"subterranean homesick alien"

observation 309.24.16

2009-05-29T15:33:00.002+09:00

The numbers are coming again. 2:22 am, 4:44 pm...

"You're on the right track again" is all whatever pokes me in my heart will let me know.

But that's all I know, and not whether that track is a very good one or a very bad one.

I can't see you, and I can't touch you. But I know you're there, and I've learned that, for now, that will have to do.

observation 309.24.15

2008-04-14T03:00:00.007+09:00

And then, now, much later, too many things have happened to explain. No documentation along the way. No voice, no time, only just enough limited acceptance to keep my mind focused on the point very far away.

My father has left us for now. He held my arm and looked into me with blue eyes, golden and green wings unfolding in the wrinkles of age and experience circling his eyes, he focused on a point very far away, as he pushed his own will to the edge of the platform, face-forward against an invisible wall, making a selfless decision to jump and to fly. Strongly and clearly, he stepped into blue and white and left me behind, promising, pleading, hysterical, and exploding, echoing through the sterile halls and rooms tiled in the space where night meets day again; he slid down away from behind his eyes; and I'm left tied to the other end of the line which still connects us with an expanded, screaming comprehension; I am held by a stranger, an angel I don't know but recognize, pulling me back as I struggle against staying here in this room in this world because I feel I can follow him. Her wings and her voice steady us both down, back into this room again -- this room where I begin and ended -- this world I will never remembering asking for and barely understand but am forced to live through in constant examination.

For hours, days, weeks, now years, I've been quieting the pitiful, gnawing sadness of crushed human beings. Living in the darkness and searching for light, cutting my hands less than before as I can only feel my way through, and only taking with us what we can carry in our hearts. Navigating past the screams in the distance, we look for stars in the black infinite nothingness to see anything even if it's just a glimmer, something to work by; even a moving shadow would be a sign.

I've been out to sea trying to swim back again and learning there is no back to swim to anymore. The transition someone laid trail to, prepared for me and prepared me for, I have only been listening and trying to follow -- sometimes drifting, sometimes pulling myself through the waves, with heart shrieking and arms burning, tearing to build, repairing to lengthen, accompanied by a great stillness sometimes so terrifying, sometimes so glorious. I can only hear with my heart and intuition. Before I could reach to cling to anything, a black, sucking undertow grabbed me and dragged me down by my legs, broken, bruised, bleeding, an unstoppable bleeding. Cold. Crushed. Blinded with eyes open. I've been swept out, tumbling sick in the depths, clawing up again and again and gasping for cold air, looking for up, affixing my eyes and myself on a white point far beyond the blue sky, farther away than very far. Choking on waves breaking green, white, and yellow around me, I remember that once long ago, I was created and lived connected, underwater, to one person on this earth before I was born, and I could breathe underwater because of them; but now I had to fight to breathe on my own.

Now. Waving not drowning, stronger from fighting, I try to redefine the difference between alone and lonely, knowing I've learned too much to breathe underwater once again, but I decide. I grow wings. I try to fly for awhile.

2006-06-15T05:55:00.000+09:00

observation 309.24.14

Still happening, the numbers. Every time that one person makes me smile, I look over and see the numbers, always in repetition, 11:11, 1:11, 3:33, 5:55. I know what you think, at least one of the first things you might. That if I'm a clock-watcher, this is bound to happen. It's not me watching the clock. I don't even own a watch. It's something else when I just feel a tug and look to the clock and what I consider my nudging from someone much smarter than time, wanting me to make an answer, for myself. My answer is that only one person can make me turn my head to see this all happen, and make me forget how small my world got in just a matter of seconds.

You know who you are, and my heart overflows to thank you. So tell me how to carry on without you.

By the way, White Town never got enough respect.

"Your Woman"
Just tell me what you've got to say to me,
I've been waiting for so long to hear the truth,
It comes as no surprise at all you see,
So cut the crap and tell me that we're through.

Now I know your heart, I know your mind,
You don't even know you're being unkind,
So much for all your highbrow Marxist ways,
Just use me up and then you walk away,
Boy you can't play me that way.

Well I guess what you say is true,
I could never be the right kind of girl for you,
I could never be your woman.

When I saw my best friend yesterday,
She said she never liked you from the start,
Well me, I wish that I could claim the same,
But you always knew you held my heart.
And you're such a charming handsome man,
Now I think I finally understand,
Is it in your genes?, I don't know,
But I'll soon find out, that's for sure,
Why did you play me this way?.

Well I guess what you say is true,
I could never be the right kind of girl for you,
I could never be your woman.

Well I guess what they say is true,
I could never spend my life with a man like you,
I could never be your woman.

-- "White Town"

2006-05-30T02:22:00.000+09:00

observation 309.24.13

I realized I'm in a state of transition. Again. I hope it's a good one. Can't think, but enjoying the time within immensely until someone of authority points it out in a bullying tone. If they don't get it, they never will. That makes me sad, but it comes off as mad. To amuse and calm myself, I turn a question over and over in my head.

It's one of those questions you carry with you an entire lifetime without a definitive answer most of the time, and it has the ability to delight you and madden you at the same time. The question swings back and forth from to one dizzying extreme to another. It's a question that throws your life out of balance but can also steady your life into harmony again. It is core information known to your soul yet unknown to a human existence. You revolve around while it rotates within you. But humans, and the ego that goes with them, think it's the other way around. And that's what causes wars more time than peace. It's what I've decided is the truth with no physical results or formulas to show as evidence for the human ego to comprehend or begin to accept it.

I try to think nothing of it my specific question, but then, I try to enjoy the open-endedness of the question which may never have an answer before my eyes. No one can show me on paper or give me physical proof of the things I believe so strongly, things that glitter throughout my unchosen path.

The path has always been just dark enough to see only shapes around me with the feeling something close is in the dark, but really, is it there It has to be. Or, does it? If nothing else, everyone has a path. Sparks light up the path just like fireflies on a warm summer night. You know they are out there, you realize you are within a swarm of them, but until they show themselves, you are alone with the knowledge that they were there last year, they will be here this year, and for the rest of your life unless something earth-shattering happens to either you, them, or the world.

I search for them, sometimes aggressively, sometimes dragging tired and vacantly, but autonomically grinding away inside me with joy, they search for me relentlessly. I don't know why. When I feel like letting them go, I feel the silken threads they've bound to me. Every time I almost give up the search of just being there with what makes me live and also kills me, the fireflies return, sparking and showing themselves to me, drawing me deeper into the darkness between day, night, and day, where I belong.

Year after year, I live for the fireflies in the night. I remember this as my heart asks the question, holding it close to my heart and feeling a firefly unseen in the darkness. My answer on paper is not there, but the reassurance comes in the form my forgotten song in a random play. It taps me gently. From the corner of my eye, I see it, he song is "subterranean homesick alien". Testing it, my eye flits to the time. It's 2:22am. One more test, the time left of its play when I look at it: -2:22.

Three tiny green lights in the dark rolling meadow of my wondering journey across the face of this planet and time, this time.

"The breath of the morning
I keep forgetting
The smell of the warm summer air

I live in a town
Where you can't smell a thing
You watch your feet
For cracks in the pavement

Up above
Aliens hover
Making home movies
For the folks back home

Of all these weird creatures
Who lock up their spirits
Drill holes in themselves
And live for their secrets

They're all uptight
Uptight.. (x7)

I wish that they'd swoop down in a country lane
Late at night when I'm driving
Take me on board their beautiful ship
Show me the world as I'd love to see it

I'd tell all my friends
But they'd never believe
They'd think that I'd finally lost it completely

I'd show them the stars
And the meaning of life
They'd shut me away
But I'd be all right
All right..

I'm just uptight
Uptight.. (x7)"

- radiohead

2006-05-04T01:11:00.001+09:00

observation 309.24.12

And then, all of a sudden, it stopped. Until my birthday 38 days ago, until yesterday, and right now.

38 days ago, I'm riding in the van with my best friend as usual. It's all normal, all the same, everything's covered in cigar ashes and wrappers, going for pho ga. He turns down Madison and turns on his XM. "Happy Birthday", by that 80's band I can never remember, was playing. As if someone tapped my shoulder again, I looked over, and it was 12:12pm.

By accident, I get reconnected with a friend from long, long ago with a strong bond. For what reason, I don't know. One bond exits, another enters. I almost don't deserve such universal kindness. 11:11am, 12;12pm, 2:22pm are the running numbers. Yesterday was an emotionally hard day full of decisions for me. And every time I thought of what I should be doing instead of what I was doing, I'd see those numbers, nudging me back along, reassuring me that someone is out there, tapping me on the shoulder, only when I begin to think of the winding path I'd like to follow if only I had the nerve.

I do have the nerve.

It's 1:11am.

2006-02-20T04:44:00.000+09:00

observation 309.24.11

So many days have passed. Each one different, but each one very similar in its sameness.

The full moon always lifts my face up with a soft "look at me." I'm not alone. That comforts me and crushes me at the same time. That is the true essence of existence, I'm feeling this as an answer. It's like the stars in the constellations. To the eye, they appear to be aligned right next to each other. But in relation to each other, in reality, they are glowing light years apart.

From the most I can tell, the numbers most frequent must be the numbers most important.

12:12, 3:33 and 5:55. In daylight or in darkness, they pull me away or awake.

It's something I just keep my eye and my mind on. It comforts me and warms my heart so that I can't help myself but smile. It feels like a warm hand on my face, and it usually is. And I've made the connection that when I ask a certain question of myself from within, and then answer it with truth in my heart, I usually look up and it's confirmed for me with a 4:44.

Again I smile, reassured with calm uncertainty.

Yes, it's 4:44 again. And no, I can't help but love you for that.

"fitter, happier, more productive"

more productive
comfortable
not drinking too much
regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
at ease
eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)
a patient better driver
a safer car (baby smiling in back seat)
sleeping well (no bad dreams)
no paranoia
careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole)
keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then)
will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall)
favours for favours
fond but not in love
charity standing orders
on sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants)
car wash (also on sundays)
no longer afraid of the dark
or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
nothing so childish
at a better pace
slower and more calculated
no chance of escape
now self-employed
concerned (but powerless)
an empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism)
will not cry in public
less chance of illness
tires that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat)
a good memory
still cries at a good film
still kisses with saliva
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick
that's driven into
frozen winter shit (the ability to laugh at weakness)
calm
fitter, healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics"

- Radiohead

2006-01-31T04:44:00.000+09:00

4:44pm

Someone reminded me they were thinking of me.
That and the smell of a rose always makes me smile.

2006-01-30T07:07:00.000+09:00

observation 309.24.10

Sitting on the edge, listening with eyes wide open in the dark. I know what I'm thinking; I can't think anymore. But it's out there. I still feel it out there.

With a slow, dying pulse and no relay, no point to bounce a signal, I'm too far away from the nearest connection that I understand as sense. I've streaked past my window again in a glittering shower of sparks on white-hot glowing metal, rolling and tumbling, burning and skittering off into nothingness with the lack of my energy or my breath. One last gasp of air to listen. For nothingness. No wall to hit. Soft weightless nothing. All lines of communication have dropped. The sounds are memories now, unfusing and twisted inside-out as whistling turned to crackling, crackling turned into a few last, audible, intelligible syllables sounded out in a deep, electronic muted tone of 3 beats, "ooww...errrr...ooo," then silence as I'm pushed onward, past understanding, I float away again, back into the black from where I emerged.

It's lonely in the familiar darkness where everything and nothing is possible at the same time, but the sound of your own vacancy will cave your head in and your heart if you don't handle it right. It doesn't matter how many people are in a room, no one can complete you. Focus on the smallest star in the sky, and drive toward it. You have no choice but to keep driving until you hear the signal again. It's there, you just can't see it or where you're going. The easiest part is the trickiest part - that you have to hear it again with your heart.

I will always offer myself up to say no, no matter how much my soul screams yes. I'm wired for that kind of pain. It gives others what they need to pass onto the next step of their own journey into the unknown darkness. They say it's what I'm here to do.

"No Surprises"
"A heart that's full up like a landfill
A job that slowly kills you
Bruises that won't heal

You look so tired and unhappy
Bring down the government
They don't, they don't speak for us
I'll take a quiet life
A handshake of carbon monoxide

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
Silent, silent

This is my final fit, my final bellyache with

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises please

Such a pretty house, such a pretty garden

No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)
No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)
No alarms and no surprises please (let me out of here) "

- Radiohead

2006-01-27T17:55:00.000+09:00

5:55pm

"What time is it, B?" he asked me. I pushed my margarita aside, and
looked down to my watch and smiled. "It's 5:55. Make a wish."

"...I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them but they were only satellites
Is it wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, I wish, I wish you’d care...

I don't want to change the world
I'm not looking for a new england
i'm just looking for another girl."

- Billy Bragg, "A New England"

2006-01-26T12:12:00.000+09:00

When I smiled inside.

Yesterday, 3:33pm:
Something happened that should have, and the inmates won.

Today, 11:11am:
Florida, chinese rice noodles and familiar souls changing the seen world in unseen, gigantic ways.

2006-01-25T05:55:00.000+09:00

5:55am: My eyes open.

The weekend went by in increments of 10:10am, 12:12pm, 3:33pm, 4:44pm, 11:11pm, 12:12am, and so on.

observation 309.24.09

Things I found in my sister's abandoned duffle bag:

one empty journal
one empty sketchpad with pages ripped out
one old, overwashed bra
one notebook belonging to her disgusting boyfriend
one empty eyeglass case
one self-help book on how to be confident
one set of colored pencils and pens and watercolors
one bunch of magazines from the year 2000
one brown paper bag
one chapstick
one travel bar of soap
one stuffed animal

And one over-photocopied, state-issued set of questions to answer. Like "If there is one thing you could change, what would it be?" Even though several complete strangers in her apartment complex knew the answer as well as the rest of us, it's still hard to see "stop drinking" pencilled in the blank. It makes my throat tighten and hurt.

It also scares me of why I might be thinking about her right now.

2006-01-15T06:17:00.000+09:00

12:12pm

Breathing, thinking, running, listening, smiling. "Gratitude is the heart's memory," says an old French proverb. "Remember five things you are grateful for."

2006-01-14T06:05:00.000+09:00

observation 309.24.08

1:11pm

Message: The more I understand, the more I see it as the passing it's been all along and will be again someday. The more I get it, the happier and more content I feel, but the less I can explain it anymore. We've eclipsed and faded to black, but thank you for calling out. It's not about you, it's because of you that I'm left with knowledge, and you don't recognize me anymore. And that is tragic but beautiful at the same time.

10:10pm

2006-01-13T13:13:00.001+09:00

1:13pm on 1/13

"1 Outlook Reminder - Subject: Next internal meeting, Due in 13 minutes"

It's the first full moon of 2006,
on a Friday the 13th.

I like that a lot.

"jumped into the river and what did i see?
black-eyed angels swam with me
a moon full of stars and astral cars
and all the things i used to see.
all my lovers were there with me
all my past and futures
and we all went to heaven in a little row boat
there was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt"

- Radiohead, Pyramid Song

Someone called at 3:33pm.

2006-01-12T08:02:00.000+09:00

observation 309.24.07

"The Cold Song"

What Power art thou,
Who from below,
Hast made me Rise,
Unwillingly and slow,
From beds of Everlasting Snow.
See'st thou not how stiff,
And wondrous old,
Far unfit to bear the bitter Cold,
I can scarcely move,
Or draw my Breath,
Let me, let me,
Freeze again to Death.

- Henry Purcell, sung by Klaus Nomi

At the exact second I'm convinced it's all vanishing from my sight again, I'm rushing from the building, looking down to my cellphone glowing back up to me with 3:33pm. It's tempting to wish it'd all go away. But this time around, it won't. And for that, I decided I won't ever wish it away again. The reason I always feel alone especially in a crowded room is because I really am.

11:11pm

It reminded me that I forgot to mention, it suits me. I smiled to myself again and felt that warm glow settle in for a long rest in my heart.

2006-01-11T04:22:00.000+09:00

observation 309.24.06

So I had the weirdest dream the other night. It was one of those kinds that even when you think back on it, it still seems too real to be a dream so it makes you wonder if you lived it once before. I was in my car, stuck in traffic on a bridge. My mind told me it was the Brooklyn Bridge, but it wasn't. It was a green bridge. And traffic was dead still so that to me was just odd. I felt a bump and my car shook. Knowing my foot was still on the brake, I figure somebody had to've hit me from behind. So I looked in the rearview mirror and, to my sheer delight, saw one, extra-solid pimp mobile. That's the only way to describe it. It was almost holy. It was firetruck red with silver metal-flake mixed in, chrome where it needed to be, and it was a most beautiful street sled that commanded my respect. The driver had one gold tooth that matched his gold shades, and he was wearing a red Santa's hat with one fluffy, white ball dangling down beside his smile.

I half-smiled to myself and felt a warmth spread its wings inside me, and I looked back to the cars in front of me. The bridge was separating, the road was splitting in two as both sides of the bridge ahead of me began falling apart from each other and slowly, huge cables and chunks tearing down into the water. It came apart cleanly and evenly like an enormous concrete and steel zipper was literally unzipping in front of me, and in slow motion, I watched it crumble from beneath us all, and I watched the cars sliding off, one by one, not believing this as they tumbled and began crashing down into the water. Adrenaline kicked in and my mind had enough time to think how sad it would be for the people in front of my eyes, dying. My grip tightened on the wheel, I felt my eyes wide in disbelief, and my car began its slow moaning lean sideways. I knew I couldn't get out. I felt acceptance and knew what was really happening to me now. The first thing I thought was "Oh, shit." Then, next thing I thought was "I hate drowning...please, God, not again..." And as gravity pulled my car and my body down, the car gained speed rolling upside-down toward my impact, and I held on to the wheel tight and felt so human and thought, "God, this is gonna hurt."

I just remembered this on my jog tonight, stretching on a bench, catching my breath, scanning the darkness for the moon and finding it straight above me, watching it hold still then disappear behind a rippling of clouds in the cold, murky waters of the night sky. Billie Holiday sang to me,

"I've got a date with a dream, a dream divine, I've got a date with a dream who may be mine, I've got to hurry and dress to meet him at seven, when any old corner becomes a corner of heaven, blue heaven...I'm gonna dance with a dream, we'll dance on air, I'm gonna speak to a dream, and tell him I care, and when the evening is over I'll kiss him goodnight and then I'll have a date with a dream, and meet him all over again."

2006-01-10T05:18:00.000+09:00

Saturday:

4:44pm

Sunday:

10:10am

1:11pm

5:55pm

11:11pm

Monday:

2:22pm

I have no idea what it means either. But I look up, and it's what I see, and when I see it. This reminds me of a time in college when something unseen shook me awake, from the inside out, at 3:33am for three nights in a row. This time, it doesn't scare me.

2006-01-07T22:10:00.000+09:00

12 Hours after 11:11pm

Last night, the phone rang at 11:11pm.

11:11, I'm thinking. What. What am I thinking.

Today, as soon as I started to crumble, shaking my head at "the numbers, what are these numbers doing and what do they mean, maybe I'm just tired", someone across the room playfully jabbed at another, "Hey! It's 11:11, make a wish." My laughter and delight exploded the sameness in the room. I looked up past the ceiling tiles and smiled "thank you."

It's just a word I can't put on it, but my God, I'm trying. And this time, I won't give up.

"Life is hard
And so am I
You'd better give me something
So I don't die
Novocaine for the soul
Before I sputter out
Before I sputter out
Life is white
And I am black
Jesus and his lawyer
Are coming back
Oh my darling
Will you be here
Before I sputter out
Before I sputter out
Before I sputter out
Guess who's living here with the great undead
This paint by numbers life is fucking with my head, once again
Life is good
And I feel great
Cuz mother says I was
A great mistake
Novocaine for the soul
You'd better give me something to fill the hole
Before I sputter out"
- The Eels, "Novocaine for the Soul"

2006-01-05T22:20:00.001+09:00

observation 309.24.05

I went up to the top of the parking garage to think and look. I walked back down, spiralling around to the bottom floor, and opened my eyes for images and words for the day. An embossed image of a polar bear jumped out at me followed by the word "integrity."

Who the hell would name a line of tires "Integrity." But I like it.

My chiropractor has a lopsided sculpture of the word "integrity" propped against the wall on a pile of papers. I'm going to ask her where it came from. Looks like signage from a smalltown bank in the '80s.

Numbers for today were 333.3 on the trip odometer and 12:34pm when a friend called me with an emotional breakdown that I absolutely, completely understood.

2006-01-03T04:25:00.000+09:00

observation 309.24.04

Usually I don't like reading lyrics, but some songs never leave me alone. Ever. I assume everyone is like that but maybe not, you tell me. But even if I haven't heard one of them in years, these songs begin to play in my mind automatically with a misfiring spark of inspiration, or maybe the other way around, I don't know. So I've started looking them up for research. Maybe it's reference. But I need to know why. This is one of those songs that always went straight through me and now, reading back through it, I know what it means now. It looks like fresh writing on the wall eight years ago.

"Blue Orpheus"

If you want to cry
You can always find something to cry about
It’s so easy to be wise
Over someone else’s tears
But you have a gift
That the rest of us just can’t live without
And it’s something in your voice
When you tell us how you feel

Because we’ve all loved something and lost it
And it’s burning my heart
I can’t open my mouth and just let it out

But when I hear my blue orpheus sing
I know that life is a wonderful thing (Sometimes life is a wonderful thing)
Somewhere there’s love and perpetual spring
I know life is a wonderful thing (Sometimes life is a wonderful thing)

Seems so long ago
The sound of your joy filled the atmosphere
We can make it on our own
But the road is so rocky and steep
And when you feel lost
No one tells you what you need to hear
And the only dream you have
Is the one that’s in your sleep

Because we soon forget what we’re here for
I need someone to say he’s got dreams of his own
I’ll know I’m not alone

I want to hear my blue orpheus sing
I’ll know that life is a wonderful thing (Sometimes life is a wonderful thing)
Somewhere there’s love and perpetual spring
I’ll know life is a wonderful thing (Sometime life is a wonderful thing)

Sing
You will one day be together again
Though you cannot see her
Sing
She is somewhere in the world

- Todd Rundgren

2006-01-02T22:10:00.001+09:00

observation 309.24.03

I figured one thing out for certain: It's not that I can't sleep, it's that I don't want to go to sleep because I don't want to wake up without it again. Wherever it is, I feel it out there. If I hold my breath, I can almost hear it relaying to me. It's not a dream, but it's as hard to describe as that. When you wake up from a vivid dream that seemed so real, and if you try to describe it to someone, they just look at you and think "I bet a turkey sandwich on whole wheat would be good for lunch today." Why is it that the only dreams comforting are the ones you can't describe to anyone in human words?

Go to a pet store and look at the gerbil digging furiously in the corner of his cage. It's not cute. He wants out. He wants to go home.

I went to the vietnamese market today and gathered up things from someone else's world to take home and add to my own rendition, and I followed my senses way around to the back to the fishtanks. They were full of so many different kinds of beautiful fish I'd never seen before, all for sale as food and ingredients. I looked into each tank and wondered where and how they lived before they came to this place. I resisted the urge to dip my hand into a self-serve tank and sift through the mussels just to feel them tumbling through in my fingers, but the child in front of me couldn't contain herself and jabbed a net down hard into the center of them. I asked her to stop. Please. She looked up at me with narrowed eyes, kid indifference, and we shifted our attention to the tank I was leaning over and both jumped back from a dark, snake-like fish bobbing out of the water and staring up and past us into nothingness with his mouth wide open, a pipe of water forced on him, splashing and rushing over him as if that'd make a difference for him now. "Is that what I think it is?" she asked. "Yeah," I said with a half-smile of pity, "it is." The longer I looked at him, the more I realized he was dead. It was gone.

Phrases and numbers keep repeating themselves yesterday and today --

"seismic"

11:11 am

4:44 pm

"North Dakota"

10:10 pm

"selective memory"

12:34 am

"Selective Memory"

If I lay my head down
I will see you in my dream
Wearin that polka dot dress
And sittin by the stream
Leaning in to hear you
You will whisper in my ear
And everything I need to know
I finally hear.

I wish I could remember
But my selective memory
Won’t let me.

When I was a baby we would
Go out to the park
And sit out in the fountain
And splash around until it’s dark
Days go on forever
When you only know that much
And everything you need to know
Is answered with one touch.

I wish I could remember
But my selective memory
Won’t let me.

- the Eels, "Daisies of the Galaxy"

2006-01-01T05:33:00.000+09:00

observation 309.24.02

So I was at a stoplight today. The afternoon sunlight was raking lean shadows of trees and buildings across the winter street. The sky was bright and blue and the clouds were a thin, lacy veil of wisps slowly rippling and shifting in the sky. I couldn't figure out if they looked more like wind-swept sanddunes or a drying beach's edging as the tide and the moon pulled the water back out to the sea where it began. Then I realized that it didn't make a difference either way. It was nice, just leave it.

So I look in the rearview mirror. Check my lips, my teeth, my nose. It reminds me of my mother. "Thank God it doesn't happen all at once overnight," as she gently pulled the softening skin around her eyes so dark sometimes. Picking and arranging and rearranging her hair just so, with one final quick inspection, then acceptance. It could be worse, it should be worse by now, I always say to myself. It comforts me that I remember things like that about my mom and apply them to myself as if I were her, myself.

"Holy animation, what’s a human, what’s a lifetime?
All the angels, praying for me, I’m only human
For a lifetime, what’s a lifetime, if you love me?
For a lifetime, you said you’d love me."

So apparently I was paying attention in class.

Anyhow, so I'm checking me out in the mirror and catch a glimpse of the two people in the car behind me. Nothing special, just a white (insert model and make here, they all look alike) car. But I couldn't see her face. Just saw his smiling face turned in her direction. That's because she had a camera for a face. New camera for Christmas, I guess. And she was looking though the tiny frame of it at the world, and she was smiling sweetly. Try that. Look through the frame viewer of a camera every now and then, and the whole world looks different, smaller, more managable, and easily captured as art in an instant. Yours to keep in a few megabytes, or forget it and delete it if it's not quite right and doesn't suit you.

And right on cue, the restless feeling poked around in my ribcage.

"Mass producing, more affection, for a human,
For a lifetime, many lifetimes, for a human,
Is it human to, know your...your lifetimes?
What’s a lifetime, if you love me?
What’s a lifetime, if you can’t love me?"

She turned the camera to him and he made the "this is my sexy face if you're taking that picture" move. They both laughed, and for a moment I felt the love between the two of them. I was happy and sad for them at the same time, wondering which one of them would grow old and die first if they didn't break up years before because one of the two outgrew the other and bored the other one shitless on an average day. A nice, calm day so average that you feel like a walking graveyard, unable to feel pain or death. Compound that boneyard fracture knowing you should be happy, then you can feel guilt, at least.

But luckily, most beings don't think, they just exist. Unfortunately, I'm not most beings. No big deal. So I've learned to force myself to look back in the mirror and see the happiness for what it's supposed to be: A beautiful moment in an imperfect, human lifetime.

I wish something would tell me why I am here and not string it out over a lifetime. I keep looking. I'm finding more answers.

"Sacred introduction, to a human, to a lifetime,
Elevation, turns emotions, into humans
Into lifetimes, what’s a lifetime, if you love me?
For a lifetime, you said you’d love me"

- pm dawn

Hello, it's me.

2005-12-31T04:01:00.000+09:00

We know each other already. You just don't realize it yet. It's ok. I get that look a lot.

observation 309.24.01

Wake up. Go back to sleep. Half dream until heavy eyelids can open by themselves. Wake up again, this time for good. Almost anyway. Scold cat for claw scratches to the lip. Hold cat snugly in forgiveness, smooth down his coat and watch his perfectly round aquamarine eyes soften into satisfaction as facts are faced, yourself. Get up and do it again. Today. Breathe. Keep breathing.

I went to the chiropractor today for my second and last adjustment for now. So good, it only aches in one spot rather than several which is just fine for me. My spine is like a tall stack of thirty-three delicate bone china cups and saucers balanced precariously on a table with uneven legs. Nothing you could notice unless you lived inside my body for awhile. Nothing too bad, just more of a burning annoyance to me that at any time, something could take control of me with just one misplaced step, in one sudden movement, I would break again.

I'm not hungry, but peanut M&M's work all the time. By the way, it's Valentine's Day already according to the Rite Aid drugstore. I never could walk past a bag of red, white and pink candies, and I won't start now. Christmas is right over there in the 50% off bin if you need any.

My chiropracter is a Jehovah's Witness. I don't know much about that. But last time I went in expressing my desperation with my subnormal temperature regarding Christmas and the holidays and how no one around me could get a normal pulse on it this year either for some reason, she gave me a booklet to read. I read two sentences and got a busy signal so I hung up. None of those words fit or make sense to me. I move on to the next thought easily, lots of times, without a nauseated feeling of disappointment.

As I sit waiting to go back for my turn on the table, a woman comes slowly rolling out from behind the louvered, swinging doors and snails past me with a newfangled walker. Impressive, I thought, and "Now there is pain, buddy." Man, she looked old. Looked like she could've been Katherine Hepburn's mother. Plenty of white, silken hair piled up top her head, and for being 137 years old, she was pretty. You could tell at one time, she was chiseled and striking.

"Don't look at her, don't look at her, don't look at her," that urgent voice in me said. But I glanced and smiled, knowing we'd talk now.

"I have a beautiful camel coat," she stated. "It's a really nice coat, well-made with very good material, you know, but it's too hard for me to carry now. It's too heavy. I don't rightly know what to do with it. It's funny how I never knew how heavy it was until now." She looked far away, and something slumped down behind her eyes.

People are stepping up answering questions I am not asking, not out loud anyway, so I feel like I need to write it down.

She continued, "I'm from up north, you see."

"It must've been hard for you to adjust to here, to the heat and all." She smiled. "But it must feel good to your joints sometimes, at least more than the cold." She nodded and smiled wider and began to speak. I tried to listen as I tried not to stare, memorizing her face, envisioning what her eyes looked like when she was 19 and her skin was smooth and tight. When she smiled, her tired aged face looked just like the moon, and I wanted to see her smile even more then. So I, for once since I never do, engaged her in personal questions. As best as I could anyway. I tried to emulate this style of questioning that a friend of mine had. I don't have him anymore, but he's always with me. He always made it look so easy when he'd ask questions. He was thorough and detailed and warm. I'm just strong-willed and intuitive. I figure I know enough not to have to ask questions. It's not easy for me to ask good questions.

"Where up north are you from? How far up north?" I was hoping she could tell me where I was from, too, with her answer. Long Island, New Jersey, she said. Close, but that's not it, I thought. Well, keep her smiling, keep her moon shining bright, I figured. So I asked her all about where she came from. She was the one reflecting the shine from memories long ago. You could tell it hurt for her to talk about it because she knew she'd never see it again, and in a way, it didn't matter since it had changed so much that she wouldn't recognize it anymore. Her son-in-law told her it had changed, she said. In other words, she knew she could never go home again, and never visit where she had landed on this earth before she died and went somewhere else.

We have that in common. I can't prove it, but I know it. I'm waiting for an answer that's looking for me harder than I ever looked for it. To be honest, I turned my back on it. Not sure I can recommend turning your back on what's looking for you. Because if you don't search, it will find you because it doesn't go away. This may be why she started the conversation. I don't know. My only observation today is...I forgot. Honestly, someone just distracted me, and I forgot. I've learned to deal with this frustation.

It's ok though. I'll remember. I don't have a choice.