this is where we look for things
6.14.01 - 11:19
there is one moment, one second in an encounter when you look at a person and know absolutely nothing about that person and you can love them with your entire mind and body in that split second if you so choose. but then you notice their height or the color of their eyes or the sort of shoes they're wearing and it's over and you keep walking and they're not aware of what just transpired, and really you're not, either. you can love so many people this way and no one even notices. the problem is what happens after that moment and the things you can't put up with, and there tend to be a lot. besides, sometimes it's easier to be empty.
oh my god, how is it so cold in here? i thought there was an energy shortage. i thought we were in the midst of a "power crisis." a recommendation -- turn down the air. shit.
i knew a boy who liked to talk about how big the world was, in rhyming couplets. when he ran out of things to say he packed up his things and picked up his suitcase and caught a bus to vermont. and if you were to ask him, why vermont, he would tell you that vermont was rather small and it's easier to experience the width and breadth and scope of the world and all of its largeness when you are sitting in the middle of something small. he said it in rhyming couplets, which i would transcribe faithfully, but the thing is, language really suffers when you have to smush it into a box like that. he used many many monosyllabic words, and the truth is that he was a smart kid, marginally gifted even, but this OCD thing about the couplets, well, you know what bad poetry can be like.
combustible edison and their wonderful song vertigogo, featured in the film four rooms, combustible edison, oscar said, you don't have words, you can't win an oscar, and they told him what the words were and they were the same every time, but you get punished for being unintelligible and you also get punished for meaning nothing, apparently.
on the phone when people are happy the inflection can be so strange.
oh my god. i can't believe this. i can't believe we forgot flag day. oh, no, wait a minute, i can. but please wait one month for bastille day, which should be celebrated by the storming of some impenetrable fortress. well, preferably anyway.
why does everything have to have an acronym? why? why do we have to skip letters and pick random letters in the middle of words so we can form some clever word or name or even just something that we can pronounce that means nothing. i hate acronyms. hate them.
i don't have anything to say right now. i am wallowing in this feeling of, i don't know, some otherworldly grandeur, and i want to run outside and start fires with my eyes. what i would do for some paranormal powers. do you like me better when i'm sad? don't be fooled. i'm sad all the time. but like i've said before, we're all sad. and we are. it's just the human condition.
it's so hard to believe in things. so hard. even when you know it would be good for you.
don't worry about me, ok. please remove your hand from my mouth. i understand that you are accustomed to being in charge, you are used to "handling things." but listen. i am not a thing to be handled. this isn't about playing with fire or danger or knives, this is just about going nowhere. if you were part of this inertia you might understand but you are miles away and moving farther by the power of your own feet. that's not what i'm talking about, rooted down to this place one minute and then, what, something bright and fast and now the motion comes, the hurtling through space and you can't do a thing about it. inertia.
so like i said, move your hand. take a step back. two steps.
OH MY GOD I'M TALKING TO YOU.
no, not you. keep on walking. nothing to see here.
on the corner of 4th and townsend there is a sign that tells you mcdonald's, one block. this sign can also be seen at 2nd and townsend, pointing the other direction, of course. are the signs up only when people come to watch baseball? maybe. but the mcdonald's is always in the same place, so please don't worry about that.
