Friday, August 22, 2008

fragments




She followed not at all, a part of the whole, gave attention with interest, comprehended with surprise, with care repeated, with greater difficulty remembered, forgot with ease, with misgiving remembered, repeated with error.


__________Joyce (Ulysses)






ItKills, Mike Cole

um, what do i write about?

at present, i am a little apprehensive about writing emotional things. it might be because i don't feel particularly emotional. i'm not feeling particularly thoughtful either- which kind of means i can't write thoughtfully. so. what are we left with? memory? fantasy? (blah & blah)

NONENTICAL (a made up word, read: NONENTITY-LIKE) POINTS, A LIST:

- i watched Persepolis last night. it made me simultaneously want to write/abandon my idea for the novel. Write: because an entire universe existed before i was born that culturally, geographically, emotionally, physically, inadvertently, religiously, directly affects who i am (where i am) (what i'm doing) (where i'm going) (what i am)
Abandon: it's too big. these stories are too intimate. i'm scared of them. i'm scared of my stories. i don't know my stories. i'm ashamed not too. (but i'm scared to learn) i don't know how to put my feet on those streets. i'm worried i won't see it with the same eyes. i don't have time to learn. (these are excuses not reasons).

- mostly, i could not really sleep last night. i awoke a few times (but since i could not distinguish dream from sunrise, i don't know which was which) and thought more and more about going to Sydney... like right now. Or as Monz said to me last night: you need to expand. you need more space. you always function in little microcosms. little spaces, populated with a few close friends. with a few intimate activities. mostly books. stop reading! find yourself a larger space, encompass it. you'll find yourself larger than you thought too. (not you Monz, Adelaide-Monz. I'll have to think of a new name to sort this nomenclature irregularity out).
i kinda agree.
i need newness. (even if it's temporary)

- i've been a little lonely lately. Not too bad, certainly more manageable than it has been in the past. Joyce is hilarious and makes me giggle in bed (with the electric blanket on). Mozart frustrates me- my somethingofagoal in life is to at least play it as well as the four Korean 5-year-olds on youtube.

- things i don't really believe in:
____- apocalyptic doom's-day predictions of our future
____- we are too much in control of anything
____- that my sister cannot be perfectly responsible for her own life, and that this transition hasn't been anything short of revolutionary for her, her sense of self, her sense of meness.
____(mostly i miss my sister. i want to do monkey dances with her, and say rude jokes, and watch southpark and giggle with her saying to me: you're soo rude Go-dus! (i'm sorry baby. don't tell mom) No way!, I love it!! Say something else! (you're a little bastard you know that) LOL! SEE!, you're soo funny (looking that is) that's what i meant! LOL
____- a divinely karmically recompensatory God. what i mean is: i do not believe in the line of thought that goes: you do good deeds, God rewards good deeds. (at least i don't believe in it in the superficial sense. and by 'superficial sense' i mean any sense that is bound by our (limited) conception of space, time, justice, growth, malice, strength, infinity, redemption, reward, or bounty.

DIGRESSION:
it is a tempting line of thought to think that virtue, or, a seemly character will attract God's mercy (which i believe it does). The problem with the temptation is that, we cannot fathom what God is.might be.looks like.even is. So if we cannot assume what a God looks like, we really really cannot assume what a God might function like. Thus, we have absolutely no basis for a conception of what God's mercy looks like. We just do not know what God's mercy means. Similarly, we do not know what God's bounty means. Other than we believe in it (without really knowing what it (mercy, bounty, grace, etc. is).

So, we act in accordance with some (self-chosen, dogmatically preached, misguided, adopted, or otherwise) sense of ethics, and believe that in a dynamic, real-time way whatever-God-is is interacting with us. Reacting to us. Responding to us. Adjusting the rules of the games to accommodate us. Nudging borders left and right to account for our growth. Forgiving us. Slowly winking for us to take a step left or right. When it rains giving us a coat__then sending us into a typhoon with it. (and mostly: laughing with us)
The problem is the measures of these quantities. Whatever-God-is tells us some basic rules, but who knows what our games really are. Who knows if we win.lose.tie, who knows anything.

So the point is: anything can happen. To say that there's no conceivable reason why that should be, is not the same as saying: there is no reason. Only that it is not perceivable.

____- cards with pre-written messages. (my own words are all i've got when my hands are too far away to reach someone)

DIGRESSION:
i suddenly have this sudden urge to hug, shirtless, an African man. I'm curious, if i let my eyes drift out of focus what the pattern of black and brown mixed will look like.

- These things have become my current preoccupations: place, a sense of placeness, of being from (having) a place, home, homeness, wayfaring as beautiful, wayfaring as cursed, what i can control through effort, love (if i am ready for another episode), love (with whom to engage in such an episode), love (if it can be disassembled so that we can enjoy parts of it when we don't have.can't have.don't know where to find the whole). love (i think i'd rather have the whole). love (for some reason in my head, i've linked love with my sense of nonplaceness- so that i am feeling like it can't shouldn't happen unless i'm in America. now, where'd that silly idea come from?)

- i can't dance. in the sense that i don't really know how. I admit, sometimes, when i'm walking into the showed, mostly undressed, i'll clench up all my muscles and jump up and down in a fit that resembles epilepsy, madness, or love. i'm not entirely sure why i do this. on one hand i think seeing muscles clenched is a beautiful thing in itself. on the other, i like to expel some physical energy from time to time. on a third, i think it is a reaction to the emptiness of air, and the emptiness (but calmness) of silence (which i still love, and will always love). possibly it's a very perverted, raw version of dance. maybe it's what my body thinks is dancing (if hairs and nipples and abdominals could decide for themself what dance was.is.should look like)

finally,
i think i finally hear the future yawning; finally waking up. soon i'm really going to have to write up my list of new year's resolutions. it's a task i take very seriously, and which i try to do realistically so, 'be always happy and become everything you want to be' will not suffice for me. since neither of those two things are... in anyway helpful. One of mine from 2006 was: 'never eat 2 minute noodles again'. (and again only really means for that year. which i've been loyal to. Craving 2 minute noodles, one can usually find a half-decent ramen store anyway).

more finally,
do these random thoughts actually amuse anyone? they certainly don't amuse me. but Mozart's annoying, i'm too lazy to run today. and what i really want to do is to catch the bus into the city, go to the art gallery and see if anything's changed. then find a coffee shop to sit in and read Ulysses and maybe even pen something with my own name under it that doesn't terribly suck so that when submissions open again in September, i have a decent short story to offer them.

more more finally,
go away.
i'm tired of you.
(i mean me)

fine bye
(i mean me)

fine.
(i mean me)

bye
(i mean me)


3 comments:

Sholeh said...

I know the feeling. Writing comes and goes. But then, you are a much better writer (I say this not to flatter, I don't know how to do that). It isn't so much amusement as inspiration, honestly. So keep going, because your non-writing is still more than my attempts.

Anonymous said...

I got lost in the night, without the light
of your eyelids, and when the night surrounded me
I was born again: I was the owner of my own darkness.

~pablo neruda

a penny for the old guy said...

to Sholeh:
thankyou. very gracious.
well... as long as people are happy to read, i'm happy carry on with my loquacious banter.

to anonymous:
everytime you put up a neruda quote, i determine to never commit word to paper ever again. (that man is too much)