable love, having a nervous breakdown, being betrayed by everyone i know. not winning a presidential campaign.

let's not continue that rant. too many of those things have actually happened.

my coffee is good. my sweatpants/sweatshirt/socks are comfortable. the weather is just what i wanted. the reeses i had last night were great. the plans for tonight will hopefully be solidified. my back is feeling better. my head is clear. my consumptive curiosity remains abated for the time being.

it's quiet, and still. and i have another movie to write.

let's worry about tomorrow another time, shall we?

i just don't know

2005-10-11T03:12:00.000-05:00

honestly.

honestly.

honestly, what do you do when you identify and feel for the guy in the sitcom that is supposed to be receiving your laughter?

what do you do when you agree and empathize with the completely pathetic heap of compost that does nothing but provide comic relief through his horrible horrible misery?

honestly.

i just can't

2005-10-11T02:23:00.000-05:00

honest to god, i don't even know what i am right now.

me, the master of interpretation. the maestro of analysis and deconstruction. if my state were some sort of wave, i'd go into mathematical decompositions so elaborate that you wouldn't begin to understand the depths to which the whole is royally screwed. this state, this mindset, this composition and superposition and overwhelmingly amalgamated mush of thoughts and wants and needs and hopes and fears is compartmentalized and categorized and comprised of so many fundamentals that it just doesn't make sense to assign them weights.

you know what? it hurts. you're goddamn right it hurts. you know what? sometimes nostalgia pops up like that relative that you never see for a reason.

you know what? why should i? why should i?

you can't control your own reactions to things and why can't you control your own impulses. why can't you learn to empathize and eulogize and realize that there is nothing special about you and that's that.

"you never forget your first."

those were the words on a tee shirt today, in the middle of a comic shop in the middle of a mall in the middle of wherever it was that i was.

why should i?

another couple getting married. another friend cast into the fore and fading into ambivalence. the sad part is not knowing how true that is. the sad part is putting on some false air that sacrifices are made for relationships that will face problems so far unknown. the sad part is thinking that you might be knowledgeable in something that may be more forced than decided.

i don't need to explain myself, i say to myself. i am enlightened, i say to the stranger looking at me while i say things to myself.

the basic tenet, vikas. how in the flaming hell do you inscribe and carve into stone a basic tenet and then disavow its importance?

how, vikas, do you GIVE YOURSELF A RULE AND THEN NOT FOLLOW IT??

i've turned into a bloody nag. nitpicking conversations, picking at conceptual inconsistencies. poking at word choice, twisting and tearing at themes and subtext in relation to the delivery used. argumentative, antithetical. devil's advocate for no reason other that to hear someone's rationale.

wanna hear why? wanna know, wanna understand, wanna read why?

show me another challenge left and maybe i'll change. but for right now it's the only thing that provides any sort of engagement.

i despise this, the groveling sort of stimulation. mindless and mechanical and lacking any formal creativity.

i despise the things that i cannot have, no matter how hard i try. i despise not being able to have it, completely independent of skill or intent or content of character.

it's like being told by everyone on the planet that you can breathe, that it's easy and that it just happens and that you shouldn't even think about it. it's like being told by everyone on the planet that you can breathe but knowing that none of these people have ever had asthma in their entire lives.

how nice it must be, to be certain of one area in your life. how nice it must be, to know that one area is always worth chasing and wanting and fixing and supporting.

how nice it must be, to know that area will love you back just the same.

how nice, how nice, how nice how nice how nice how nice.

why should i?

last week was quite the carousing. the entirety of those in training ventured downtown, to explore their new city. not feeling up to paying $60 to go into the city i visit almost every night, i stayed behind.

the night turned into one of light drinks, then hopping bars in st. charles. after the third bar my toronto-nian friend and i threw on some fake accents and took to the masses.

i donned an australian/uk thing, whilst my browner companion became an arabian austrian currently living in toronto. we made quite the foreign delegation, to be sure.

enough that this impressed a trio waiting outside the last bar, a trio that volunteered to drive us up to the latest open bar in the suburbs, 20 miles north, with them. the accents and the revelry continued, driven north with us.

the dancing, the drinks, and the more slight dancing. the women remarking on all the dancing partners we should so easily attain, with our incredibly magnetic accents. well, with mine at least. more comments, more toasting. more blindly blinding cavorting.

then, back to training. less going out at night, but still the occasional venture. i began to find myself anew, somewhat. rediscovering and relearning the lessons that were never really forgot.

i don't want to talk about training anymore.

though a friendship was made. a good one. a healthy one. a comforting one. a viable one. a good one.

the last week was one of secrets told and uncovered, tales recounted and remembered. it was all the things that i knew and should have trusted but did not want to admit. it was all the recollections that now only prove how very right i was. and how very blind i was willing to be.

this weekend was less than of note. friday night with the newly minted friendship. the good one. saturday sleeping, sunday sleeping. sunday night, monday night, movies and more movies.

today, looking at things towards which i should not look.

the tenet, vikas. just follow the tenet until you don't need it any more. okay? can you just follow the bloody tenet, already?

i just wish i could stop thinking about this thing, about that thing. half of it is whining, the other half is venting. the other remaining percentage is lacking any care about what the hell anybody thinks.

the last few weeks have come with commentary on how young i look. not how young i am, not how naive i am, just how young i look in comparison to certain other people.

why should i?

i feel like punching anyone who says i look young. i feel like punching anyone who wants to look at me and feel rational in finding me naive. i feel like punching anyone who wants to tsk tsk tsk their commentary into trying to teach me a lesson that i learned far earlier than they.

i feel like punching anyone.

just throw a switch in my brain that turns off reactions to how certain people talk. just twist a knob and let me be poker-faced and unresponsive to that smirk, that smile. that smooth line that makes you want to break your own kneecaps. that mentality and willingness and sheer bluntness that make you want to want nothing else.

but today, we found a good diner. today, we saw good movies. today, we saw far too many previews.

today, i opened up the special bourbon, now to stay awake the rest of the night so as to some point hopefully pass a few hours with the newly minted friendship. the good one.

today, we listened to phil collins in one too many places and appreciated such just enough to warrant my riveting conclusion:

Because I can't stop loving you
No, I can't stop loving you
No, I won´t stop loving you

Why should i.

in case you were wondering...

2005-10-03T11:38:00.000-05:00

...do not, do not, do not, DO NOT cook green peppers in a microwave. there's a tendency to turn out badly.

and cause small fires.

grips are incredibly hard to come to

2005-10-01T05:26:00.000-05:00

the name is one i've heard too often. a slimy sort of name, at least now, prevalent enough to warrant disgust. around, in movies, in books. in the appellation of friends.

time. how disappointing to live presently and always want the future. craving it, like a hike in blood sugar. wanting to be out of class, wanting to be out of this job. out of these clothes, into a room. under the sun, over her. wanting a challenge that lasts more than a few hours, women with too much makeup. men with too much hairgel.

hi, i'm so-and-so, from section such-and-such.

brown shoes and black socks, Mr. so-and-so stands up, he's wearing brown shoes and black socks.

i start ripping paper, making my little square. i was a master of origami, when i was a lad. i was a folding extraordinaire, a papier magician. i was phenomenal. right now i can barely fashion a crane. how sad and simply uncool. how nostalgic and wrong.

two days later, i made one in about fifteen seconds. i'm back, in full effect. in full effect.

a late night at a suburban bar left me with two hours of sleep and the kind of bleary eyes that would scare little children. maybe even teenagers. during our lunch break i snuck a nap outside, in a couch; everyone in class and other classes had seen me, it seems.

"hey," i'd hear a day later, "you were the kid sleeping in the hallway on friday."

"i know you," they'd call, "you were sleeping during lunch! we left and came back an hour later and you were still sleeping!"

it seems that spanish card decks don't have 8's and 9's, originally. 40 cards in a pack.

the lectures drone on, "marketing people tend to be creative, accounting people tend to be more numbers and statistics." where does that put me, i wonder? i'm versed so very well, in both marketing and numbers. what kind of person am i? am i a person at all, definable in this little convention center away from all known civilization?

i hate, i hate, i HATE the 'questions?' powerpoint slide. the little 3-d question mark, that olive-spring green question mark that casts the darker question mark onto the space behind it, that ubiquitous slide that EVERY SINGLE PRESENTATION MUST HAVE AFTER EVERY SINGLE SECTION.

"you feel like you're wasting your time," we say. we talk about being on project neither urgent nor important, in our definition. we move on to those projects that are urgent though not important, the liars and the deceptions. "you've been deceiving me, i've been wasting my time."

"is there anything i could have done to prevent this."

it reminds me all too well of deceptions and secret meetings, lies there were not lies and truths that were not revealed. it reminds me of the callous carelessness of other people, and the way they have removed me of power. how my perceptions were countermanded by their unwillingness to be fucking straight with me.

it goes on, "tv is a substitute for challenging ourselves, because we were introduced to something new." we had the world open up to us and close abruptly, so we live our lives in screen to experience the joys that have since gone, and which cannot be easily rediscovered.

"if you choose, it's important. it's what your intent is, and how you feel after. it is because you chose that course of action that makes it fair."

now ain't that the lamentable truth.

fade to some sort of browish, purple thing

2005-09-30T14:14:00.000-05:00

it is simply evolution. a purified and corporate selection. spend all your time with people, every real available minute of your day, and you get to know them without knowing a thing about them.

soon you start to identify the drunks. the ones in pain and the ones with an agenda. the ones looking for prey. the ones looking for a prayer.

the overworked. the poor. the sad, the lonely, the hippie. the pensive. the shy. the cold, the naive. the self-assured. the cheaters. the good friends.

weaning myself off the coffee, slowly and slowly; that just means that i've had a little less and less the last few days. that just means i've been sleeping less and less and compensating less and less, the last few days.

i don't get headaches. my skin doesn't crawl, i don't get dizzy. i'm more susceptible to shivers, cold fronts along the backside. goosebumps and spasmodic muscle cramps. i'm more likely to shake. but right now is just the tired wired buzzing in my ears. meetings and formalities.

what a farce, this platform. the world is but a stage, of course. i ask, instead, if you know the play. i ask, instead, if you know your role. i ask if you know cues, i ask if you know lines.

do you know who the freaking audience is?

the suburbs burned last night. burned down, homeless cattle everywhere. rhythm and song, beating down the walls. burning down the house. roofs were raised, backs leaned back. minds were lost, up in here. up in here.

strings have been cut and harsh realities realized. bring on the loss, bring on the degradation. bring on the disappointment and the heartbreak. we've lifted off, now, and all these are trivialities, amongst the dirt and rubble. trivialities, of no concern to me and mine.

i was at breakfast this morning, with a couple hours of sleep under my belt. table shared with germans and brits and americans. the girl across from me, cheese omelet puffing out some steam as omelets are wont to do, she looks at me and notices my name tag. she asks if i'm indian, and i say that i am.

"my old boss," she said, "he had your name, he is indian too. where are you from?"

Pujab, i said.

"Punjab?," she nodded knowingly. "I hear people from there make good friends."

it's my party

2005-09-29T19:18:00.000-05:00

why, in the name of everything everything everything everything everything everything in the universe and past present future, in all discovered and undiscovered dimensions, does it never get easier?

why is the mind never secondary, why is it never something to just float over and scan? why is it never just...under control???

why am i always the different one, why am i always the charming, witty, engaging, funny, cute and entertaining freak? why am i always the step away, why am i always watching everybody laugh and everyone in love and everyone enjoying and everyone in ecstasy and causing all of it but never really part of it.

why do i get a fleeting glimpse of feeling like a part of something. why do i only get some minute chance to feel every part of me just shake with knowledge that i've been invested in something, part of something, holding real emotional stakes? why does that happen so rarely that i get so confused and unsure when it comes around?

i'm a slinky. retro and childlike. i've been through it all, i was a joy to children and a nostalgic memory for adults, a comfort present and past. i was the affordable friend, the distraction and the entertainment, and every time you think of me you remember something good.

thing is, nobody plays with a slinky for long. thing is nobody goes out of their way to find a slinky. thing is nobody ever cares about one until it's sitting there, then they need it deeply for those few few minutes of worth...then back to the shrouds of yesterday.

why get angry? why get obsessive and pensive and analytical? why think about things that don't deserve your time, why think about things that signify nothing?

a slinky is only valuable with potential, with a difference in height between the ends. when front and back, past and future, allow for a path. lateral movement does nothing, motility is in the gradient. the potential, the difference in height. because you start where you are, but end up someplace else.

i might have to miss seeing alumni. might not make it out. might not catch a break, might not realize i've caught one. might not might not might not might not might not go so long again without seeing the sun.

it's nice outside. it's always nice outside. you just have to stop for a second and realize it.

the duck goes quack, the cow goes "lay off, I'm divine. Rock."

2005-09-28T16:32:00.000-05:00

it's such a plaintitive death. quiet and reserved and totally passive. uncomfortable but calm. not ideal, but painless. breathe in, breathe out.

"let's move on to the C category," says the speaker. class moves on and my thoughts congeal and there's good and bad and innocent and redemptive in the world, all hiding in a corner with crobars and cigars. wating for me.

"team 23. Give a round of applause," speaker says,"for table 23."

take a bat and resculpt my skull, plaster the walls with grey. please please please please don't send me back. please please please please just let me be. debrief. listen learn test score graph talk listen. remember and struggle with lost wishes. smile smile smile.

my personality test says i'm warm, friendly. two-way flow, a good listener. enthusiastic. stimulating. easily excitable. often one-way, can inspire others. an attacking behavioral style.

it wasn't me. it isn't my fault. it wasn't my fault. it was not my fault.

i don't know anyone, any of these people. fiancees and boyfriends and girlfriends and siblings, they know them. i am here temporarily, a shimmer of slacks and tie. but the pointlessness lasts only a few minutes, brought back by the newness of all these same people.

hours later, now. school can be engaging, when filled with activities and goals and documents to be written up. print, stamp, file it all away. look back and find out how to take meeting notes. take the notes, file it all away. repeat.

i am not lazy. i am not confused. i am not slow, i am not unable. i am not unwilling. i am not uninformed. i am not broken and i am not down for the count.

i am elemental, a force of nature unnatural. i am the calm and the fucking storm.

a generation of men raised by women. i think fight club might have had it right all along. something to consider, folks, next time you lose your head. or hold onto it too tightly.

the break for lunch had me going back to my room, intending to nap. rather there were emails to be sent and IMs to be replied, and so i turn on the television.

almost with a smirk, lovely fate delivers unto me...the cosby show.

two episodes, two whole great wonderful episodes of the cosby show. i tried to sleep, i honestly did, but it just wasn't gonna happen. things happen that way sometimes, i guess, so you just have to deal with it. no complaints here, though.

back from two episodes, in class. prepped for and rolled out a mock interview with my team. things went smoothly, if a little unpredictably.

few more hours and end of class. probably won't go out tonight; things happened last night that warranted delving into revelry to distract me. i think the aftermath has me a little stomachy and hesitant to imbibe as easily as the night before.

i had a conversation and had to stick it out. i had a conversation that i wanted and didn't want, with feelings and statements and revelations that i did and didn't want. i don't settle; i trust my gut and when it tells me that things can be a certain way i simply don't let go. occasionally this feeling goes away, and that's okay.

it's when that feeling won't go away and there's still nothing to support it. when the feeling won't go away and everything around and everyone around points to having to let go. when there's a sanity to it and a madness to it and having to deal with one of the incredibly few times the distinction blurs on all fronts. it's when you don't want much and still can't seem to have it...it's hard for someone like me to wrangle with. i don't settle.

besides all that from last night, the haze of the world is shifting perception and identification. future plans and scanning this new face in your mirror. spontaneity and duty, responsibility and childish urges. memories of winter fading, despite all the times you close your eyes to recall them. despite all the times you try to remember something good that's now gone.

back to class. just won another game. what is the prize today?

MAGNETIX!!!

basically little magnetic tubes and balls that can form joints. make bulky little wiremesh-like geometrics. odd looking dogs, canoes with no hope of floating.

something tells me to wind down, though. maybe it's the smell of play-doh, the metallic clang of ball bearings. lack of sleep, not enough cheese. simple written exhaustion. at best, it's a lack of direction. for now.

"if you don't know where you're going," the cheshire cat says, "any road will take you there."

for godssakes, guys. brown socks? then BROWN SHOES...

2005-09-27T14:31:00.000-05:00

manic. just plain old, everyday manic. out of the ordinary manic. friggin manic.

depressive.

but manic. manic in fluctuation, manic in randomness. manic in instability, manic in vacillation. manic in not knowing what the hell i'll be feeling in five minutes.

don't push this button, don't flip this switch. don't even breathe on the lever. don't brush the pedal, don't turn the knob. don't twist, don't shake, don't tilt don't twirl don't don't don't.

don't tempt, don't entice. don't insinuate. don't jive. don't lie, don't hate. don't moralize. don't preach. don't sneer, don't smirk, and don't you dare order me around.

don't look down your nose at me.

there's no ties here, no coats. no cufflinks and no vests.

i have yet to see another pair of wingtips.

blue, black, grey. white and pinstripes. open collars and 12-hour shadows. accents: scandinavian. parisian and germanic. brits and hicks, patrician snorts and sighs.

there's lots of pink shirts.

and that's why i don't wear them. not because they're effeminate, not because i'm insecure. because it's so gauche, so standardly and conformally 'chic.' a little magic color that suddenly makes you daring and fashionable. gimme a break.

but that wouldn't have stopped me. i still would have done it, still would have worn one, given my reasons at the time. those reasons are gone, for the moment.

i've been seeing a different genre of drinking, lately. fraternal, social, more than a carnal perfunction. familial, almost. chummy.

i've been seeing a congealing genre of people, lately. professional, capable, but with the human twinges unseen during the 9-5. open, honest. not so honest. wanting and leering, chasing and hiding. proud of country, proud of heritage. proud of life and place. cocky, self-concerned. there's selfishness and civility with a dash of indifference.

i'm tired. haven't slept and haven't wept and haven't stopped breathing for a second. i'm tired of facades, i'm tired of plans and dreams and structured centuries of life. i'm tired of nods. tired of waiting. tired of wanting and wishing.

i'm tired of living quietly.

that face in the mirror looks familiar

2005-09-26T02:16:00.000-05:00

i can't believe i forgot. i forgot. i can't believe it.

i forgot what it's like to walk into a hotel lobby, glass doors sliding open and everything you need to survive strapped to your back.

opening your door with that little magnetic card and throwing it into your pocket with fingers crossed because you really are anxious over maybe forgetting to take it once you leave again. throwing your garment bag and messenger bag onto the bed, sitting down on that chair behind the desk that you'll never actually use.

a sigh and a survey of your surroundings.

air conditioner in the corner, humming away and making you feel like precious dollars are being wasted when you can just as easily open a window. but still, you leave it on. the little fridge that isn't practical for anything other than deli ham or shots of vodka. but still, you cram in liters of coke and oversized styrofoam leftover boxes from the late night before.

then...the television. the cable card propped up somewhere nearby. conversions: fox 12 to fox 37.6, NBC 5 to NBC π. and, being the A/V soul that i am, the tube is invariably ignited. the gentle lull of mindless commercials and mini-drama are somehow the most primitive of natural background.

too many lamps.

plenty of blankets. pillows? forget about it.

the crux, you see, is preparation. hotel/conference center gaggles of people. all of us the same age, all here for 'professional' reasons. the marketing club of high school, you see, is a pounding four years of reiteration and repetition, training you to cast aside any real concerns when attending conferences and training classes and all other forms of career-driven future-malaise.

the marketing club of high school hones your suddenly-social abilities, breaking shy shells and self-doubt. the marketing club of high school prepares you and introduces you to the life that blindly passes you by.

the throngs of young people, rambling around and drinking and talking and trying so hard not to expose their insecurities. their reasons for being here tainted by naive expectation and inexperience with the corporate tapestry. their hopes that the weeks will pass without demerits and maybe a good amount of drinking. how predictable.

the week has progressed in time, though possibly stale in other ways. old friends become less than friendly, old friends become less than memories of a different time and different persons. old friends become new friends.

the cast is complete, for the most part, excepting a few one-line appearances. the comfort level is rising, and the shooting dates are approaching fast. the expectations are high and excitement volcanic. things are moving along.

the most illuminating this week is the realization of surroundings. the understanding that things simply aren't right. an unveiling of all the things that you would change, if you could. friends and clothes, hairstyles and car and outlook on life. blankets. relearning an old instrument, discovering a new one. the way you stick out your tongue too much, the way you quibble over semantics. the way you view reality.

suddenly your surroundings shouldn't be surrounding you.

two weeks ahead, full of work and learning and socializing and gallivanting. cavorting. cohorting. doing things.

the weekend was full of rachel weiz, oddly enough. every video, every dvd, every movie reference. there she was. movies rented and there she is, couldn't have seen it from a mile away.

"it's a sign," i said. "clearly. now all i have to do is figure out what it means."

i'm a bit of a short-writing machine of late. ideas pumping and dumping and lolling around. the last couple of weeks have been good, at least in intention. production could have been better, but there's time for that.

same goes for theories, too; the meandering into physics is back again, recreating scientific history in my own head the way i've been doing since high school. someday it'll be ahead of the curve; for right now, it's in the middle of what most are seeing in grad school. and that's nothing to complain about.

given the monotony of the average day, you'd think i have a routine. but i don't. there are constants, of course; taking showers, getting dressed. and i'm proud to say i brush my teeth every single day. but still, all else lacks the rigid structure of a rut, so monotony is of a vaguer form. what to do, where to do it, and finding it all moot because such things aren't able to be done. so let's see what happens with a schedule this fortnight.

too much espresso. too much unfinished business. too much time and too much ambition. too much ego. too much jade and too much else that can make you happy. there simply isn't time for routine and rules. there simply isn't time for conformity.

and wouldn't you know it, i forgot to pack toothpaste.

four-score and still plenty left to go

2005-09-19T05:12:00.000-05:00

there are days when i wish i were forty years older. days when i fucking wish that when i'm left with only memories like this i could have a more gripping story than these meager couple of decades.

earlier this week i realized i'd been inside for a fair stretch of days. no one was about, as usual, so off i went to the nearest diner, to partake in coffee and to spend way too much time there.

i, of course, ended up ordering food after about two hours of lounging. the kid serving me was clearly in his first week at most and apologized drippingly after making the most minor mistakes. i stayed there, drinking coffee and nibbling an omlette for something like five hours. reading my book and contemplating how right it felt to be back in a groove i had shunted off and cast aside so long ago. five hours of reading and coffee and refills and apologies.

i tipped him about 70%. it was just one of those days, the kind when you know doing something a little extra will be appreciated and not taken for granted. when something that you've done for someone else will not be glossed over or disregarded. when you honestly don't care what happens next because all you wanted to do was something that might mean just a little bit more to that someone else.

the week abounds with stories of diners and of pensive recollections. i finished a short this week, another screenplay treatment about 10 minutes long. i finished the first draft in a diner, waiting. i finished it with my headphones on and a laptop sitting next to me, writing in a notebook and listening to Fight Club on my ipod (yes i ripped the audio track and listened to the entire dialogue...hardly the first or last time). but it was when an older gent came in about half an hour later that i wanted to take a sledgehammer to my own head.

he was an older gent, alone like me. seated in non-smoking like me. he pulled out his laptop, like me, and kept it to the side like me. he pulled out a notepad like me and a pen, like me. he pulled out a book, like me. he sat there and wrote, like me, after putting on his headphones. like me.

the clincher being, of course, that this older gent spent his time writing and eating a bowl of ice cream. so very much like me...at least in principle.

this older gent, nothing distinguished about his dress or his air or his anything. nothing at all about this gent, this gent like me. i was staggered, i wanted to figure out where i could buy a sledge like the one i'd thought about before and actually put it to good use. i thought about this man, all the experiences in his life and in his mind, this man like me. i pondered and wondered and just kept going on and on and on. his ice cream and his writing, his book and his laptop and headphones and coffee. like me.

this went on for half an hour, maybe an hour, when i noticed what should have been noticed a lot sooner.

on his left hand, the left hand of this gent like me, was a ring. a golden band. simple. perfect. nothing if not classic. this ring that would, someday, be just like me. the man was, if not now, at least at some time, married. and that made the sledge seem far less meaningful. and makes the pensive wanderings turn to thinking that maybe there's hope for me yet.

the short, the first draft, the first treatment. it wasn't enough. not edgy enough, not loud enough. not brash enough. not different enough. just not enough. so after another day of thought and what have you, out comes the second draft. it will be read tomorrow (meaning later today) and we'll see what will come of it. the movie took a whole mess of drafts, so no harm will come of this needing the same.

there is a tide. unseen, unheard, and undeclared. but it turns. and is turning. just a little longer and it will wash up something very, very different.

the scariest thing about change is basically what scares the whole human race, at the core...uncertainty. not knowing what to do now. not knowing what will come or not knowing if you can even prepare yourself. what fear it is, to know that you have simply changed and that it will be another struggle to come to grips with yourself all over again.

being a different person, changing yourself...it is only scary when you don't see it coming. it's the realization that things have been gained and lost, that realization that opens up a whole new darkness. understanding that you haven't got a clue, anymore.

the next worst thing about change is knowing that it can happen again. knowing that there are things unveiled only upon inspection. knowing that there are experiences in life for which there is no preparation. knowing that someday you will have to look up and be changed again. knowing that someday you will have to face the unknown no matter how much you'd thought about it.

the weather, the tide, the temperatures and the mind. they're all rolling into a new era. they're all re-molding themselves without a care in the world.

it's just that, some days, i wish i were forty years older and done with it already.

no pudding here

2005-09-11T12:16:00.000-05:00

how do i set out to prove that i boil over with foam and floxum, follies and a flux of do's and dont's?

i'm getting an itch.

an itch to leave town, an itch to get away. an itch to ditch and leave and look back to only memories. but memories rarely hold solace.

it's human nature to love what you can't have. is it really that simple? because the realization of truth comes at quite a cost. it follows harsh trials and harsher trails. it comes with the loss of innocence. will you, do you love what you can have? is that an anchor for innocence, knowing what you have and what you want and loving only what is willing to be loved?

and then the analysis. the knowing what you can and cannot have. the understanding and the willingness to go after what you can or cannot have. the infantile and the romantic notions that allow the most humble and ambitious to change the world in the only way that is available or possible.

the thoughts that convince us all that our obstacles are so low. when you grow up with the mentality that anything is possible, you accomplish things that are so often impossible. the thinking that urges the genius to pursue only that which (for all intents and purposes) they cannot immediately have.

the thinking that defines our desires and accomplishments. cognito ergo sum (just look it up).

monroe-bridge-guy brightened up the day yet again this afternoon, 'round 4:30:

"bum, chic-ka bum, chic-ka bum, chic-ka BUM...USA!
bum, chic-ka bum, chic-ka bum, chic-ka BUM...THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY!"

and there is much to be noticed in way of solicitation of donations. so let me break it down for you, a subtle layering within a seemingly homogenous group: the samaritans, the selfless, provide aide with a quiet dignity. the guilty outcry and lobby, with protest and indignation.

because there is a measure of guilt by the profession of righteousness.

but now to tangent. there is a group of bike messengers that gathers 'round the thompson center in the middle of the day, most days. of course there's no definitive way to call them bike messengers; though each having a messenger bag strapped to their side while straddling/resting their arms on a bicycle would suggest the profession.

do bike messengers have a union? a group or social circle? do they have an actual reason to congregate? discuss.

it's that time of year to look back and pin down all the invevitably painful influences on your life that allowed you to rationalize and wipe away any regrets you might have in the name of 'fate.'

i went to buy some ice cream the other day (zip it...you know who you are...) and took a second to acknowledge the older woman cashiering me. the name tag looked a little rough, at least not new. it had her name carved out in the plastic and, right below, had a succint little prologue:

serving you for over 20 years.

20 years, working at this grocery store. 20 years of stories and talents and experience and loss, all cooped up and contained in a store and a tag. her life story could never be summed up in series of books, and here it is. attempted in a flap of plastic molded to a metal pin. i'm sure it says something about mankind or the board of directors of this particular grocery store chain, but i'm not sure what that is.

quod erat demonstrandum.

take a note

2005-09-02T11:21:00.000-05:00

it is important to remember that bad dreams have a tendancy to make you feel things are actually worse than they are, good dreams making you feel as if anything is possible.

captain obvious suggests you get up and walk around after a bad dream. talk to people, converse. interact.

he also suggests that after a good dream you go out and find those who have had bad dreams and help them out a little.

there's something to be said for obvious truth from time to time.

thanks, stevie

2005-09-02T03:33:00.000-05:00

i believe when i fall in love
with you
it will be forever.

i believe when i fall in love
this time
it will be forever.

not a bad way to end a movie.

not a bad way to end the day.

she called and i am happy

2005-09-01T21:08:00.000-05:00

i am a night person. i missed the night, the complete lack of responsibility.

knowing that nothing can happen until the sun comes up. knowing that this is your time, free as you like, no responsibility as long as you can keep your eyes open.

i miss winter. it's refreshing to know that right at the end of winter i missed summer, knowing that the end of summer i'm missing winter. fall and spring and all the greys in between.

i miss the quiet waiting to be broken.

i missed being surrounded by cool breezes and the idea that the only activities available are those that i have to create. the idea that nobody else is out and about, everyone in their little apartments and homes and houses. painting, sculpting, writing and reading and sitting in front of fireplaces.

i miss sitting in front of a fireplace and not having to think about tomorrow. and not worrying about what other people are doing right now and not letting my mind race with all the experiences i'm missing.

i'm missing the feeling of not missing life.

but right now it's waiting to find out about my new project. waiting for emails and phone calls and referrals and suggestions. waiting to see where i'll spend half my life in the coming months.

how easy it is to shrug off life and say 'i've changed.' to let your pains and pissed off commentary to fall into a box, close it up, take a black marker and write 'i'm a different person' in big calligraphed letters. it's so damn easy, but that's only after you've figured it out. until you've figured it out it's nothing but difficult.

blah bippity blah blah blah.

so what's up with movies? people complain about hollywood and hollywood and all the big budget monstronsities. have you ever SEEN what most indie productions are like? The kinds of shorts and features that regular joes and unorthodox schmoes spend grands and grands to produce? the competition, for us at least, is less than competitive. ghastly and really really bad.

and this is all coming from a guy who really really really likes movies. the guy who can redeem any piece of floxum with comments like "that pseudo-twist in the middle that gave her the change in outlook was totally against the grain of normal noir mores" and other equally pointless observations.

so glasses up, smiles on, and clink the drinks to our hapless little group's cannon shot towards recognition.

anyway.

i'm drowning in a sea of voices. television, brother, father, mom, another television, and the movie i had to pause on my laptop before my head imploded (high fidelity, by the way). plus a problem with my nose, something like a sniffle coupled with demons dancing in various membranes.

network keys and insurance quotes. new cars, old cars, social security numbers. laptops, comcast, broadband. cable. oil changes, shanghai nights, computers sweating sneezing and turning on a fan. more computers, passwords, network keys. routers and routers and cable modems and where did i put my bag?

two things happened on the way back home from work.

the first happend on the madison bridge. the madison bridge, that lovely little strip of tens of feet of iron or steel or whatever chicago chose in constructing the bridges 'cross her river. that little strip where the madison-bridge-guy occasionally works his magic using nothing but drum sticks, large plastic buckets (turned downwards of course), and the kind of smile on his face that makes the best of us want to dance a little bit. and makes me want to dance way more, given it's me. so this madison bridge, this steel or iron strip, was loaded with the sounds of madison-bridge-guy when i started to cross.

now the thing to know about madison-bridge-guy is that he basically riffs the same riff (though a drum riff rather than guitar...yeah so i'm a dork. shut up.) and inserts a quotation or a line from a song when there's that pause in the beat.

like bum ba dit ba, bum bum ba dit bah, bum bum dit dit dit dit..."have a good day chicago!"

or bum chicha bum chica bum bum dit dit dit dit dit dit bum bum..."bring it on home!"

and so on. yesterday, this last time, so long since i've seen him on the bridge, madison-bridge-guy finishes his riff, takes that extra half second, turns to me, and says

"i want a tie like that!" and goes on.

the train ride home was less inspiring and must serve as a cautionary tale to those who choose to embark. it is a warning, a dire dire warning, a plunging into the inner depths and disgustions that seed the fruit of men and women in and out of their prime.

so, you have been warned. because, quite frankly, it starts with me picking my nose.

that's right, bucko. ME. PICKING. MY. NOSE.

it wasn't disgusting, it wasn't gross and nasty and ungodly. it was the practical need that we've all felt. completely utilitarian.

completely utilitarian.

but that alone is not a story. because it is not a story when the practical bit lasts five seconds or so. probably less. the story is after the practical bit. the story is when you find yourself with fruit of your utilitarian endeavour sitting on the end of your finger, caught underneath your fingernail as expected.

the story is when you're sitting on a train and this thing on the end of your finger is waiting to be flicked. the story is when you're sitting on a metra train and this thing on finger...

the story is when you flick it.

the story is when you flick it and it lands somewhere.

the story is when you flick it, and it lands inside the shoe of the guy sitting in the aisle over. the guy who took off his shoes and kicked up his feet and is sleeping while you flicked this thing into his shoe.

the story is when you laugh to yourself and imagine it sitting there inside the leatherbound container.

the story is when you try and contain yourself when the guy wakes up and puts on his shoes, imagining the squish of the thing being pressed down and pushed into the shoes and all the sounds it would make that could never be heard.

high fidelity is a definitive chicago movie.

if you wanna be somebody else

2005-08-31T02:25:00.000-05:00

if you're tired of fightin' battles
with yourself
if you wanna be somebody else...

change your mind.

you can't see nothin' if the mirror's broke

2005-08-31T02:12:00.000-05:00

the only way to know yourself is to cheat yourself. to go against your own grain and writhe against your mores and moralities.

only sinners. that only sinners can be really self aware.

every time i see an older couple walk past me, holding hands and smiling, i think back a bit. about the last time i mentioned it,

"awwww, it just fills you with hope; that maybe things can work out,"

...was the response. yup yup yup, says the walking memory closet with a penchant for writing less-than-succinctly. yes indeed.

the elbow-deep search to remember the old self continues, unabated. though it draws to a close, somewhat. the problem was never one of finding the light...rather it was taking off the shade and letting it shine. not so much trying to define myself and remembering how well i used to know that definiton, no. it's about not hiding what i think and want and know behind some self-righteous blather about sacrifice and taking-one-for-the-team. it's about not letting myself be stopped from being myself.

so there you go. turn off the lamps, we found what we're looking for.

soon comes broadband. soon comes filming. soon comes acting. soon comes dinners and dancing and long nights out. soon comes studying and studying, soon comes research and letters of recommendation. soon comes distraction. soon comes so many things.

soon comes regret. but that's awhile away.

older couples, holding hands. walking to their car, climbing stairs to their apartment. eating in the park.

oh and on a side note: if i ever found a genie i'd probably be at a loss. end of side note.

let's remember a song, then:

"I've been searching for a long time
To find someone to be mine
I never thought, you'd come along
Now that you're here, all my worries are gone
Ohh

Sweet you
Sweet you
All of my dreams have all come true

You're just the one I've been looking for
You're just the one I've been looking for

I didn't know how long it would take
But good things come to those who wait

I can't ask for anything more
You're everything I've been looking for

Sweet you
Sweet you
Nobody, nobody, nobody will ever do

You're just the one I've been looking for
You're just the one I've been looking for

Nights were dark, the days gotten longer
My mind was weak but my heart stayed strong
Then you came along and rescued me
Please don't you ever, set me free

Oh no
Ohh

Sweet you
Sweet you
All of my dreams have all come true - yeah

You're just the one I've been looking for - baby
You're just the one I've been looking for

I've been looking - you're the one
I searched all day monday - you're the one
And I couldn't find'ya - you're the one
I searched all day tuesday - you're the one
And I couldn't find'ya - you're the one
Early wednesday morning - you're the one
You know I found you - you're the one
And when I found you - you're the one
I threw my arms arround you - you're the one
I said baby I'm glad - you're the one."

just fills you with hope...that maybe things can work out.

before the storm, perhaps

2005-08-29T01:16:00.000-05:00

i am so devoid of euphemism, of witticism and chemistry and interesting jibberjabber. i can't think to post anything of note. i can't think, i can't spell, i can't wonder in writ.

pffft, whatever. the day i can't babble like a buffoon...see, i can't even finish that thought. guess that day is today. rather today is that night.

a week ago we went to get slurpees. ah slurpees, the revelry and the celebration. it had been a long time, like so many other things that i've gone so long without doing.

anyway, slurpees. the bro and i realized we needed to split one (just not one of those gut-busting days, i'm afraid) and so filled the cup accordingly. went to the register. scan the cup.

"blah-bippity-blah-blip-blah" said the desi working the register.

i pull out the cash and start counting when the desi working the register catches the MAD BLING hangin' off the bro's neck. the MAD BLING, of course, being an OM.

"OM, huh?" the desi working the register said.

"yeah," retorts the bro.

"you know," the desi working the register continues. "this is my country's God."

"mmm hmmm," we regale. pay and leave. laughing outside at the thought of the desi working the register not knowing we were the desis paying for the slurpee. laugh laugh laugh.

casting has been casting has been casting. almost done, far as we can tell. filming, here we come. post? you're next. fundraising to be announced.

the weeks have been a whirlwind. a wind, whirling and whirling. i've been thinking about some people less and less. some people? more and more. and a few in ups and downs. i haven't had a thought on perturbative charge densities in relation to the potential/charge symmetries i've been working on in my head. but then again i haven't had nightmares about fourier transforms and uncertainty relations, either. tit for tat, it seems.

but there is something to note, these past weeks. a private search, introverted and internalized. trying to figure out who i am, again. trying to remember.

i used to know, dear reader. oh did i know. the kind of knowledge that came with experience and reflection. the die-harded truth and understanding that came with rejection and betrayal and isolation.

oh and i was full of myself, so very full of myself. the quiet kind that comes with knowing that no one else can be me as well as i can be. the kind of conceit that comes with doing something so well that there is, simply and surely, no other competition. i knew who i was, what i wanted, and where i was headed.

i knew my vices and victories and sins and sermons. i was an encyclopedia vikasica.

needless to say things have changed. this calendar year has torn me from myself and all that defined me. this is not a bad thing; challenging and rebelling against myself is something that should be done. but as experiment only, to judge and weigh and clarify my principles and who i am. this calendar year did no such thing. this year has given me a mask for christmas and asked me to wear it all the time.

'be someone else,' it tells me. 'be someone else and be someone else and act like the man you want to be. stop wanting and start being.'

'fake it so hard it starts to turn real.'

a double-sided coin, you see. the drastic change requisite to reverse self-loathing. the loyalty to soul requisite to maintain your identity. and all the gray in between.

point being that i strayed too far from self. i tried things out and couldn't stand the outcome...tried out others that have changed me deeply. and tried and tried and taken chances big and small. and tried and tried and tried.

last week i walked towards my train, minutes and minutes away. plenty of time. i looked to my right and saw her, a form behind a sign. STRANDED or some such thing, it said. blonde hair and no face to be found. just a sign and some words.

just me adjusting the bag, stopped, and sitting down right next to her.

"you're not really stranded, are you?" i asked her. some unidentified movement. no response.

"because if you're really stranded," i try again, "we can figure out a way to get you home. plane, train, or automobile. hell even scooter, if they rent any around here."

no response. more movement, but more avoidance than her being drunk or doped or sleep deprived. simply holeing up behind the sign and proving the truth that doesn't need to be proved. so i got up and went on my way, noticing her walking past me a few minutes later when i got some coffee. just crossing the bridge, not a care in the world. how can you not smile at that?

the weather's turning now. good timing, the weather. it's been hot for some time now, the summer that came and left. i'll remember it because of the memories i'll wish i'd had. but that's life, and time now for the coats and the sleeves and the warmth of sweaters. hearing the breathing from the head resting on my shoulder, the arms curled up in my lap. somehow feeling the beating underneath the coats and sleeves and warm sweaters, the heart just thumping away and reassuring faith because only God could give me someone like that when it's so very cold outside.

i want to wear my coats, and wear my sweaters, and gloves. thick socks and steamy breaths. the occasional scarf.

but more than anything, things have calmed down. pressures haven't lessened and priorities haven't changed, but still. still, things have calmed down. simple, done.

so, back to final auditions, new thoughts and new scripts. i have people to meet and ideas to embrace, in and out of the film. i have old friends to hold onto. old friends to accept have gone. and new friends of every other shade.

the news says a hurricane named katrina might be the worst natural disaster to hit in US history. a prayer sounds good, right about now. sounds really good.

for sore eyes

2005-08-15T00:48:00.000-05:00

what a sight, what a sight, quite the sight indeed. though not one of visual perfection, to be sure. rather this sight vies for my mind's eye. a memory, a wish and another waking day in the land of nod.

the sight, of course, is that of activity. having a course of action and of something to do. this week, ladies and gentlemen, i was busy.

actually, really, totally, really really wholeheartedly mostly kinda sorta busy. i had things to do. i did them. and such things took time. time time time and double half-caff sigh. and it was good.

a recantation of one particular day is as follows. it first begins with the train trip downtown; the director and i were to meet at 11:00, and so I arrived at 10:40. he had missed his train, however, so I had another hour and a half or so to kill before he arrived.

such a wait, of course, warrants coffee. a heavy cream breve with a shot of sugar-free caramel, to be specific. the drink was such a heavy heavy heavy welcome treat for the 15 minutes i was its drinker. why only 15 minutes, you ask? because i'm a clumsy fool, quick to wipe a drop of coffee off the lid, only to have the entire drink blow right out of said hands and smash onto the concrete sidewalk and form a tan little smiley face on the ground.

mockery is the best way to recognize fate, i've always said. so i was all smiles on my way north, towards the apple store to check email and get directions to a club for later that night and dally as i am wont to do. and so i did all those things. and headed back. on the way were a few runins with convenient stores, trying to find a particular energy drink that is, well, particular. a store was found but then comes the second problem: no ice.

that's right, no ice. a problem quickly rectified, though. quick stop at the jamba, a smile and a request and i'm on my way out the door with a styrofoam cup full of ice and a quarter of an hour left or so to kill. so i go outside, pour my drink, and hunker down on a concrete-fency thing around a tree outside the shop. i make a few calls, i ponder a few existential crises, and turn at the behest of a man handing out posty-cards in exchange for donations.

i had no cash, though i did listen to his spiel. i was only half listening, which is too bad given my normal interest in donating to soon-to-be torn down homeless shelters or whatever it was. but rather i was noticing his broken teeth, the little dark section in the middle of the tooth that is exposed through the crack. like the rings of a tree, only seen after exposing the cross section. makes you think about the dark and rotting core interior to things. and it makes you realize that even all the smarm and decay is beautiful, in its way.

but his spiel ended, i told the man i had no cash. and took a sip. he said thank you, sees the drink, and then asks.

"hey man, can i have a sip of that drink?"

um, no. i'm saving it for a friend. a very thirsty friend. so off the man went.

a few minutes go, i get fidgety and get a call from the director, telling me he is heading towards adams and michigan. i'm on michigan, you see, michigan and madison. so i start to head south. i get to michigan and adams, staring at the art institute just long enough to not want to anymore. i spot a store on the south side of adams, a poster place, and figure 'hey, i have no space but i could go for eyeballing a few posters for awhile.' so off i go into the store. not entirely what i expected, though. more of a kind of place that sells bookends for art-history majors, bright little kitchy items just odd enough to warrant a second look, but nothing that you would find horribly inventive or unique. what kept my attention for a while was an array of little mechanical doohickys. they looked like little metal boxes with a crank arm sticking out the right hand side. after i scooted up a bit and looked at the labels beneath each doohicky, i realized they were the names of songs.

they were manual player pianos. little metal tubes with indentations, like braille rolled into a cylinder. this tube is turned, precisely twanging little metal arms on a little metal comb, precisely twanging notes in succession with the turning of the bumps on the tube. the twanging makes notes, the notes make a song, and the particular song is labeled beneath the corresponding machine.

i, of course, was immediately enchanted. the top picks? "It's a Wonderful World" and "Hey Jude." had i the money...well then have i would the trinkets. oh how i enjoy the trinkets.

a few minutes of this and the phone rings, the director outside. some hand waving and a couple of directions and he finds me inside the shop. we browse, and leave.

first stop, roosevelt university. a random administrative building, one i've never been in. i schoomze the people behind the desks, giving them 12 copies of the casting call flyers. our job done here, we leave, waiting a few seconds for the director to steal some cheese off a catering table for who-knows-what event that must have required luncheon items. i bummed a slice off him, smiled, and off we went.

next stop, columbia college. trek and trek and trek and trek and trek. up stairs, down stairs, posting and posting and posting. get approval for the flyer, post the flyer, approval for the next, post the next. we realized after a while that it would be best to highlight certain sections, to make sure those reading knew how often we were auditioning. i highlighted, handed, posted, and we were on our way.

next stop, a thai place for lunch. good food, a bulletin board. we ate, we posted a flyer, and were on our way. the director, having to go to work, was now on his way. we parted at harold washington library. i checked my mail in the library, settled what was to be settled online, and was on my way.

that way being towards depaul university. having no one in the film entourage that went to depaul, i was on my own in terms of figuring out how and where to post the flyers. not only that, i've never even been to the campus in any way/shape/form, so that only serves to make things all the more interesting. but nevertheless i am not one to be discouraged, and so i continued onward. this required taking the train, brown line to fullerton, go west, south on ken-something and then hit the theater building where I was hoping to post.

onto the brown line. i had my book, you see, and however many minutes of travel ahead of me. the only distraction came after five minutes. a brown line distraction, a brown haired distraction. a woman of note, if only for the furtive glances that prove nothing but a piquant vision. because, you see, it was the little things that are so visually interesting. how she had that slightly crooked smile. how she stirred memories, the kind of less-than-perfect beauty that could just be perfect sometimes. the kind that you've seen before and felt was perfect, the kind that is recognized from experience. from very good experience.

and so i stopped at fullerton. depaul was roamed, my postings spotting the campus at random and with force. library rules were broken, the student activities bulletin boards vandalised and marked accordingly. one lone notice given to the theatre building, to be posted by them according to the rules that, for the other locales, were so steadily ignored. i posted in copy rooms, i posted in grocery stores. i posted in elevators and i posted in corners seemingly hidden to the world. i left the campus with three flyers left in my bag.

and left i did, back to the mag mile and the apple store, ready to check my email again. the mail was checked, some sent, some recieved, and directions confirmed for the club in however many hours. and then i trotted my way over to boarders, across from water tower (the place). the perfect place to read, the leather couch and coffee in arm's reach. i sat and read, napped and read, drank and read and slept. at some point a girl sat in the lounger next to me, noticeable because i'm fairly sure she went to my school. but that was about it, and i didn't care to confirm, so back i went to reading and napping and sipping and wondering.

until the director called from work. he had thought up a change, of splitting two scenes and intercutting them. interesting and deserving of reflection. but what came of this conversation was my sudden realization:

we'd forgotten about UIC. an entire school, probably in session, that had yet to be pasted with postings. another problem, of course, to quickly be rectified. so goodbye borders, and off i head for the red line. first, though, was a trip downstairs to wash my hands. i washed quickly and headed towards the escalator, when i stopped for a mother and her daughter. but it was only a slight pause because the mom pulled the daughter away

"watch out, now there's a man on a mission," she said about me. the two pulled away and i went up the escalator, grinning at the idea. but i got to a corner, michigan and chicago, waiting for the walking light to turn and let me cross. i reached into my pocket and felt a wad of paper. a few dollar bills, yes...but far more receipts. it gave me pause, but only a for a minute. i was a man on a mission, after all, and so i headed for the red line, to go south to the blue line, to go west to racine.

thing was i kept going south, totally forgetting the red line stop at chicago. i swore at myself (well more like cussed) and turned around. i went west a block, given that i had to, and walked a little more slowly as i entered a crowd. they were standing around as a man lectured. preached, pastor-ed, what have you. he had an easel and a friendly voice, both going over the minute ills plauging society at the most basic level. he talked about his studies, how in his travels he had asked many, many groups before to list all ten commandments, and that no one ever can. how can you follow rules that you can't even recall?

"right now, even, right this second. can any of you list all ten commandments? anybody here, i'll give up ten dollars if you can name them all for me."

"Thou shalt not worship false idols," i called out, stopping and counting them off.
"Thou shalt not make a graven image."
"Thou shalt not take the lord's name in vain."
"Thou shalt not break the sabbath."
"Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother."
"Thou shalt not kill."
"Thou shalt not commit adultery."
"Thou shalt not steal."
"Thou shalt not bear false witness."
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods."

"Well look at this, ladies and gentlemen," he said. "i have ten dollars for you right here, son."

"...keep it," i replied. "and give it to somebody who lives by the words of God, rather than recites them."

and i kept on walking, towards the red line. as I waited to cross another walk, a handsom cab trotted by. and i thought about the life that 'cabby' lead, the look on his face as he pulled on the reins and turned the corner. he couldn't have been more than, say, 21. so unenthused, so wanting more. but persevering and happy in his own way, the ambition bubbling beneath the surface. either that or he was constipated...one can't really be sure of these things.

red line, blue line, what a line what a line. i made it to UIC around 8pm; everything was closed, if they were open to begin with. but it was an exploratory adventure, a blind rendevous. so i arrived at racine, blue line stop to the stars. thing is, around that stretch of the line, i wasn't sure which walkway was the road to take; the one at the head of the train or at the tail. i opted for the head of the train.

i, invariably of course, was every shade of wrong. "loomis" was the name of the road. the wrong road. looming loomis, i said to myself, full of sound and fury. so i took loomis south to hit the proper road (whose name i am at a loss to recall). i took loomis the way i take any other street in chicago at such hours.

i took it singing. "Build Me Up" has been the choice for the past few weeks, starting in that blogging however many days ago below. so i belted it to the sky and bricks, the mortar and the concrete listened intently, humming along and swaying to the subtle beat. i put a bit of a gravel-rock voice to it this time, riggin up the notes and the time to whatever suited me that second. i belted it out, before and after some guy asked me where the greyhound station was. i sung it before and after cars waited for green lights, before and after i found the UIC theater and finished my reconnaisance. i kept at it, all the way back to the blue line 45 minutes later.

i got off the blue line at jackson, ready to transfer to red and go north as planned.

oh no, though.
oh no.

was i supposed to take the red line? did i goof up? did i twist my schedule by however many minutes with some simple mistake? was i supposed to take the red line? blue line red line blue red purple purple red blue, bruise, blood, blue red blue?

north and clybourn. north and clybourn. i raced up the steps, to check the redline stops. to check if one of them was, indeed.

north and clybourn. whew. redline it was. and the train was packed. just packed. i sat down and watched as people came and came and came, a couple went, and more came. i sat there and listened to the same message being read over by the conductor.

"use all available doors," he would say. "ladies and gentlemen, use all available doors." like a word from above, telling me about all the opportunities that waited to be grabbed, all around me.

i sat as a couple came on and stood in front of me. an indian couple, close but not smashed together (there was still a little bit of room at this point). i sat as she inched a little closer, her hand grazing his leg. i sat and saw her hand, resting on his pant, resting on his leg, the silver ring on her finger. the silver band on her ring finger, on her hand, on the side of his leg. i sat and watched that tiny bit of effort, such a little effort. she moved her hand half an inch, a tiny bit of effort. a gesture, a twitch for affection. she moved her finger and there was contact.

i sat and watched the little ringed, bandaged finger reach out for touch. what a thing, to appreciate such small appraisals. what a thing, to want or need or do such subtle things that way, the way i do. what a thing, i think.

use all available doors.

i sat through all the stops, thinking about opportunity and chances, risks and willingness to fail. i stopped at washington, at grand. use all available doors. this is chicago. doors open on the left at chicago.

this is chicago. use all available doors.

i got to north and clybourn on time. west to fremont, south to weed street. half a block over to the club. open bar, free cover, and a night with friends and birthdays. open bar was available for cherry and raspberry vodka. raspberry and tonic was the drink of choice for yours truly until 10pm. 7 or 8 drinks, a little mingling amongst strangers, and a few thoughts bringing me back to the last club experience in awhile. no 80s music here, though, amongst other missing things. another raspberry vodka, miss, and no need for the flirting; i haven't got the cash.

friends arrived, friends left. dancing dancing smirking and dancing. requests were made to the dj, requests were late to be fullfilled. dancing and more dancing, all while strapped to the bag at my side, never having had the time nor the desire to do away with it. rhythmn and moves and sweat and sound and beat. move, rhythm, beat beat bump and move. dance and dance. sultry swerve and turn. move and dance and waves.

this is chicago. use all available doors.

the night ends at 4am, though only by normal standards. back to the redline, down to wrigleyville, off to pickmeup and a latte, to read and wait out the hours for metra in the morn. i read and read and drank and read, the 24 hour coffee shop housing me with warmth and patience. with songs and memories and concepts. with lyrics, liquid words.

"Here I go again,
on my own.
goin' down the only road,
i've ever kno-own.
like a drifter
i was born
to walk alone.
and i've made up my mind
i ain't wasting no more time."

6am rolls around, however many hundreds of pages have been parsed. back to the redline, up a stop, exit the redline, wait for the bus, take the bus, head to union station. the station shows up 'round 7am, looming like loomis without the mistake. my train is scheduled for 8:30am; with more clout i might have been able to call in a few favors, pulled some strings. gotten it there early to fit my greedy little needs. but no clout here, only a festive imagination and delusions of grandeur. so i was to wait for the train downstairs. mcdonald's was my friend, for a time. then dunkin donuts. then my book, then the oh-so-comfy seats of my metra train, boarding half an hour before leaving.

and so i read, for a time. and reading leads to sleep, and sleeping leads to dreams, and dreams lead to waking. i woke, left the train, and got into the car that was my ride. i got into the car that was my ride and was ridden home, to a bed and the unfettered hours of a long day off, to the thoughts that would have nothing to do with reality and to the bliss-y little joys of this boy who appreciates such small appraisals. because i'd been reminded of why i do the things i do. this is chicago. use all available doors.

i slept the day away, all day. i woke up briefly, introduced my family to the five people you meet in heaven and all its cinematic simplicity. and then? back to sleep.

i slept this weekend, to be sure. my rented movies were late, my writing half done at best. i slept and wrestled with sheets. i showered and basked in the steam that was barely hotter than the day outside. i smelled the shower steam and with it the taste of last winter. i ate an omlette fit for hungry kings, and lazed away the day. lazed like the days of yore, also having been wasted just the same. those are quite the times, the lazed times. the ups and downs of a week, of a month of a decade of a life. lazy, crazy, hazy minutes.

and the week to follow? more auditions, more choices. waiting for calls and waiting for emails, hoping for calls and hoping for emails. waiting for trips to end and friends to return, waiting for projects to start and stories to tell. starting and waiting and pausing and running. what a week, indeed. so the best time for reflection is probably prior to the events, though i'm not in the mood. so i choose the direction i've been choosing this entire time, though know it's solid with conscious force and satisfaction in my lifelong actions.

this is chicago, after all. use all available doors.

hang ten, freud, and dog it like a man

2005-08-11T20:40:00.000-05:00

Thursday night and the week unfolds the more. Casting went as fine as can be; they were preliminary, to get our feet wet and all that. Not too many people but that's a good thing considering how much rearranging we did in terms of reading scenes (or sides as the professionals are wont to call them) and scheduling and whatnot. The more intense/efficient casting calls are happening in a week and probably another after that. Fingers crossed for a turnout to beat the band.

Tuesday was something else. I managed to obtain cups of ice from about five different stores, a couple of times while holding a cup of ice that bore the insignia or "logo" of the previous store. I'd then go and buy some cheapo iced tea in a can and ice that sucker down real good and cold. Lots of ice was used. Lots and lots of ice.

I helped defend a religious cryer on the corner of Monroe and Michigan, (or M&M as us Chicagoans are wont to call it) a passionate black man with an accent and really clean shoes. He warned of the evils of alchohol and casting aside the love of God, but began a tangent when confronted by the man on the NE corner opposite him. The other man was holding a cup, gangling it periodically, asking passersby for change. The two begat an imbroglio while I walked back and forth a block, getting one of my aforementioned iced teas.

"Hey man," I said to the changemonger, "hey. He's just doing his shit, man. Ain't nothin' to wurry 'bout, man. Man just preachin' his peace, it's 'aight. It's 'aight, man, it's 'aight."

I turned to the cryer then, "he givin' you trouble, huh man." The man made no indication of having heard me. "That's cool, man," I continued. "You keep on, man. You keep on."

I rambled onward to grant park, sat myself down on a sheet brought from home, and bunkered down at 5:30 for the outdoor film festival movie at 8:30.

I got bitchin' seats, by the way.

I bid my time, reading and watching the gathered and musing (or talking to myself as I am wont to do and others are wont to label). I waited for my friend, waited to eat the only cheese available to me prior to waiting, and waited to watch Night of the Hunter. I enjoyed the movie. It provided an interesting bit of moviemaking.

Today was a day off. I spent it in an audition, printing scripts, handing out scripts, and finding a way to stage auditions next week. Things went by well, if not having been completed. Went well indeed. I've kept busy, a trick I've tried to master for quite awhile. Makes me wonder if I've punished others for having nothing to do but focus on those things I would not choose to focus on. Makes me wonder if maybe I've been punished by not having others that would not feel punished for having nothing to do but focus on those things I would not choose to focus on.

Makes me wonder why I didn't just write really long and pointless sentences instead of wondering about all the things I did and did not focus upon while examining the reactions of others who were affected by such. I'll get back to you.

And here I am. Early day tomorrow, late night tomorrow. My dreams have calmed down and risen up, making me feel like some sort of sub-conscious existential surfer. All in all there's nothing like the cold rush of water to the face while you're drowning in all your unsettled issues.

One day people might have to make appointments to see my face. One day people might have to remove any firearms and weapons to enter the same room. One day people might have to scrunch up their faces and tilt their heads, tongues all agog and memories all combed to find a reason to even remember me.

So, the moral of the story? There is none. Because I am loathe to post that which only some people need hear, or rather that which I would have onlya few people really hear:

i might die tomorrow. you might die tomorrow. we might live forever. i don't settle and i don't let go. i fight this hard and fought that hard because i shake at the idea of throwing away what today would make me happy.

written trash. pompous, dejected rejected rehashed smashed fetid written trash. But today I wrote it down. And tomorrow it will look at me and smile from the dump, all the way singing of the weakness of a guy who couldn't keep it to himself.

Joke for the week? What do you call someone who can't do math?

...

An experimentalist. Now see if you are a theorist, that's marginally funny. If you're anything but and still laughed...well then I might just have to marry you. Women only, please. One at a time. Headshots required. No uggos.

Oh man, I wished we'd danced. What a memory, what a sweet couple of minutes to tuck away in the back of the ten-foot surf and tides of sleep. You were so close, this close to saying yes. Not right now, though. Ask me again some other time. Perfectly reasonable and perfectly fine. But man oh man, I wish we'd danced. Two perfect fools surrounded by cold and the warmth of simple kismat.

Haha, laugh and a sigh. Things ain't bad and, quite frankly, there's nothing left to doubt. I know what I know, I know what I knew, and it's time to ride the wave like I used to.

Today I've done what makes me happy. Bring on tomorrow.

those boots were made for kicking

2005-08-08T04:54:00.000-05:00

the world of physics has developed spacetime and quanta, strings and loops and lattices, potentials and dimensions and symmetries that seem drawn by the hand of God.

11 years of personal study, no sleep, and a mind as abstract as they come, and I still couldn't tell you why these hours seemed to pass so quickly.

maybe because i'm focused and thinking a little too much on thoughts that i really don't want thought. or, rather, am just tired of thinking.

think think think. did you know i've never been to a roller rink? or seen or felt or known a mink? or met or engaged or questioned a shrink? or smelled the missing link or used a well of ink? i never got that chance to wear something pink, or make use of the oh-so-extra special wink. la di dah, dippity zip boom bah...just more things down the sink.

i'm saving my dreams in a bottle and sending it out to sea. what will it mean, when it's sent back? will it be open, will it be fresh? will it be used or stuffed full again? i wonder what sort of bottle to use: glass or plastic or metal or stone. maybe leather. a satchel of dreams, thrown to the wind, opened by the nomads of the world. maybe it will entertain them for awhile. wouldn't that be something?

find me a preacher, please. a preacher, a preacher, an orator to boil the conscious. a preacher with a cantation that'll make your soul writhe and wiggle and flop all around, ready to squirm out of your body with the sickly sounds, 'thud' and 'flabpt' and 'whoolp.' then you'll watch it there on the ground, gyrating about with the power that only comes with hope or last chances. and it'll change, and straighten, and smooth itself out. it will calm down to a whisper of motion, transformed, and ask remittance to enter again your body. and then, the preacher all done, you accept this request and breathe a little more freely.

if you've ever seen a shard of bone, you've seen far more than you'd think. if you've ever stared at static, colored lights for an entire night, you've known far more than you'd have liked. but most and best and worst of all, if you've ever been held hostage by your own mind, you've fallen much harder than you thought.

let's see, something uplifting, something comforting. something something something. i once knew a girl. a sure-as-shooting kind of girl. with a voice that could make me smile after half a breath, so quick as to shake every rational facet of my mind and leave me reeling. with a look that could floor me in a second and hold me blind to everything else. with a touch careful enough to turn me into a damned dumb fool. with things like that in the world, how can you need uplifting?

haha, blast it all. bring me more lyrics.

How lucky can one guy be?
I kissed her and,
she kissed me.

Like a fella once said,
"ain't that a kick in the head?"

My head keeps spinning,
I go to sleep and keep grinning,
If this is just the beginning,
My life's gonna be beau-ti-ful
I've got sunshine enough to spread,

It's like the fella said,
Tell me quick,

"Ain't love like a kick in the head?"

if i had a dime for every muted soul

2005-08-08T01:52:00.000-05:00

in case you were wondering? Eerie Indiana is just as good as you remember. same goes for Gargoyles. possibly Moonlighting; more on that later.

a lesson for the day will have been that twins can be inherently creepy. having any two people acting the exact same would be creepy, but having them look exactly the same as well seems like a good visual trick to remember if you need to write creepy characters. no offense, doublemint. plus the best part about Eerie Indiana is the low-key, but childishly disturbing, theme song.

The Critic? Yep, just as good.

i'm staying up all night. care to keep me company? keep me company, keep me company. go on, keep it. Hold on, hold on, keep me and throw in the company. i can still hear the words ringing in my ears. they make me close my eyes and grin at them. keep me company. memories on memories on top of plans for insomniatic warfare. but who am i at war with? are they dangerous? do they frown on ending sentences with prepositions? man, i really hope that joke was obvious, otherwise i can't have much hope for mankind.

i haven't built something in a long time. my last sculpture was a few years back, back in college. my last electronic gadget was probably even further. first and second year were spent custom-making sunglasses, times after that were building/breaking/pulling apart computers. i was involved with a tesla coil project senior year, but that didn't pan out.

do little papercrafts count as building? cutting gift cards and wrangling them in ribbon? if it does then i'm only a few months out.

and i haven't finished my iced tea from earlier today. no, madame, i'm afraid i cannot imbibe another sip; rather i thirst for warmer climes and a chance to understand more than is fashionable these days. actually scratch the warmer climes, just answer a few questions and i'll get out of your hair.

the last time i decided to stay up all night like this i finished a letter. and finished all but one more finishing of a letter. not that i haven't stayed up all night since then; rather, this feeling, right now, the need to stay up and the want and the pointless ease of it. waiting out the night and needing to write and hoping that i could let it all out and not get burned in the process. you'll be relieved to know that last time i did let it all out. let's not talk about the burning part.

oh to sing a song. i'd sing right now but the household sleeps. i'd sing right now but right this second it only reminds me of all the people who wouldn't sing with me if i weren't alone. haha, damn if it isn't a long list of muted souls. usually you can drown that out and say it's from fear, from not wanting to be embarrassed or being mocked or something of the like. but sometimes you can't say that. because you know the person and can't just slough them off and feel better than them so easily. those are the tricky wickets. (yeah and i know how to really say it so back off me, limey. honestly.)

there are four computers in this room right now. two laptops, a slim-profile desktop, and my dualie. oh my dualie. i haven't treated it very well, i'm afraid. i haven't even used it as storage; not enough cable to route it up oldschool. but unlike some things in life i can definitely say that it will be put to use again. i don't let things die, that i still care about.

that's it, i'm getting perscription shades. i never wanted contacts before, why do i want them now? i was reminded recently (recently being over the course of the last calendar year) that i have a decidedly different visual appeal with glasses. let's roll with it some more, shall we? plus my insurance is only good for another pair of glasses so might as well get 'em and like 'em.

there are other blogs i want to read. but i'm not going to, i won't i won't i won't. i won't. i will not. no. no. i have enough willpower to beat the band, i can sure as all get out handle this. maybe one day somebody'll say i have gumption. man would that be sweet.

forget it. i want to dedicate a song that's been sung enough to be worth dedicating.

WHOA!...Why do you fill me up
-fill me up-
butter cup, baby
just to let me down?
-let me down-
and mess me around?

and worst of all,
-worst of all-
you never call, baby
when you say you will
but i love you still.

i need you
-i need you-
more than any one, darlin'

you
know
i've
been
here
from
the
staaarrrt

so build me up
-build me up-
butter cup

...don't break my heaaarrrt.

the stone moves for no man

2005-08-07T17:49:00.000-05:00

the best and the brightest seem to mystify me. i used to have focus and drive, comparing myself to every footnote in the annals of history.

but then you find out things. begin to blur things.

like MLK cheating on his wife, ghandi beating his. churchill being a drunk, einstein lovin' up the cousins. how the best and the brightest hardly ever are.

how the closest thing we have to definitive and diciplined was a lunatic psycho aryan-ass-kissing hypocrite. how even family and friends stop being so simply black or white, and suddenly reality turns gray.

it's not too hard to understand, though; the last thing pandora freed was Hope, but she never heard the whispers of Innocence when she sealed the box again. and once lost, it stays lost. though i can always hope that's not true.

casting call tues-thurs. movies and meetings and reading up a storm or two. the script is finalized, done, finished with a smile and a sigh. and what a day outside. sunny and shiny and so very very hot. the tingle you get while the sweat drips along curves and joints, hidden by clothing and airy cool dreams. a smile and a sigh while you glisten in secret.

'i know something that only comes with age. i know how to wait,' the television says. patience is the key to success, my cousin used to say. patience is a virtue and a comfort and the truest sign of faith. patience patience patience patience...wait and wait some more.

forget it, i don't want to think about patience anymore. because patience has been given and so many times unrecieved that it only keeps me wanting to quicken all the things that must take their time. haha, if patience is a sign of wisdom then it looks like my wisest years are behind me. guess i'll just have to wait for them to come back.

i'm going to make someone smile today. and if i'm lucky i'll make 'em laugh. this will be my goal for the day. wish me luck, if you haven't smirked yet.

we are all amazing, in our ways. it's a question of understanding and accepting while we wade past the desires that are so powerful they mask the forest with more trees. life leads to desire and desire leads to suffering.

seriously, where's a bodi tree when you need one?

i'm no less of a man, to miss somebody

2005-08-05T01:37:00.000-05:00

what could i write? type and list and post and quote and know? spent the day with tim in hyde park, scouting locations and finding places. settled on some things.

problems and problems and problems and no solutions to be found. problems problems everywhere and not a soul to tell. (incidentally, in case you're someone who feels you would like to be privy to such parts of my life...well you could do a better job asking.)

right now? a little C2H5OH (look it up, kiddos). a few too many memories. the off-track wishings for a wishing well, for the chance to actually get something without the work and the sacrifice and the degredation of all the other wishes that could never come true. hazy lazy peachy day, a sky the color of money, and the air as thick as raspberry jam slathered on her body in all the dreams that fell down the wishing well.

what are you doing? are you making fun of me? are you minding me, reminding me, thinking or dreaming of me? whirring through the days having forgotten all the times that should be worth a thought or two?

"you can never turn your back on your talent," the television just said to me. anybody want to guess what that talent was assumed to be? anybody want to guess how that assumption was dissolved and how it sifted through the slits and spaces through my fingers? anybody want to guess what it means to turn your back on your talent, not because of ignorance, but because you simply don't think you're good enough to endure the pains of it?

fly me to the moon and maybe i'll pick up some rocks, pack them up and amaze you with the immensity of my scientific knowledge. because, my dear, the moon is not made of cheese; rather broken dreams and hopes and wonderment, and all the things we turn to when we cannot bear to look upon the hurts that stain our clothes.

oh the smiles and the smiles and the ideas we like and love. we like the idea of liking. we like the idea of loving. we like and like and love and love and could have been so many things. such is the power of ideology. such is the power of hope. it just takes time to remember that ideas are seldom ideal. there's nothing more frustrating than feeling frustrated, don't you think?

alright life, come on already. i've had some ups, downs, laughs and the other stuff. but i've got a few more bumps to smooth out. and it's hard asking for help.

though we all like the idea of asking.

tell it to me one more time

2005-08-03T05:35:00.000-05:00

if questions were really begged, i'd be grovelin' for this one:

"why can't i stop?"

over and over and over and over again and again and over and again. again and over and again and again and over and over and over.

again.

i pulled a lecture hall for our casting call, i met up with tim when the crew left the mall, and i almost attacked some guy with an orange pool ball.

metra to the hyde, back to the train in another car ride. thoughts, feelings, all sought that then hide. all explored and explained and then finally tried.

i haven't slept in three days. so far.

by any other name

2005-08-01T06:01:00.000-05:00

'so it begins,' so they say. it began so long ago but finds itself unsaid until this beginning. ...and end scene of pretentious back-talk. why now? why the irrelevant logging that will ultimately concentrate all my self-serving urges? i had a journal for four months, january to may my junior year of college. it topped out around 186 pages of single spaced, 10 point fonted recording. something like 11.5 pages per week for 16 weeks. now isn't that something. so why now. maybe it's the desperate need to spray words on this virtual page. maybe the loss of innocence that somehow went unnoticed or expressed for 20-odd years. maybe i just need to know i can let it all out. maybe it's the best way to compensate for sucking at chess, making up for being unlucky at both the cards and the other thing. doesn't matter. i just wanna. there's only one other style of writing, that i know of, comparable to mine. the meter, the rhyme. imagery, abstraction with the flair of a breezy summer kiss and the realism of one in winter. i was able to swim in that style for a time but, if not obvious by now kiddos, that pool's dried up. no room for questions, off to find a hose. we start casting soon. this weekend started off with a boom, finished the final draft of the script. and, quite frankly, i like hearing people remark on their enjoyment of my work. so it was a banner few hours before the generic nyquil kicked in and left me with the very temporary grin. the weekend has mostly been spent in the glow of frasier, friends, dougie howser, and the second season of the west wing. life is beautiful took up a share, along with coffees, breves, books. and a few too many bad dreams. almost four in the morning, typing and watching and waiting to go off to work. i'm setting up writing groups, forcing the hand of social intercourse past dry humping its way through the day. the first meeting is tuesday. casting is scheduled for saturday. throw in movies and books and the daily grind and a guy can hope to fill his seconds enough to keep from...thinking. daydreaming. pondering all the things that are lost, going over all the things that only look that way. all the things you didn't save, didn't try to save, didn't want to save. and all the thoughts you wished didn't need to be saved. it's sloppy, isn't it? flopping out the words and phrases and philosophies that tell nothing of my story but everything about how i want it told? it's sloppy and solipsistic. sloppy and slippery and it only reminds of all the things that only hurt to be remembered. 11.5 pages per week? guess it must have been a slow four months.