(songs of yesteryear)
wednesday 25 october 2006
Look here. It’s obvious, all the same. A journal entry is a story is a dialog is a poem. A poem is a garbage can for the brain. And yet, when I sit down here to the blank slate, I have nothing, nothing comes to mind. Gargling gerbils is all I can do. What about abstract expressionism? no, not the movement, but you sitting here, defending yourself, making excuses? Hey, what’s with the bitter attack?
I hate it but really I love to think about these things. When I ride my bike home from work sometimes I pretend I'm showing you around. "Quickly, turn here, yes, see that? That's the beautiful cement factory. Isn't it rugged? Isn't it romantic? I climbed to the top with someone I was in love with a few years ago. Watch out for the bridge; when it's wet your wheels will slip around. We should try not to go down that street. It's full of potholes and there's a trash dump there, too, and sometimes the smell is too much. That place is nice... I'll take you there for coffee later... I know it's a long way, but we're almost there..." And then the ride goes by really fast.
I recently began corresponding with a boy I met in my home town during the first winter when I returned from college. We were together only for six days, and we fell in love. We drove in my father's car up to the foothills. We parked in a scary suburb that's miles and miles up, it feels like a strange, perfect town in the middle of nowhere… a train set. An old-fashioned gas station with pumps that don’t work. A red fire station. Perfect lawns. Tiny, sporadic trees. We parked and drank beer and listened to Built to Spill and I kissed him- it was his first kiss- and then when I left a few days later, hours before I went to the airport to come back to Chicago, we had sex… orgasms, though it was his first time… We talked on the telephone over the next couple of months… he thought he could get a scholarship to the university of chicago, because he shared the name of one of the main college founders... they said no... we stopped talking, and have only just begun communcations again… But now, since writing, I’m taking him on those bike rides with me, I’m remembering the details, the ways in which we fell... And I love these as I hate them; they’re ridiculous and ill-timed, but I know that I have to have these secrets, and that’s why I am thinking about it all again for the first time in three years. And I'm feeling thoroughly there.
I just got a job at a lingerie store. The bras cost $150. It’s called Trousseau. Ha ha ha. We’ll see…
I hope you’re well, and I thought about you on the 16th of October. You & I, blushing on wooden stools after you guessed my birthday…
I’m afraid, very afraid… but only in the surreal way. In ways where there’s no worry. Of the unreal, impossible.. but this music is no good, here, to describe it at all, and then I think, people actually made this art that is affecting me so, and people are still doing it. and it can be done. I’m thinking these things with a dry enough throat and alone in this dark house, but it isn’t very cold outside, so I’m not afraid for that, and I wish I was more beautiful, same as always, thinner face, better in red lipstick, hair bigger and fuller. And I think, do I really want to go and...? Do I really want to go outside? Aren’t I afraid a little of outside? Yes, a little. Unfortunately… it’s nagging at me, to do that, so I think I will.
Monday 8 October 2007: 10:03 am
My bedroom smells like camping and there’s nothing to do about it.
