Los Angeles

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why i love Mad Men and watch it incessantly

dear babs, i'm sick. please shoot me in the face. thanks.










i am ill again. this may have everything to do with my body being trashed. or not.

sometimes i think it's just a natural consequence of a body wanting a hug. you warm up, grow quiet. think about your mother. or soup. or childhood. or something. you think lots. maybe it's just me.

i couldn't sleep. mixture of a headache, fever, relentless lust (i'm always horny when i'm sick). so i just stayed up. watching episodes of mad men till there were no more left to watch.


*___*___*

i think it's a show about unhappiness. and all the ways it is possible to be unhappy. and how complex those unhappinesses are. how they're sometimes not unhappiness at all, but, we're soo used to be being unhappy that we can't help but feel some home-comfort-unhappiness even when we're happy.

because of the sprawl of characters it can slip and slide through all the variations there are of that theme. news of being a father tinged in back-stabbing. absent mothers, catholic mothers, judgmental mothers - licentious fathers, drunk fathers, controlling fathers. cigarette smoke. smoke and mirrors. who people are. who they aren't. or what. or how. sometimes even the darkest part of the inside of your body: why.

hi, i'm Q. in my life i've met two happily married couples. this worries me. a great deal. not newly weds, i'm not talking about that. i'm talking about people who've lived together. had a few babies. manned up against a recession or an abortion or silent dinners and mundane neglect over a couple of decades. time is probably the only thing that can consistently defeat geology and love. ain't no mountain high enough to fight off a couple hundred million years of erosion.

i wanna punch betty draper in the face. if you connect with betty draper please never speak to me. ever. but people do. that's the point. coquettish. subtly kittenish. passive aggressive. self-righteous. self-absorbed. lost in a little kingdom where she's a princess and deserves all the greatness she deserves. prudish in that virginal way that will please no man ever and no man will ever find the words to explain to her why she's not enough in bed. she's porcelain, the bedroom always requires an aliquot or two of whore. she's the damsel you try and save. who then eats you from the inside and picks her teeth with your cracked fibula and walks off to meet her next savior.

Joan's her antithesis. she's every man's mother. buxom. will fix your cares. hold your head to her breasts and whisper shhhh, baby, everything will be alright. then she'll lie on a bed for you wearing nothing but a mink fur and black stilettos [excuse me while i adjust my erection]. the point of the matter is: sexiness can't be taught. it's a matter of temperament and has nothing to do with technique. sexiness is a matter of character. a showing of strength. a self-awareness. a monument to the primal, bestial - but dressed up in the cloak of civilization. it's the primal wrapped in well chosen suggested words that are the inception of some impression. they're an after-taste. they're when you sit on a train on your ride home and think but just what did she mean by that? it's a delicate little snake that some women can send out, that slithers through a man's nose into his brain, and changes the color he sees the world in. my god it's powerful.
___maybe i just belied my oedipal complex.

and Don. oh dear. it's becoming difficult to bear him. every time i see him alone with a woman i think oh god he's going to try to f&ck her. i suppose at the end of the day everyone sees themselves as hard-done. as mysterious. as a well-full of trauma and history. a fully fledged fable. a myth of a man. a brooding genius. ___maybe i just do, i don't know. of course his masculinity is overbearing sometimes. makes me feel uncomfortable. like i'm too talkative or emotional or weak to live up to Don's expectations. too grey in his world of black and whites. odd isn't it? the hyper-male couldn't satisfy the hyper-female.

Roger lost to the Siren's song. that rings true for everyone. you marry. you get old. you get bored. who wouldn't want to get in the car and turn off the radio and drive till you prove physics wrong and drive over the edge and fall into a blissful 100 year sleep in complete utter soundless, blackestness - a sleep with no dreams or distraction, but just to enjoy the sensation of falling away away away from where anyone.thing.thought can find you. failing that, then the youngest most beautiful distraction who hums dulcet ankles and still tender from youth breasts into your ears and dangles french manicured toes and dark hair smelling of hyacinth before your eyes. yes. that will do fine. save me. hide me. take me apart. dissolve me into nothing and breathe me in and hide me in your chest and tell no one where i am. and sometimes go to the pool and dive from up high and i'll hold tight with my ear to your heart like a pillow that speaks back in the night and feel like perhaps i did drive over the edge and for .4 seconds i'll feel... safe.

all this... unhappiness. wives that are best kept in vases out of the light, and husbands who need salvation from week to week and daughters and sons who'll pay the price after the family court packs it up for the day.

pete cambell. snakes and ladders of course. daddy issues. insecurity issues.

all this unhappiness. but it doesn't make me sad. not when i watch it.


*___*___*

i fall asleep at about 5:30am, or thereabouts. wake up two hours later. i scratch my cheek and rummage around to find a half-used tissue to blow my nose with. my mouth is sticky with sore-throat saliva. i have an erection. a single bed. i hear an argument about who will mop up vomit from the dog's private own physiology breakdown.

i'm not ready for where this life is going.
___

airplane nocturne (a notapoem)

Time's irrelevant.
No one's famous in economy.
14 hours to remember scrapes
___and Mondays you wouldn't
___otherwise think of.

She asks me about an ex,
says she likes hearing stories.
___I tell her.
___lose my appetite.
"If it's all done why did it put you in a bad mood?"
"Life maybe, the whole of 2008
feels a bit like I got up too fast."

and when we land, gravity is restored.
___put back on its shelf.


*___*___*

The handsome man besides me opens
a letter addressed to 'Mr Big Muscles'.
All our troubles, and yet, these women still love us.
(I have a note on my cell phone that reads:
"I've left a secret message for you, under one of the books
on your shelf. Good luck finding it")

Every time I board a plane I feel like I've left somebody behind.
The woman to my left says she has a 2 year old and a 4 year old waiting for her at home.
(I think of the drawings you made in the dust of my bedside lamp.
Two hearts and a Star of David. A whole astrology
___when I return will be hidden)

"Dear Mr Big Muscles"
secret messages under books
an astrology of goodbyes.
a devoted science.


*___*___*

It's dark
A few reading lamps here and there
The red control panel digits
strange noises of shadowed figures stirring and breathing.

Darkness, splattering of light,
noises that can't surmount the silence -
my god I think, s p a c e .


*___*___*

"Will I come to the gate?"
"no, this is fine."
"ok."
"ok."
"ok then."
"uh huh."
"no kissing other boys while I'm gone."
"die. I hate you."
"I hate you."


*___*___*

like memory.
fantasy.
the volume inside your head
unfolds and expands to fill the emptiness
the whole of the inside of Moby Dick
some misshapen resemblance
to a universe with my name on it.
though i don't recognize it.


*___*___*

time's irrelevant.
no one from economy will follow you into reality.
it's just a graveyard.
an alley-side smoke break.
Waiting for what's left of your day
to digest into memory,
and for memory to digest itself into an ulcer.
One day someone will write something to explain it propertly.

shaken & stirred

two days i woke up sullen. (what? no. she said. sullen? no. you're grumpy. you're depressed.) in the end we settled on glum. there was no reason for it. none that i noticed when i woke up. slightly odd dreams maybe, but isn't that a dream's nature?

day after i was fine.

today i was a little 'off' again. drove an hour, had no idea where we were when i finally relinquished the driver seat to be a passenger and stare out the window at passing whatevers and think of nothing.

"i think it's fine."
"what's fine about it? i've been off my pills a week. i was fine. then one day i wake up 'glum', and the next i'm soo lethargic i can't stay on my feet for more than twelve minutes."
"Q, you go 14 weeks barely sleeping -
"i sleep!"
"no. not regularly. you start something and you don't stop till it's done, even if it takes 22 hours to do it."
"i do not."
"how long did you spend on the international law assignment?"
"26 hours"
"PPT?"
".... 21"
"was that in one sitting?"
"yes."
"point proven. you don't sleep regularly. same with food. you kinda look up from time to time and think oh, it's 6, i haven't eaten today. then what do you do? you eat two cans of tuna and go back to your desk."

my body feels... confused. isn't sure when to be awake, when to sleep. my muscles are diffuse around the edges. i've lost my sharp lines. my eyes are always half closed. my mind's blurry and i get lost in thoughts. when i come into the room i'm informed my shower lasted 54 minutes. i'm tired all the time but can't sleep anyway. never hungry. or maybe i am hungry. i can't tell. i run two and a half laps and i can't tell if i'm having trouble breathing or if i'm bored or why i suddenly feel a terrible need for a bathroom. i read three paragraphs of anything before i'm distracted.

my body has mutinied.
might be time to settle her down a little.

notebook 4: tidbits & cutouts (circa 2009)

marc jacobs


if only all the wandering would lead away from home


*___*___*

THE BOOK OF LOVE

mine just a few notes,
each anecdote separated by
pages and pages of blank.
deserts. fasts. me-time.
(the book is heavy now with them.
the weight of a man, alone)


*___*___*

Parallax: a Study in Joyce & Astronomy (walking home down Santa Monica)


*___*___*

The child dreams another invention into creation. That's 13 this month alone. In those rare moments he sits, not speaking, staring away, I hear the sound of wind as his mind blazes through itself, beyond itself, to an undiscovered world, and returns with its little token. Pocket knives with high energy laser beams. two sided photo-camera devices so you can simultaneously capture yourself as you capture your subject, a contraption to untune pianos, a levitating wheelchair, a peaceful world.


*___*___*

wednesday, 6pm (a pre-nocturne)

the last of the sun is just(leaving
a final gasp of warmth)
an equipoised system: one pinprick(perfect contentment)
versus the sharp edges of everything
trying to cram in through the shadows


*___*___*

IMAGES (of contentment)

__2.
i feel soo far from you.alleverything
(a distance not measured in times or lengths)
(a slowly blurring dream, coming apart at the edges)
(slowly losing weight like a punctured tire
or the elderly skin of a deflating balloon)
"i can turn right or left, makes no difference"
___[he smiles]

______"i feel soo free"


*___*___*

Time ,
; come-then
(all of now) :
yours
(everything)
As you wanted.


*___*___*

SELF PORTRAIT, OR: PEOPLE WHO EAT CEREAL AT 3AM

where you go, empty cereal boxes follow
.
.

___in the present you are empty
space people have filled with
white-goods and recent mo(u)rnings
and countless new problems -
the steam, smoke and skeletons from tea and cigarette conversations
.
.
___where it is too quiet to tell stories
and all the rocks he kicked were never seen again.


*___*___*

a (maze) me] 'nt


*___*___*

Dear A-Diggity,
___In recent history, Christmas has become a day of exile. A day for departure lounges and solo-coffees. A day to measure the relativistic duration of these long Decembers.


*___*___*

REASONS I HAVE NOT BEEN WRITING LISTS LATELY, A LIST:

1. can't think of anything
2. don't believe in numerical ordering of information in such wise as to satisfy rudimentary requirements of a basic taxonomy of self
3. i don't really care about anything.
4. it is all so quiet
5.
________fall.


*___*___*

MID-20s ADVENTURES: things you are.think.feel on weekends when your best friends get married and childhood friends die inexplicably in their sleep while you wrestle with social-conformity, An Exercise in Self-Loathing
.
.
two weeks ago, we sat at a table. and laughed. and both our hearts were beating. and we were happy.

*___*___*

wet paper is soo sensitive she said. and you don't really know which words will blur. then she walked off, giggling almost inaudibly, and scratching under her neck as her head kept up with her eyes darting around.


*___*___*

"what are you looking at?" he asks. She keeps looking at the road.
"the beach" she says, "same colour", never smiling.


*___*___*

and though there is nothing left to be said, sometimes nothing is a lot. Sometimes nothing is everything. And sometimes: nothing is all you have. all you are left with. And so this is about nothing (everything).


*___*___*

THE BALLOON

it's halted in the corner of the room
cheek-to-white ceiling.
flaccid tail hanging down,
no children left to grasp at it.
an arrested flight.
one nudge away from the window, clouds, rain.
inhaled breath that we forgot about.
unused return fare.
words we wished we said.
check-to-white ceiling.
___if only it could turn its head it would be lip-to-lip.

someone leaves another room,
shuts a door loudly,
the balloon's tail quivers
then still again.
where it ends.


*___*___*

peripatetic effusions


*___*___*

a new year yawns. opens its eyes. feels like any day, any other day - the way birthdays feel.
i smile in the afternoon, when i have finally learnt i am not superman. and grow tired. and sit at my steering wheel and pray someone is, and will come help me cross the street.


*___*___*

this notebook has been the least successful of them all, of all of them taken together this book has achieved little. it is a little book but not soo little. i had expected more of this book. i do not know what this says about me. or this time. or if there is nothing a matter with me, or this time, but that this book is faulty. there is no novel in these pages. no story. maybe a few phrases out of some poem that could not be saved but for an eyebrow or fingernail. the rest is forgotten already. this book is the leftover whatevers of forgotten things.

___

mikrokosmos-conversationettes

9 by fatale femmes


1.
'i'll tell you what, if i organize it, then we can have it out'
'i don't have it out. _why do you have to do this anyway?'


2.
'i'll miss you guys soo much'. he cries.
the boy to his side cries.
the girl to his other side smiles
and gives me an over-the-pants handjob under the blanket.


3.
'write a list. i like lists'
'jiggly parts on my girlfriend's body'
'only if you tell them your face is a squishy as your butt'


4.
'will you come?'
'i don't know.'
'do you have a reason?'
'to come or not to come?'
'either.'
' ___yes. but it's not made of words'
'to come or not to come?'
'both'


5.
'you won't be there either then?'
'no.'
[_ :( _]
'why does it matter?'
'it's such a sad thing to go to awards ceremonies alone.'
'if you win.'
'it's soo sad to be alone when you hear news that you're not going to awards ceremonies.'
'yes.'


6.
'want tea?'
'yes.'
'what type?'
' ... '
'oh yeah.'


7.
'i just want to be that good at something. to not be expendable.'
'you will.'
'what makes you say that?'
'i'm an optimist.'
'that has nothing to do with me'
'does it need to?'
[yes]


8.
'meet me somewhere.'
'where?'
'mars.'
'hawaii you say?'
'yes.'
'no money.'
'starbucks?'
'sure.'

_

thoughts (fragments)

untitled by shesaskeleton


i think i'll write these holidays. __this is the first thing i think everytime i have a break. i'll write. then i think but what?. what's left to say? what needs to be said.

that's intimidating.

people are people. they do what people do. they have the same experiences give or take. they disappoint. they redeem. they dissolve. they come and go and start conversations and hold doors open for each other. __not too much else is there?

then of course there is the problem with telephones. i can't write when there're people around.

so, that idea having been set aside (and so soon), the next question is: but what will i read?

(1) Norwegian Wood
(2) Pale Fire
(3) In Praise of Idleness (Bertrand Russel)

(that's the list, in order, for now)


*___*___*

NOTAPOEM

days sit on my hands. like cars you can't sell,
and sick of seeing in the driveway.

i put my phone on silent to lessen the blow of it ringing,
sshh, speak in a whisper i say to her; she promises to.

but still, it is now.
and later still hasn't shown up. or called to
say she'll be late.
so we wait some more.
and our dinners go cold.

of course i wanna be famous she laughs with her hair in the wind.
followed a moment later by hey can i put the window up it's messing
up my hair. __which makes everything quieter.

i blame my cardigans.

on my drive home a brand new ferrari does 10 under and the whole lane's
stalled. i change lanes and stare in.
balding, mid 30's, glasses.
smiling.

watch a movie. flip through a magazine.
still no later.
still only now.
still.
still.
still.

dear still:
fine, i'll write you a poem.

(hating every moment of it: i hate when women
manipulate me to write for them).


*___*___*

Dear S,

you found me.
sssshhhhh!!

our secret.


*___*___*

i get home. i've got my periodic amphetamine comedown. asleep and stumbling and a bad-ass of a headache i collapse on the couch. text my stepdad to let him know i managed to get home in one piece.

then i sit there and stare at nothing. with my head bent at a perfect 90 degrees so my ear rests up against my clavicle.

then i wait for something to happen.

you know, there's treatment for this stuff he says. two sessions a week, maybe less. then you won't need the pills. i nod. yah. that seems reasonable. last time 'talk' fixed anything... so i just leave it at yah.


*___*___*

Q's psyche: you planning to write?, did i hear that straight?
Q: always plan, never write. you know how this game works.
psyche: maybe it's time.
Q: it's not.
psyche: maybe it is. have you got something?
Q: no.
psyche: a character?
Q: nope.
psyche: a plot? a mood? an idea?
Q: no. nothing.
psyche: first line?
Q: "this isn't a game of win and lose. i'm starting to doubt if it's even a game"
psyche: no good.
Q: see ya next break.
psyche: 'fraid so Kerouac.


*___*___*

i play some more.
she sits besides me on the stool. waits for something.
"i know you want some attention. but you're not going to get any. sorry"
she wasn't expecting the honesty, but she's slowly getting used to it. "fine."
"you should appreciate this you know. statistically speaking you're not going to find too many people who will play for you."
"you're playing for you."
"which is how i know you don't appreciate it."
"..."
"it's not your fault. it's an age thing."
"excuse me?"
"girls under 21 like that i play but don't wanna hear it. girls over 21 don't care that i play but love to hear it anyway."
"how would you know?"
"wrinkles on my forehead taught me. age is a biatch."
she walks away.

i play another Bach minuet from when i was a child and try and pretend nothing's changed since then.


*___*___*

IF I DID WRITE IT WOULD BE ABOUT..., A LIST:

- divorce
- finding a perfect name for a cat
- that feeling when you wake up after 3 hours sleep with a headache and your heart's still tachycardic and you reach out for your pills, two in your sticky mouth, swallowed with the same water your brush your teeth with.
- distance in kilometers and distance in hours. time and space. distance.
- home.
- home as a divisible concept: real , and idealized. __which means you can lose it twice.
- gravity by bic runga
- my mom worrying about my sex drive
- all the things i think i once used to know and i'm not sure if i still do. __which i know makes no sense but which i can't explain any better.


*___*___*

dear granddad,

you've been passed-away for a few years now. this means you've had a good few years to observe. i guess by now you've gotten a good enough idea. i mean, it's hard to hide from you now. you've seen it. sometimes i masturbate. sometimes i get stuck between the fridge and the pantry because i don't know whether to get the milk first or the cereal. so i just kinda take a step this way then a step that. sometimes this goes on for minutes. four, five minutes. time frozen. [she comes out the room. what are you doing? she asks i can't decide whether to get the cereal first or the milk. she stares at me a little worriedly, asks why can't you decide? i'm preoccupied, i don't answer straight away. eventually i say i'm not sure which makes the most sense.
- does it need to make sense?
- no. nothing else does, why should this?
- then get the milk first.
- fine.] __now that you've seen it all, what's the score?

how much are we down by? sometimes i worry, i need some perspective.

q

letter to my iphone predictive text

dear iPhone predictive text,

I know we haven't always seen eye-to-eye, and, i'm an understanding guy. I know life has its bumpy moments. We can't always agree. I know that. What's important to me is that we always treat each other with dignity and respect. And that we always take the time out to listen, and to understand where the other is coming from. I think if we could have managed that, we'd never have reached this point.

Admittedly, we spend lots of time together. We work together. We play together. We dream together. It might be too much. Maybe I've smothered you with all my attention. I'm sorry. You are beautiful. I can't stop looking at you. And I want to touch you all the time. I know, it's soppy. I hate public displays of affection same as you.

But, my dearest. Alas. You just don't understand me. After all this time, you still don't understand when I mean to say 'biatch' and when i mean to say 'bitch'. You're a smart girl, you're always proving to me how smart you are. But you still don't get it, sometimes i really do mean 'yo'. Sometimes i actually do want to say 'ya'. I've asked you to learn these things. Repeatedly. Remember a few months back?, when we were having that issue over 'babs'? And I thought we resolved that. But today, you're back again, everytime I say 'babs' you jump in with 'baba'. Which is fine, I know sometimes I say 'baba'. But, when I've just spoken, and clearly I've said 'babs', why can't you just leave it? Why do you always feel the need to correct me? I feel like... you hate everything I say. Like you think I'm an idiot or something. Do you? Do you think I'm a 10 thumbed moron who can't spell? I'm sorry. I know I've let you down by sometimes using words that aren't included in the cheap version of the OED you have for a brain. I hate myself for it. But, please try and understand: I'm not perfect. Sometimes I want to fit in, so I use words like 'dickf*ck'. And I need you to sympathize with me when I do that. Just like I put up with your annoying red-underlining all my words back in American english. It's ok. I know you can't help your imperialist dominating hegemony 'liberator of the masses' perspective of the world. I'm just another guy who knows what a 'fortnight' is. But I put up with you don't I? I put up with that. And yet, you don't want to be a friend when I'm just trying to fit in with the kool kids and so i type something like 'kool'.

My love, this is hard for me to do. But.

It's over.

Love the rest of you always,
Q

close encounters of the blurrrrred kind

JIGGS DESCRIBES THE MUSIC I LOVE, A LIST:

a sunday smile by Beirut - 'it sounds like a pub full of australian drunks'

jamelia by Caribou - 'oh em gee, is it a circus of freaks or something?!'

disintegration loops II - William Basinski - 'is this what the inside of your brain sounds like?, like, just this one thing getting stuck in there on repeat over and over each time a little bit more muddled until in the end it's just bllllllllaaaaaaaahhhhhhh?'

raphael by Coco Rosie - 'play it again. _again! re-peat biatch.'

10 mile stereo by Teen Dream - 'f*ck i love this song, turn it up'

cascades by Flakjakt [thanks ash!!!!] - she makes a hand clap gesture and smiles.

*___*___*

Friday 13 August 2010 - CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS

wake up
feel dirty
shower
rush to exam
do exam
feel dirty
rush home
shower
fall asleep


*___*___*

dear lifeominium i am boredzilla.
i'm pretty sure i used to be interesting. you'd meet me and i'd be all like 'hi. i'm Q. see that sweet girl over there? yah, she's awesome. i'm living on her couch. also, i used to live in israel. but i'm here now because i quit med school and didn't tell anyone and ran away. no. i'm shazerious. when my mom finds out she's gonna have a myocardial infarction. there. i said myocardial infarction, that proves i was in med school. __no i don't wanna talk about that anymore. __what then? i don't know. are you interested in Kant? __good. i don't understand him either. __That just leaves the Coen Brothers, dead grandfathers or counterfeiting currency then, take your pick. __no, we can't have sex. i'm too depressed. maybe in a few months.'

and now, i'm not interesting. i was speaking to an old friend on the phone and i actually said 'i hope you have tonnes of interesting stories because i've got nothing.'


*___*___*

i don't want to go to LA again. everytime i get to LA my mom sees me and says 'Q!!! i've missed you baby. good to have you home! here, i made this list of things you can do for me while you're here. and we actually have an appointment with the lawyer at 3 you have to come work out what the hell she's saying and tell her we disagree and can you call the bank as well - oh - actually, wait. yah, we still have time you need a haircut. go kiss your sister she's dying to see you.'

Mona :: i'm thinking we rent a car and bail. agree?

YES / NO ??

like. people keep telling me the grand canyon is one of the few things in life that is actually as impressive as its hype. i can drive now! i have a license and i won't sleep and be depressed the whole way!

my stepdad's going to Malaysia. but i'm gonna hang with Jiggs a few days so we can go see the Valentino exhibition (insert FREAKING_YUM here).


*___*___*

when i pull into the driveway i see the girls next door playing in their driveway. the little one's sitting while the older ones does jump rope. their mom watches and counts out loud. the dad's checking the oil on the car. looks nice. looks happy. stable. idyllic.


*___*___*

i wonder if everyone that ever got anywhere or did anything incredible was just terrified and insecure and completely insatiably unsatisfied. why else would you bother? why else would you work the extra hours to get a 92 (simply unheard of) instead of an 85 (exceedingly difficult only 2-3 people manage it)? why else would you run another lap?

sure you enjoy it. or did. or something. __maybe it's just me grasping at my very final last chances at doing/being something in this life. maybe that's all it is. and it's only because i'm only always insecure. not competitive, i'm not even aware of who/what else is going on around me. i'm too self-centred for that. it's just...

[deleted by author because he thought it came across as arrogant]


*___*___*

we were promised jet packs.


*___*___*

i want to play.

go to the beach.

make new friends.

jog.

drive a red 1970's mercedes that i wash in the sun on a sunday.

live in NY. or Marrakesh.

be Don Draper. __or Allen Shore. __or someone more like Q (whoever that dude is)

hang with Mona. __see the new Sofia Coppola movie with Golriz and then bump into Sofia Coppola on the street outside the cinema so i can propose to her so she can be my future wife and i can tell her i'm her number one fan and 'screw those hataz that didn't get Marie Antoinette'


*___*___*

f&ck i don't even know where my friends live anymore. Anjie, where the hell are you?

[in sadder tone:

i don't even know who my friends are anymore.

time gives them, and time takes them.
time and geography.
i've been too far for too long.

people drift faster than planets. one day i'll learn to make my peace with that.

for now Antonio Cassesse's second edition of International Law may be the only friend i have left.


*___*___*

one day i'm going to end a half-decent novel that everyone but me will love with:

i used to be a playboy
i used to be a dj
i used to be a dreamer.

4:05am, a synopsis

gemma ward


THINGS Q WAS THINKING AS HE ATE THE FOURTH GRATUITOUS DONUT, A LIST:

(1) god dammit
(2) nomnomnomnom
(3) god dammit
(4) but this is the last one. until it is consumed, it will sit on the counter and call out to me. this is the only way i can concentrate on anything. it must be eaten. it must.
(5) obviously i'll be wearing my fat-pants tomorrow [those are your designated go-to pants for when you're feeling like an epic fatty]


*___*___*

- do you realize in... 21 days exactly i'll be in new york?
- ...
- ... well?
- no. ___but, i did just realize how much i hate you.
- how much?
- ok, so you remember my favourite line from Orson Welles & Me?
- 'some asshole doth stole it?'
- yes.
- yeah, i remember it.
- ok. i hate you as much as i love that line.
- that's a lot.
- eee.yah.
- ok. but just think of the upside.
- which is?
- i'll bring you back underwear and tshirts from the 99c store.
- ...
- ... well?
- far as i can tell that's a win-win.


*___*___*

dear people whom i have not email-responded to. i have no good excuse. i just haven't been able to. i'm not sure what the reason is, just one of those things.


OTHER 'JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS', A LIST:

(1) i prefer muffins to every other baked good
(2) you backed into my car
(3) the kiss followed whatever last thing you just said was wasn't that funn-
(4) today is today , no matter what i try , it always ends up being today
(5) i'm allergic to cats
(6) can't bring myself to touch my piano
(7) some of us are genetically predisposed to having fat asses
(8) i don't love you anymore. i will never say it out loud, but i'm relieved to be leaving the country. i'm going to be relieved not to have to see you everyday
(9) missed


*___*___*

ON BEING ME & ALIVE SIMULTANEOUSLY, A PRO/CON:

PRO
i get to listen to a sunday smile by Beirut over and over again as i have done for the last 4 yrs
CON
it's 4:23am and i can't sleep, and i'm tired
PRO
my bookshelf brings all da chicks to da yard
CON
my car is a cancerous parasite and when i see it every morning/eve/whenever i feel my heart sink and when i drive out every morning i fantasize the whole way about being collided into by a semi-trailer the size of a small Phoenician totem and when i wake in the ICU with an exhausted trucker who says 'maaan, i'm soo sorry' i'll respond 'bitch please, thanks you muchly', 'dude, i just almost killed you.' and i'll drink some soup through a straw 'just one of those things bro.' and that way i wouldn't have to drive it or wait for someone more ridiculous than i to buy it
PRO
i think i'll wear my cherry red low-top docs tomorrow with my pants rolled up. best antidepressant ever: dress crazy.
CON
no future prospects <-- probably a problem PRO been through worse. she'll be right (in the end CON most the people i love are a hemisphere away PRO cool frames. always pay for proper framing. CON depression/anxiety/attention deficit wha?/alexithymia/it's my fault i'm terrible/anorexia nervosa/ PRO Chagall CON the dickheads on the radio PRO walking around Shanghai's French Quarter in the fall (once upon a CON my heater makes more noise than heat PRO frozen-coke (nuff said) CON music festivals have ruined everything (dear shirtless douche-bag who doesn't know the name of the DJ that's playing: stop drinking, stop aimlessly wandering around bumping into ppl trying to dance) PRO now.