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needles needling needlessly with little thread... or much of anything else...

(foolish dribbles to be written at uncertain times, on an irregular basis, from uncertain sections of the ever expending universe, and from whatever dimension I-We-Us-Them might find ourselves/ myself in …)

Sunday, October 31, 2004

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN 

Today is the last day of October which logically means that tomorrow is the first day of November. That day is special because it is the day Nanowrimo starts. Now, I know, I had said that I wasn’t going to do it, but a secret friend with a secret name has by her words and her action talked me into possibly doing it. Meaning I’ve not decided yet. It depends on how I feel tomorrow upon waking up and getting out of bed. It depends on my machine a little bit as well, as it’s been giving me malheur after malheur these last few weeks... randomly wreaking my word processor and not letting me write. It also depends on my mood, my humor, my state of mind... I’ve got a story which I’d more or less plotted out a couple years ago, which I’d developed a little, figured out its main characters and stuff, and which I’d set aside to be written at a later undefined date. This might be the perfect time, the perfect excuse to get myself to work. I don’t know if it’s a fifty thousand word long story... I’d originally figured it to be a fairly long short story, but not a novel length text. We’ll see... if I decided on taking the Nanowrimo journey then I could always stretch said story, currently going by the name of DELICIOUS LOVE, and go into unnecessary description of random details, overdo emotional paragraphs, stretch dialogue sections for pages on end, get my characters to discuss dental floss for three pages or something. We’ll see.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

THE GIRL AND THE DOG 

This other morning, I was minding my own business chit chatting with Glenn when this girl rode by on her bicycle. People always riding by on bicycles in our neighborhood. Then she rode back and started talking to us. Glenn was sitting on the table reading the newspaper. I was sitting on the bench having my coffee, and neither one of us could understand what this girl was talking about. So I walked out the gate to greet her.

“I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

She was sitting on her bike leaning against the fence.

“Do you own a little white terrier?” She asks.
“No, I don’t.”
“Oh yeah, cause there’s this little white terrier I saw over there crossing the street.”
“Well... you know, there’re dogs everywhere in this neighborhood.”
“I was just wondering if you know who it belongs to, because it’s just running around on its own.”

I was talking to her directly then, dressed only in my blue jeans and some old shoes. I wasn’t wearing a shirt and I felt a little awkward.

“Don’t you think we should do something about it? I mean, I was riding my bike and I saw him crossing the street. He doesn’t seem like he belongs there or anything.”
“He probably lives in the area.” I was a little reluctant about the whole affair. I could see myself getting involved with chasing this stray dog so this girl could feel better about herself. And to be honest, I wanted to go back to my bench, shoot the shit with Glenn, have my coffee and not worry about no little white terrier running around the neighborhood being lost. One look at this girl, though, and I knew I wasn’t going to get out of it. She seemed bent on the matter. And intent on involving me.

Her bike was all beat up, she was wearing easy going clothes, kind of like what I usually wear. Probably in her mid to late twenties. She seemed nice enough, and I thought to myself, what’s a dog? You’re finally meeting some girl from the neighborhood.

“So you don’t know who it belongs to?” She said.
“No, I sure don’t... it’s probably fine, though...”
“It didn’t look starved or anything... and when I was riding by, it was minding its own business, you know... it wasn’t going through the trash can or anything... it doesn’t look as if it’s starving or anything like that...”
“It probably just lives right around the corner.”
“He’s got tags. Maybe we should catch him... or something.”
“Uhm...” I didn’t know if I should go back to my coffee or what... so I said, “okay... I better go put a shirt on...”
“You’re fine...”
“You think I’ll be alright?”
“Don’t worry about it...”

So we started walking down the street. Her on her bike walking like a penguin with her bike between her legs and me without a shirt on, my fat belly out for everybody to see, in search of a little white terrier who probably wanted to be left alone.

NOT KNOWING THE... 

Of course, once I actually start writing on some project seriously, maybe one of those projects which has been rotting there in my paper works for ages, in my head, then I won’t be able to post any more entries... or is that how it works? Maybe if I’m writing on a project and I’m so energized about it, so incensed about the process, so involved with the storytelling that I overflow with words and phrases... man, that would be nice... that I have to write whatever, everything which comes to mind, like a mad man who has to get rid of his emotions - as if they were real material entities, as if you could hold them between your fingers and feel their exact emanation of heat, smell their olfactive qualities, dissect them by squeezing them apart in between your thumb and your forefinger to see what they were made of – and throw them forcefully against a piece of paper to see what random shape they might produce when they squash at full speed against a wall... like splashes of dark ink slammed on papyrus paper one drop at a time from the tip of a pure gold plume jerked in mid air.

CHECK AND BALANCE 

I get out of the bath feeling like a pink elephant. That is to say I feel damn good, my friend. Drinking a couple of beers while macerating in hot water with the music blasting. What else could I want on a late Wednesday afternoon?

Glenn knocks on my door taking me out of my fantasy world inside my bathtub to ask me if I want to join him and Kari for diner tonight.

“Hallo!” He yells as he knocks on the door frame... I keep my door open most of the time I’m present and at home...
“Yeah...” I yell from inside my bath.
“You want to have some diner later on?”
“Sure...”
“Spaghetti,” he yells back.
“Why not,” I scream myself. “I got a descent bottle of red, I’ll bring that,” I add.
“Alright, mate, see you in about one hour.”
“Alright, man.”

So Wednesday is coming to a close soon enough.

Tracie was here last week at one point and we were with Glenn sitting outside at the table in front of Glenn and Kari’s place as usual. Tracie was telling me that she thought I limited myself way too much as I wrote this blog.

“But,” I said, “how can I just write everything that I think and see, this is a blog which is accessible by all people.”
“Sure... but by censoring yourself, you’re limiting yourself and you’re not saying exactly what’s on your mind. What I’m trying to say is that you’re not being completely honest... and... and it shows in some of your entries.”
“I know this... I know.”
“You have to tell us everything.”
“That’s easily said, but not so easily done. It was easier a couple years ago when I was writing a blog-like journal and sending it only to a chosen few. But being on the net, being open to all, how can I just go and write everything? I’m blocked. I'm between a rock and a hard place. I write better and more specifically whenever I know I have an audience, yet when my audience includes, at least potentially, everybody, especially the people in my life about whom I might be inclined to write about, then I feel as if I have to censor myself.”
“But... you cannot... or at least you shouldn’t.”
“That’s easy to say. Not so easy to do. I’ve pissed off some people already, you know. I can only do so much in so many words with a more or less an impromptu format. It’s not like a journal.”
“No... I guess not... I guess it isn’t a journal at all though it takes the format of a journal.”
“I’ve never liked to write in a journal, I’m too much of an exhibitionist... and journals are too private... they don't really interest me. I need to know somebody’s out there reading me, otherwise I can’t bother myself with it all.”

Tonight is a full moon eclipse. Brian and Tracie had invited me to come over and check out the moon through their telescope. I’ve had a few beers and I need to stick around here, so I called to let them know I wouldn’t be showing up. My sister and her friend have been here since last night, and we’ve driven around in the car a bit. I’m tired. I don’t want to get into my car until it is once again absolutely needed of me to do so to... go to work for example tomorrow at around twelve. Till then, I don’t want to drive. I want to drink beer, chill out, listen to some music, maybe write a couple of entries, and eventually go to bed.

Sunday, October 24, 2004

DECIDING THINGS 

Thinking about it, I doubt I’ll be doing the NanoWrimo thing. Sounds tempting, but seriously I’ve got so many unfinished projects as it is, it’s not smart to start on yet another one which will most probably remain unfinished... and while I'm at it, I also decided early this week to stop attending my writer’s group... for plenty of reasons... A lot of it revolving around my realization that if I want to get anything done, I’ll have to go about it alone... at first... then with the help of my friends.

To go looking for help and discipline in the midst of strangers who are themselves looking for more or less the same thing is like applying into a social club of incapables. A sort of Alcoholic Anonymous. Not to be so unfairly judgmental towards my ex-writer's-group-members – each one has his/her own reasons for being part of, for staying with, for leaving the company of... each has his/her own way of interpreting, reacting to, understanding their surroundings – because to some extent I have been looking for a “club” most of my life. This one was simply not it. So I left it. So be it.

(I'm the ultimate incapable. As in I fit nowhere for real and everywhere for starters... and never stick around for the long-run.)

What I do know is that I need to be with folks with whom I can talk, create, discuss, dialogue, argue...

And why do I feel the need to write here these thoughts boring as they are, personal as they are, in this blog? Who cares? Really... why would any of this matter to anybody?

(Sorry about this entry... this is the reason why I’ve barely written anything this week. If things go as planned, I’ll be back in shape within the next few days, and I can write up this great new single malt I abundantly tasted the other night. Maybe I’ll even tell you a couple stories from work, from my non-existent social life, from my living situations, from my family, from my personal demons... from my et ceteras...)

AFRAID OF THE POSTMAN 

Here’s a poem by Mohamed al-Maghout, translated from the Arab (Syrian) to the French by Abdellatif Laâbi. I bought this little book of poems in translation published by les Editions de la Différence, coll. Orphée, 1992 : La joie n’est pas mon métier (more or less : Pleasure is not my business), before leaving Paris a few weeks ago.

I really like the following poem:



PEUR DU FACTEUR

Vous les prisoniers en tout lieu
envoyez-moi tout ce que vous avez
de terreur, de hurlement et d’ennui



Vous les pêcheurs sur toutes les côtes
envoyez-moi tout ce que vous avez
de filets vides et de mal de mer



Vous les paysans en toute terre
envoyez-moi tout ce que vous avez
de vieilles fleurs et nippes
de seins déchirés
ventres ouverts
ongles arrachés
à mon adresse... dans n’importe quel café
n’importe quelles rue du monde
Je prépare un « énorme dossier »
sur la souffrance humaine
pour le soumettre à Dieu
dès qu’il sera signé par les lèvres des affamés
et les cils de ceux qui attendent
Mais, ô malheureux en tout lieu
ce que je crains par-dessus tout
c’est que Dieu soit analphabète


(This book is unfortunately no longer being published, so I cannot link you to an amazon.fr link. I'd love to read anything else I could put my hands on, so if you know of any other work by Mr. Mohamed al-Maghout, let me know... in French or English... though I don't think anything by him has been translated into English.)

Thursday, October 21, 2004

TEX-MEX TRASH 

Drinking a cocktail to blow your mind onto your laps. Basically this, except I don’t have any Cointreau or Curacao. So I do with my limited bartending capacities.

2 once Tito’s vodka
½ once Patron Citronge

In the shaker, add ice, shake vigorously, and strain into your cocktail glass.

Tito’s smooth six timed distilled beauty will mix with whatever you want. Patron’s sweet orange liqueur made in Mexico is much cheaper than it’s French counterpart. You drink it while listening to Serge Gainsbourg... my recommendation... late at night alone by yourself so far away from any company you find yourself shamelessly singing to yourself with Serge... you need a smoke and you thank god for modern technology.

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

TRYING TO THINK OF FIRST LINES 

(tell me what you think)

P(ossibility) N(umber) I

This is a sad sad story I’m about to tell you.

(uhm... a little too simple? and the repetition of ‘sad’ doesn’t invite any reader to keep going, as we are scared of the childish style we’re about to be lashed with...)

PN II

I’ve never been one for overly extrapolated personal stories, overtly constipated anal banalities... and I’ve never been one to put pen to paper, as they say, but here I am, here we are... in the annals of pathetic personal history starring at myself in the mirror, looking at my naked self all flabby, and so disgustingly human... I am.

(maybe a tad bit pretentious? and for fuck’s sake, lets not be soooooo down to start with... a little Optimism would be good, or at least not soooooo in your face negativism...)

PN III

Once upon time there was a little boy who was scared to go outside of the house on his own.

(no comments...)

PN IV

Beer, there was always plenty of beer, always more beer, never a lack of beer, and when the beer was finally drunk up, Frank would simply go to the store and buy some more beer, that’s the story of his life.

(and where can we go from there?)

PN V

Frank had dreamt of being a filmmaker ever since his early teen years.

(a little grab at first is always good, though the sentence itself is as boring as can be... could go plenty of ways, maybe he’s never been able to become a filmmaker, and this is the story of how he’s a complete failure... or maybe he’s now a well established and respected filmmaker, but when all is said and done, he still feels like a failure, that his filmmaking is not fulfilling... he’s had to shake too many hands, make too many compromises, suck up too many assholes... and now he just feels like either putting a bullet through his head or making the one film which will not only be the greatest film he could possibly make, but which will surely ostracize him from the whole filmmaking community and his career would end in catastrophe... the personal fight between self-fulfillment and being accepted by one’s peers...)

PN VI

As he gulped down his last beer at ten till ten on a Wednesday morning, Frank saw the despondency of his situation.

(has possibilities, though maybe should do without the word ‘despondency’ and use ‘hopelessness’ instead... I’m not even sure I’m using that word properly...)

PN VII

Frank got up from bed that morning feeling like a thousand sun-shines and a couple of heartburns.

(there we go... a little positivism...)

PN VIII

The first time I met Frank, he was living at the White Buffalo motel across the street from a run-down steak house where he worked.

(shit... not sure I want to go there...)

INSIDE THE HOLE 

I’ve got to get myself warmed up. Today is my day off from the liquor store. I got the French CD’s playing on the jam box, the shutters are down, the yellow tungsten light not so bright is shinning. I’ve got to remember to go buy a brighter lamp otherwise I’ll hurt my eyes and go blind... and that wouldn’t be so good. Maybe I’ll have the courage for once to travel through all those mysterious lands of prairie dogs and sneering gods and demons who have elected to live inside my head. Slowly enter inside through that tiny little door in the back behind the barnyard animal shelters and next to the wine cellar door. That little wooden door black from years of dust and spider webs with rusted hinges and an old key hole so old it’s big enough to get a glimpse of what’s beyond, that is if there was any light on the other side. I’ll have to go to the superstore and buy me a flashlight, one of those you strap around your forehead, one of those which makes you look like a coal miner. Matter fact, while I’m there, at the superstore that is, I should also get me a small portable hatchet, a machete, a bowie knife, a Swiss army knife with a cork screw and little scissors with which to scrap the crud from underneath my fingernails, possibly also a Leatherman, and some nail clippers. What else could I possibly need for such an excursion? Open up the oubliette, sure, if that’s what you want... but be aware you might not like what you find. Possibly all the souls and demons are dead already for years now... their corpses have been rotting, decomposing, and all you’ll find might possibly be only the skeletal remains barely glowing from previous and forgotten spectral self-awareness. Like a post personal big bang... my thoughts are merely like dust blowing through space... the tiny little proofs of what once was... whole... or at least structurally sound... a personal burst of energy I’ve somehow ignored going through my physical life walking from place to place as if nothing was going on in there beyond the little black door... and now all is dead and emptier than space... or maybe I’ll find some old drinking buddies sitting around a table recounting old stories of things which have never happened in the outside world... old friends forgotten somehow though I’d promised myself I’d never forget...

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

NANOWRIMO 

It's that time of the year again. November... three years ago, I took part in NaNoWriMo and I'm thinking about doing it a second time. It was fun the first time, though I still haven't re-written my first nanowrimo "book." If I do it, which isn't yet decided, I'll do it via a new blog: Needling Nano Needles. Still got a few days to think about it...

Monday, October 18, 2004

WAITING FOR A NEW DELIVERY 

Alright, alright, alright... for fuck’s sake, I said ALRIGHT! I hear you up there, the gerbils in my brains, the rodents gnawing like old men sipping whisky on the deck of a river boat slowly making its way down-river. Old men dressed in white suits from another age. Alright! Fuck... the days are coming and going at a regular pace and nothing’s happening up there. It’s like we’re all asleep, or zoned out, chewing on a stick, a slice of grass, or the last news reports trying to decide what to do next. I’m afraid we’re all out of ideas, sir, but if you wait long enough, I’m sure a new delivery will come eventually.

Sunday, October 17, 2004

SUNDAY EVENING SURFING 

This is a cool video by Fredo Viola that I found thanks to ni.vu.ni.connu blog.

Mount St. Helens web cam, thanks to Rick who sent me the link last week. Great pictures. Mind blowing. Talk about a smoking cigar ready to blow any second.

An interview with Marjane Satrapi, thanks to Bookslut. I really enjoyed reading her opinions, as I've really enjoyed reading her graphic novels, thanks to Claire who introduced me to this author.

Maureen Dowd's last op-ed piece. I like her. I think she's definitely cool.

This guy makes an appetizing omelet. (I've just added his blog on my blogs I read these days right column thingy.)

THE PACKAGE 

Three days ago, the postman left a little pink slip in my mailbox telling me he’d tried to deliver a package but that I hadn’t been at home and that he would try again the following day. The little pink slip also said that if I wasn’t going to be home once again then I could come over to the post office and pick it up myself.

Yesterday morning I got up before sun-up after a sleepless night.

I knew several things about this particular package. I knew that it came from France, that my friend Claire had sent it, and I knew that it contained, or at least at its departure from Paris, that it contained among other things one bottle of wine.

All this made me quite anxious to get a hold of this package as quickly as possible, as the package was already several days late in arrival, and Claire, who had posted said package from Paris, was getting anxious as well, which is why she finally broke down and told me she had not only included a bottle of wine in the package, but that she had written it on the label itself that there was a bottle of wine inside the package. After several days of the package not arriving and making absolutely no signs of doing so, she broke down and told me about the bottle of wine, which she would have preferred to keep secret so as to really up the surprise element upon my receiving of said package, opening it, and SURPRISE, there is a bottle of wine.

I want to make clear that I thoroughly enjoy surprises, but that I’m also a bit of a cheat. And when I’m aware of the fact that there is a surprise coming my way, I will do everything in my power to find out what the surprise is. Which of course makes no sense since I enjoy surprises. But that is part of my nature. If I know something is coming my way, that said something is going to be a pleasurable surprise, then for some reason I must find out what said something surprise IS. When Claire told me she was putting a package of surprises together and would be sending it across the big pound, I kept asking her email after email what it was she was including inside the package. When that went absolutely nowhere, that Claire would absolutely not tell me the contents of said package, then I started asking her when was it that I would receive the package. After one of these particular emails where I ended my letter with: AND MY PACKAGE!!! As in, where is it? Claire finally broke down from my array of impatience and told me that the package had not only been sent but that I should have received it by now, that she had specifically asked and purchased the fast delivery service. (Include your own personal snide remark here about both the French and the American postal services.)

The package was several days late, and Claire was getting anxious on the other side of the Atlantic. I could picture her walking back and forth in her Parisian flat wondering what could have happened to the package, where could it have gone... maybe it had fallen from the airplane and drowned somewhere between Greenland and Nova Scotia? From my Austin home I pictured Claire in her Parisian flat and I started sending her a daily report on how the package was not arriving and not giving any signs of wanting to arrive. My tactics clearly worked, as Claire broke down a little more and told me of one of the elements she had included inside the package. A good bottle of French wine. Could the package have gotten itself snatched at the border by a wino guardian of the peace? Could it have been mistaken for a terrorist’s trick of invasion of the continent via the contents of a good bottle of red? A Gargantuan epic in the making? Would the package arrive with or without the bottle?

My impatience was now turning on me, backfiring and I was starting to get nervous. My friend Claire knows me pretty well, and she not only knows how much I enjoy a good bottle of wine, she also knows how much I enjoy some good cheese to go with said bottle of wine. Good cheese being either outrageously expensive or absolutely inexistent in this country – pasteurized cheese is dead cheese and is very bad for you, whatever the FDA says... and whatever happened to freedom of choice? Aren’t I adult enough to choose whether I want / need pasteurized or non-pasteurized cheese? Pregnant women should not eat non-pasteurized cheese, matter fact, they probably shouldn’t eat any cheese at all, but does that mean I cannot have any non-pasteurized cheese myself? I’m never going to be a pregnant woman, however hard I try, yet as far as the FDA is concerned I cannot eat, purchase, produce, or even dream of non-pasteurized cheese... I think that’s unfair, but I digress... – I was starting to think that maybe Claire had also included a piece of cheese, like possibly a St. Nectaire fermier, or a good Camembert made from whole milk straight from one of those luscious black & white Normandy cows... and then I knew for a fact that said package was never arriving, not only that but my old paranoiac fear of authority, especially the immigration and border kind, – I grew up as an illegal alien in West Texas – were reappearing in my psyche. Were the Patriotic Police on their way to my home? Would they send me on a one way ticket to Guantanamo for a piece of cheese and a bottle of wine? What if Claire had also included a book written in French? We all know how the current administration loves all things French... a plot against Amerika in the making!

I could see the package inside a see-through plastic casing in a severe room lit with neon. The guardian of the peace dressed in whites, wearing a special mask over his nose, and a spandex hair net slowly unwrapping the package, cutting the tape and the label off with precise surgery tools. The package inside the plastic casing and the guardian of the peace working from outside the casing with those funky arm and hand sleeves built into the wall of the see-through casing... you know, like they have in every b-rated science movie with fake doctors and fake scientists trying to save the world from a bacterial infection. I could see the contents of the package being inspected, the cheese being mistaken for a new biological weapon of mass destruction, the book in French being taken as an insult against Amerikan Freedom... et cetera... all this to say that my imagination was starting to play tricks on me... and the package was not arriving.

When the pink slip appeared in my mail box, I was excited, but also worried. I had worked myself up a little too much, and when I noticed that the pink slip asked me to pick up my package not at my neighborhood post office, but at the main post office down town, I really started to get worried. Had they opened the package and decided the contents were some sort of affront against good White Protestant Amerika? Was it a trap to bring me in and question me on my affiliation to some kind of underground non-pasteurized cheese subculture? Were they going to lock me up?

I got up two hours before the post office opened and left my house forty five minutes in advance. I stopped by a coffee shop. I didn’t want their coffee, really. I just wanted to use some of those extra minutes I had. For once, it didn’t take hardly any time. The coffee people were fast and efficient. There was no line, nobody at the counter paying by check. Nothing to slow me down. Three people at the counter for once. All of them there to make sure I got my coffee the fastest possible.

I arrived with thirty minutes to spare. I waited, telling myself that everything would go just fine, that there was nothing to worry about... I walked back and forth in the post office lobby, the part of the post office which stays open 24 hours a day where all the PO boxes are... I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Two minutes before nine, I rang the special doorbell next to the special blue door for special Saturday package pick-ups.

“Good morning,” I said... with a big innocent smile getting ready for anything they might throw at me.
“Hi. You here for a package?” This woman said to me completely disinterested.
“Now you ask’em for the slip...” a man standing next to her was dictating her what to do. She was a trainee. I had given her the pink slip before they could ask for it.
“You got some I.D.?”
“Sure... the name’s right but the address is wrong,” I said.

I barely had time to finish my sentence that they’d given me my I.D. back and slammed the door in my nose. So there I was staring at the blue door for a little more than five minutes with absolutely no explication from the postal workers. What were they doing in there? Was it that difficult to go get a package and bring it back to me? Why were they taking so long? Where they spying on me via some cameras to see what my reactions were at being left alone waiting? I kept smiling, trying to look as calm as possible, just in case they had cameras.

The door opened again. The guy training the woman didn’t look at me. She was holding my package, which looked as if it had gone through some rough transport. It was all taped up with black and see-through tape, it was banged up pretty good. I didn’t even want to start imagining its trip across the big pound.

“Now you scan the package,” said the man to the woman. Said package was refusing to scan, so that took a while. “Then you scan the slip.”

Finally the woman looked up at me and acknowledged my presence. “He needs to sign,” the man said to the woman. But I was already signing the pink slip before she could react. She held on to the package, then he held on to it for a little while. They kept exchanging the package between themselves, as if they didn’t want to give it up. All this time they weren’t paying any mind to me. I was just trying to keep my innocent smile on, not wanting to cause any trouble just in case, figuring they’d eventually have to give it to me.

“Thank you,” I said when I finally got a hold of the package. “Is that it?”
“Now you do this and that...” the man was saying to the woman shutting the door in my face.

“You have a good day,” I said, relieved that everything had gone smoothly, that no guardian of the peace had emerged from some secret door to drag me into their b-rated world of cloak and daggers.

I drove home feeling I had won some secret battle nobody new about against the oppressors. I kept looking at the package on the passenger seat as if it was possibly a sick child. Or an old friend fallen asleep after a long voyage. And I was wondering if everything would be alright. It didn’t look so good.

When I got home I carefully cut the tape and the cardboard box. There was a letter from Claire on top of a pillow, the very same pillow which had previously lived on Claire’s couch and on which I had often set my head after a hard night’s drinking. Next to the letter was a Diplome d’Ivrogne (a Drinking Degree, or a Drunkard’s Degree). I lifted the pillow after reading Claire’s wonderful letter, written in circles, and after studying my new honorary degree – of which I’m very proud – and discovered the now famous bottle wrapped in a bright orange, red and green scarf. It was unharmed, in one piece, still protecting its delightful contents. I dug in slowly, taking my time, succeeding against my inherent impatience, wanting to enjoy each element of the package completely before moving on to the following.

(The package made me very happy. Claire surprised me with almost everything in it. Every element was perfect and proved how well she knows me. I realize I wrote this entry as somewhat of a story, which builds, builds, and builds some more... and then I just stopped... but that’s life, that how it often works in my life. Though it might sound anticlimactic in writing – and it certainly is – the fact of the matter is that it isn’t, because the contents of the package will keep bringing fun and laughs and pleasure for a long time to come... Thank you Claire.)

Thursday, October 14, 2004

SUMMER’S FINALLY GONE 

When you get home from work, your feet hurt, you’ve been up and down hills for twenty minutes, the same hills you drive up and down every day, twice a day, once each way... it’s definitely the end of summer, the days are getting colder, the smells in your neighborhood are getting crisper, like a gas heater somebody’s already got going... and you can smell it distinctly. It’s a good feeling but you’re tired, you want to be nostalgic about summer even though not two weeks ago you were bitching and gripping because you couldn’t do anything without breaking a sweat. It was so humid that when you put the fan on in your bedroom, instead of creating a small agreeable breeze, it merely malaxed the air as if you were lying down at the bottom of a large boiling pot of gravy trying to breath.

So what do you do? You open the refrigerator, you take out a small mango, a small bitter orange, a couple of key limes, and you place them on you cutting board. You start with the mango, by skinning it, cutting the flesh away from the pit without crushing it or loosing too much of the juice, and putting it inside the blender your sister just gave you. Then you skin the orange. When you squeeze it as you peal it, some of its bitter sweet juices reach your face and your nostrils. You add that on top of the mango. You cut the two tiny key limes in two and squeeze the life out of them on top of the other two pieces of fruits. On top of that you put approximately three ounces of tequilla reposado 100 percent agave, an ounce and a half of orange liqueur, some 100 percent orange juice, some ice cubes, and you blend the whole guacamole!

Then... you drink it. Sure, it’s not fabulous, it’s definitely not subtle in any way whatsoever. It’s got little crunchy pieces of ice and stuff, like pieces of lime or orange seeds... but that’s not the point. It tastes like summer, like you should be next to a swimming pool. It’s refreshing, it’s healthy for you, and there are no additives... plus, it fills up two pints worth of summer and fruits with just a tiny little bite to help you forget your feet that hurt, the hills which never change on the way to work or coming back home, and the summer most definitely gone now... fallen into the oubliette, fallen for good this time... and thank god, it's about time.

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

MARK'S GOSPEL 

I cannot concentrate on my short story. The theme is Abandonment & fear of Abandonment. Uhm... procrastination? Or an unconscious acting out of my theme ON the writing of the story itself? Or just laziness? Probably the later. I took a salt bath – hot water + rock salt – instead, one of my favorite activities, and read Chapter 4 of the gospel according to Mark. Why? you ask... I’ve recently bought the Collected Fictions of Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley. The other day I read the story “The Gospel According to Mark” published in the collection “Brodie’s Report” (1970). I’d read the story a while back, and enjoyed rediscovering it recently.

Actually, today I started in the middle of Chapter 3, line 31, of the G.A.M.:

Jesus and His family. 31 His mother and his brothers arrived, and as they stood outside they sent word to him to come out. 32 The crowd seated around him told him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside asking for you.” 33 He said in reply, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And gazing around him at those seated in the circle he continued, “These are my mother and my brothers. 35 Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother to me.”

It’s been a while since I’ve opened this book – and I don’t remember my years of Catechism well enough to remember what was taught to me on Mark’s gospel – but it sure sounds as if some stories of immaculate virgins aren’t really followed through in this passage. Just a small problem in continuity? Maybe I’m one of those bad seeds J.C. talks about later, that’s been thrown in the thorns and in the weeds, and thus cannot grow (i.e. see the light.)

(Side-note: J.C. abandons his family for the sake of his disciples and his preaching...)

In my story, a young man feels abandoned by his girlfriend and asks a stranger for help, while a grown man, the stranger who was asked for help and couldn’t give it several years later, tells the story of the young man to another man. He doesn’t know why he’s telling the story because he feels the whole incident to be quite banal, which it was... at first, he just wants to make fun of the young man and have a funny story to tell, and that’s the principal reason for him telling the story to his friend... but then he realizes that he’s telling his friend his own story and how he feels abandoned himself... but he also realizes that he cannot say all these things to his friend without sounding trite or full of self pity... how do you describe a feeling of being abandoned by life, by whatever we call spirit and soul? So the man cannot finish his story and misses the point altogether. The story falls flat and he feels stupid. They have another beer.

MUSCADET SEVRE ET MAINE SUR LIE 

What I’d like to say this morning is that having a job lets one appreciate one’s time to oneself... where one is not accountable to anybody else except to one. Today is my day of rest, as the French say it (jour de repos) which I prefer than saying my day off... because “off” connotes that I’m not ON, meaning... what? That I don’t think unless I’m working at my job? That my brain quits working? That I cannot take on any tasks? That I turn all functions off and sit in front of the television zoning till it is time again for me to get in my car, drive to my job, and turn myself back on to earn money for my employer and pay the rent?

(Before this entry is misconstrued, I should probably point out that I actually like my job. It’s in retail and it’s not the most challenging job in the world... at first glance. This is true. What is also true is that I’m a big fan of wine, whisky, and beer, that I am getting paid to better my knowledge of the above mentioned, and that I get a great discount on all my purchases at the store [so that I can really study the subject]. If I keep all the receipts, could I declare them on my taxes at the end of the year? I wonder.)

It’s barely ten in the morning and I’ve been up since 05h30. I’ve gone to the supermarket to do all my shopping. I’ve called Rick and Kyungmee in Paris. And before all that, I went to an all night diner to work on a new short story I wrote the first draft to last Sunday. I’m currently having a glass of white wine. This early in the morning, I hear you think. Well... yeah... kind of like those old men in the wine regions of France having wine for breakfast instead of coffee. It’s fortifying, though red would probably be better. What I’m drinking is a Muscadet Sevre et Maine sur lie, Chateau de la Ragotiere. We only have one bottle of said wine left at the store, and I’ll have to find a good argument to talk my boss into ordering some more. I think she is planning on discontinuing this particular vintage. It’s a simple white wine, inexpensive, and goes quite well with fish, white meats, and by itself. It doesn’t demand too much attention to itself and simply lets itself be drunk... humbly so.

Now... back to my short story.

Sunday, October 10, 2004

WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD 

Perfect weather. 69 degrees, no humidity to speak of, slight breeze, partly cloudy. This morning I wake up without a hangover, feeling good about life, and I don’t even have to go to work. Yesterday I finally won against the bugs in my computer without having to reformat my hard-drive – knock on wood – and I can sit here at my desk staring at my backyard, the dirt back-alley which divides the blocks of houses and yards, the large yellow butterflies skipping around letting the air carry their featherweights around...

I was sitting on the shitter, and at random I opened my little tiny pocket book of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies, translated by Stephen Mitchell, the very same little tiny book which saved me from myself during the 95 to 97 depression (personal depression), the same depression which took me from Maine to Texas via California several times... and I’ve rarely picked that book up since... at random I read a passage (Shambhala Pocket Classics... the size of the book and the way it is printed makes it hard to know the correct line breaks... sorry about that) :

Oh and springtime would hold it --, everywhere it would echo
the song of annunciation. First the small
questioning notes intensified all around
by the sheltering silence of a pure, affirmative day.
Then up the stairs, up the stairway of calls, to the dreamed-of
temple of the future --; and then the trill, like a fountain
which, in its rising jet, already anticipates its fall
in a game of promises .... And still ahead: summer.
Not only all the dawns of summer --, not only
how they change themselves into day

Look, I was calling for my lover. But not just she
would come... Out of their fragile graves
girls would arise and gather... For how could I limit
the call, once I called it? These unripe spirits keep seeking
the earth. – Children, one earthly Thing
truly experienced, even once, is enough for a lifetime.
Don’t think that fate is more than the density of childhood;
how often you outdistanced the man you loved, breathing, breathing
after the blissful chase, and passed on into freedom.

Saturday, October 09, 2004

SHE’S GOT AN AXE TO GRIND WITH ANYTHING THAT’S FUN OR PLEASURABLE 

The stuff just drinks itself. It’s like it barely passes the stage of having to be drank, inhaled... liquid ingurgitation. No such physical impurities around this house. We’re like... immaculate... Through this orifice you were born, but through this orifice no other organ had to enter to plant your seed. My soul is sealed and precious. I drink this elixir, but I feel as if maybe I am merely breathing the earth before Man crapped on it. The garden of Eden is to be found somewhere around here... (I just don't have the correct address or something...)

And... to get back down to Earth... as in: this Earth, this one bit of polluted scrap trash pile of jitterbug throwaways I live on... we live on... I’d like to say this is only my first analysis and that in the future, though the whisky taken down my gullet might be much pricier than this one here I’m currently enjoying, I might not get so fucking poetic about the whole goddamned procedure. Single malts demand both poetics and harsh realities thrown in your face. That’s right, a bright future and a bucket of life that feels like a fresh catch of dead sardines dumped on your head. That’s what I love about this drink. You shouldn’t believe a word I write here, if you’re to read them literally. First of all, my grammar is ostensibly repulsive. Second of all, I’m full of myself. Third of all, I’m drunk. Fourth off all, I don’t give a flying monkey’s fart. And fifth of all, I’m only capable of enjoying the moment for what it is in today’s context. So fuck it... it’s either all a lie, a complete fable, or a misunderstood mistake...

But just remember: You don’t drink the stuff, you chew it. And that don’t apply to only this particular single malt I’m drinking now. It applies to probably most of them. And that’s what I’m aiming to figure out in the months to come.

Thank you.

ISLE OF JURA 

Give it a good nose. It’s like they got me a whole forest in my glass. No ice needed. Matter fact, you put ice in that there glass sir and I might just get myself so upset I kick you out of the house. That’s right, sir, you heard me right. I’ll kick you right out of the house if you put ice in that there glass. But we all know you ain’t putting no ice in your glass... Because you know better. That’s right.

Give it a great nose. Just bring up that little glass up to your face and stick your clarinet, your trumpet, your two hole burner right in there. That’s right, take a big snifter... Shyster! Smells like the queen’s asleep on hard bed made of sweet oak. Like she’s sweating sweetly her bodily odors down her gown and her knickers. Sweet young queen barely eighteen, sleeping on peat and wood giving pleasure to the peasantry. Unscrupulous... unethical methods to reel me into that glass of pure woody delightful liquid.

Then take a bite, bring the rim of that there glass to your lips and pray to god you got all your sensors on. And if you don’t they’ll be on before you know what’s happening. That sleeping freshness of purity will wake up blasting in a pure fresh stream right out of the rocks from a long ago ice age of dolmens and druids flowering right there in your palate. You can just stare right at the dirty yellow walls of your house and nothing’s wrong... it’s like a whole forest of autumn silence with the leaves turning bright red and orange, yet the chilly winds are churning up in between the trunks of this oak and hazelnut forest... a certain warmth is felt inside out... the ocean is grizling up getting ready for winter... the wood pile near the fire place is reaching the ceiling...

You don’t drink the stuff, you chew it.

Thursday, October 07, 2004

UNDER ATTACK 

My computer system has been on the defensive. Fighting off spyware and other annoying viruses on my computer. If anybody has any suggestions, please let me know. I can't erase the little shits. Norton can't do a thing. I've downloaded other programs. Nada. Annoying things are happening throughout the system making it impossible for me to work... especially with MicrosoftWords, which erases whole sections of what I'm writing, or refuses to cut and paste, or cuts and pastes passages at random. You'd think that when you spend money to buy a computer, to buy the programs to install on your machine, that they'd belong to you and not to some assholes out there trying to... I don't know what they're trying to do, really... but they're making my computer-life hell and thus my writing-life hell. This was my day off from the liquor store and I spent a good deal of it trying to regaining the right to use my property as I see fit. To no avail!!!!

HELP... how do I erase unwanted .exe files? Windows Task Manager won't let me do it!!!

Sunday, October 03, 2004

THE LAST SUNDAY TIMES FROM THE STORE ON 51ST STREET 

Bought the last copy of the NYTimes, and while browsing the Book Review section I read an article called The Widening Web of Digital Lit. In it they publish the web addresses of several lit sites some of which are blogs. I haven't been able to go through all of them yet, but I wanted to link them here so as to be able to check them out eventually... even when I'll have placed the paper in the recycle bin.

Beatrice. Bookslut. The Complete Review. Cosmoetica. Everyone Who's Anyone in Adult Trade Publishing (I knew that one already). Fanfiction. Foetry. Godawful Fan Fiction. Identity Theory (I've checked them out before.) The Literary Dick. The London News Review - Books Diary. Maud Newton (I've read her before). Mobylives. Poetry Daily. Publishers Lunch. The Underground Literary Alliance. Web Del Sol. Words Without Borders (Rick just sent me the link to that site yesterday.)

And now I can even link to them while at work and there's no booze to stack up on the shelves.

Saturday, October 02, 2004

MALT REVELATION 

I had a revelation last night. Though it’s true I don’t quite know at what point I went to sleep nor at what point the revelation came to me, or if it came last night for that matter. I think rather it was today while I was at work all day fighting my hangover, trying not to look as if I was completely fucked up. Last night, at Brian and Tracie’s place... there was that one drink too many, that one which flipped me over the top... I don’t remember... then I woke up... it was morning, my glasses were nowhere to be found... I was on their couch with my feet on the pillow and my head on the cover using that as a pillow. At one specific point, it all went both right and wrong. That was when Brian handed me a little glass of single malt scotch. A Balvenie 12 Year Old. I realized at this point there was three phases to each sip, and each phase was so amazingly different, distinct, particular... though I’m not sure I’d know how to put these feelings into words, these attacks on my nervous system, these delights of the tongue, the palate, the throat, the mind... how to describe them in words so that they might make sense to one who has never before tasted that particular Scotch. Hell, so that they might make sense to me.

Today at work, my boss brought me a book from her library on single malts. I hadn’t asked her for this as far as I can remember. It all came together. I want to know everything there is to know about single malts as I can possibly know. I will from now on, after every pay check, purchase a different bottle of single malt scotch. I will try... I will learn to talk about each and every one of them, and I will attempt to describe them to you, my inexistent readers.

This coming Wednesday is my next paycheck –the second paycheck for the liquor store company I currently work for – and come that day, I will purchase a bottle... though I don’t know which one. Possibly a bottle of Oran or a bottle of Laphroaig (isn't that a great name... hey, you gotta have a place to start when you know not what you're doing... cool name, pretty label, weirdly shaped bottle... whatever) or one of the hundreds of other bottles we carry in our store.

I’m so excited. I’m drinking a glass of Makers Mark right now. And there’s nothing wrong with it. But man, when you’ve put one of those art symposiums on your palate, why drink Bourbon? That’s not fair of me... and I shouldn’t say all this. I’ve always drank bourbon, and I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed bourbon. It won’t stop now. I just want to dive into vats of single malt... do something different... drink bottles which like some wine were created, molded... rather than continually stick to mass produced goodies which, though you always know what to expect and in this way you are never let down... they never surprise you, they never invite you to discover a new universe... bourbon is a safe everyday drink.

I want a little single malt action.

Friday, October 01, 2004

EARLY MORNING GAMES 

Got a phone line going now, though I don’t actually have a telephone, thus I can’t receive or make phone calls as of yet. What I can do is plug my laptop into the wall and get a Dial-Up connection, which is nice. I don’t have to get dressed, get into my car, and go to the coffee shop anymore. In a few days, my DSL connection will be up and running... and high speed internet will once again be part of my daily-home-routine. YeeHAaaa.

For my morning internet to go along with my coffee, I’ve been reading up on Justin Martyr to get some ideas for a short story I’m working on. My story takes place in a small French lieux-dits where I'm spending a long weekend of doing not much. Great premise for a story, right?

Well, there’s a young shepherdess involved – though unfortunately there are no Lolita-like passages – and she’s telling me about how her and her big brother killed a whole litter of puppies once. She runs off and comes back a couple of times, continuing her story or starting a new one. All this time, I’m laying on the grass in the backyard trying to read The Origin of Satan, by Elaine Pagel, where Mrs. Pagel dedicates a whole passage to Justin Martyr. In my story, I’m trying to make a connection between the death / brutal killing of dogs in modern rural France and the gladiatorial games of Ancient Rome where early Christians, among many others, were often sent to as lunch meat for big hungry lions. Justin Martyr was beheaded along with several of his students. And through all this, I guess I'm trying to talk about the brutality of humans in general, whether a thirteen year old girl or the Roman Emperors. It's a long shot, I know, and well... I've got a ways to go before I get that one written.

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