I am alive and eaten alive by busyness, livid, living, but to you I do not exist. this is why I haven't written myself into existence lately: I like to play with words that can be sculptured, words that are substantial and defined in their dreaminess, in their inherent, abstractly physical qualities. words that are real and weighted. words that are written down with your hand. when I read the dim, limed words that are projected glowingly from my computer monitor, I feel pressure on the front of my brain, like every thought is sliding foward, pushing, presssing. words printed on paper seem to have a palpable crispness to them, like you could gather them up and crumble them in your hands. but the words that appear onscreen due to technological processes that are a mystery to me seem insubstantially delicate and filmy, undefined like wet newsprint, magnified from a hazy, fishbowled computer screen. but enough silliness about words, which aren't even real! just look at the RNC! (I will be kind of sad when it is over. I read about it every day and it is so hilarious!)
soo. yesterday morning before an ice cream creatures practice I was lying on the cool, wooden floor of the studio, watching shaun's freckled ankles as he strained to stretch to his toes. we were about to practice (we're playing the fall AMODA digital schowcase with Rip-Off Artist [I think I already said that] and-so-ergo we are practicing diligently, earnestly, every day). shaun and I have decided to do yoga every day because stretching is fun, and I am very flexible and can do all sorts of things, like kiss the bottom of my foot, kiss my elbow, put my legs behind my head, smoke with my toes, what have you, and when I close my eyes I see vibrating suns in my joints, striated muscle tension. my ear was pressed against the floor, feeling the thump, thump of bass, when I heard a calamity of conversation underneath the floorboards. it sounded as if there was a brilliant party underneath the floor, and I heard the high, tinny laughter of open-mouthed women, sparkling, and the assiduous, sonorous tones of suited men deep in conversation. I was tense, attentive and sedulous strained to discern individual strands of conversation, when someone suddenly jabbed their finger up through the floor and right into my ear. I yelped and leapt up. 'what, what?' shaun asked worriedly. 'what happened?' anthony asked from the kitchen, where he was dishwashing.* but, it did not really happen.
the first time I ever saw something that was not actually there was in december, 2001, when I was driving through Virginia to New York City at 4 am on a wintery morning, and the pale snow was settling itself down on the blackness. I kept seeing people standing in the middle of the road, and although I flicked my brights on and off, on and off, they continued to stand in the road, rubbing their hands. eventually it became so disturbing that I pulled over to the side and shook my mother awake. "I think there's some sort of protest going on or something weird," I said.
"at 4 o' clock in the morning?" my mom blinked sleepily.
"I keep seeing people standing in the middle of the road!" I exclaimed, which I shouldn't have done, as my mother was very excitable.
"Where?!" she shrieked. I pointed to a couple that were slowly shuffling back and forth on the yellow divider. I kept insisting. "Christian, there's no one there," my mother said. she assumed that I was tired, and so did I.
Holly doesn't live here anymore. Friday was her surprise going away party, which was transplanted to Hope and Seth's going away party (they're going to london for a semester). Hope gamboled over and fell all over us, babbling about how we should go swimming in the indoor pool, where very drunk people were falling in, and about these special rice krispy treats someone had given her. "yyyum," holly said absentmindedly, but Hope hopped away and soon reappeared with several special rice kripy treats made with hash. holly and I ate them as we sat on the porch, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer and talking to this guy named Jef with whom holly fell madddly in love. do you ever feel as if someone has taken fistfuls of you away, great, silky strands of quintessence, and you're left gutted, hollow, and droopy? sometimes misanthropy billows into me at the weirdst times. but mostly it was fun. holly left monday morning and I jumped out of bed at 9:35 and saw that her car was not parked in front of the house, her stuff was gone, the closet was empty. her razors and shampoos and makeups were not in the bathroom. I was so miserable. holly, anthony and I were at zilker park a few days ago, zilkering, zephyrs and ziziphus, the cackle of birds, squirrels. as anthony and I swam and splashed in the green water, covering each other in sand and rocks and pointing out the pretty plops of turtles, holly read noam chomsky on shore, occasionally shouting things at us like "-- ARMED CAMP, GUYS! DESPITE THE SECURITY FROM ATTACK PROMISED BY WASHINGTON IN 1962!!".
ps. -- you can now buy our cd, everything I touch turns into more touches, at our website.
* unexpectedly, anthony is terribly fastidious. I always hear the clink clank of dishes being washed in the sink, and he's always sweeping and straightening up, which is very unusual because his personality is scattered, messy, abstract. he is always saying things like "I'm just going for a quick jog around the block!" or "just going to go work out for a few minutes, see you in a bit!" and I'm mystified. I love anthony and everything, but sometimes I just want to toss his cholesterol-free body out of the window.
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