Motion

"Get ready for an intense physical, as well as emotional, transformation to take place over the next few weeks. Big changes are afoot."

I'm liking my horoscope today. Not that I'm a true believer, but I think they can be an impetus for self-examination. Right now I'll embrace the promise of transformation.

In case you missed the direction of my last post, the mental line toward fall was crossed a few days ago and the anguish of preparing for procrastinating in preparation for the beginning of school has begun. I have discovered that I can't function in my job unless I am totally unprepared and forced to wing-it, thereby inviting the unexpected and creating spontaneity (and humiliation and chaos, of course). This lack of preparation creates a certain tension leading up to the school year, but I can't seem to approach it any other way.

So I think I'm headed back to NYC in the next few days for one last fling with AJ and Mo before I settle into intense and troubled mental preparation for the school year ahead (re: procrastination). I may drive out if I can't find a last-minute flight that doesn't break the bank. The 12-hour drive sounds inviting, a time to think, and feel totally unleashed from the place on the earth from which I am tethered. In his last post, BR wrote this: "I’m thinking—inexplicably—of Holden Caulfield. His inability to progress. His eerily understandable curse of being tethered to all things static. My unattractive ability to relate." I also can (unattractively) relate, and wonder why I love change but am so unable to set the direction of its' motion.

Which reminds me of another recently quoted horoscope:

"What would you do if you weren't afraid? Ask yourself that question in all kinds of situations, from the mundane to the sublime. You might just start identifying your true desires -- and acting on them."

A History of Circular Thinking

It is true. I have chased myself in circles and while biting my tail cried "Ouch!" Flying around racing racing panting panting becoming becoming that from which I run. It is inevitable, no? (see?) Chasin morning I arrive from sleep, put on a jacket in the cool air and suddenly it is autumn, appearing unnoticed while summer chased summer, or at least the thought of it. While summer was becoming what summer should be it was already too late for languishing. Now the cool air, gone already for an unknown time, is desired, scrutinized, sniffed, by me.

Peace. Love. Happiness.

I feel the need to balance out my last post's title. If I die today what would I want to leave with you? That will be this title.

I finished Kafka on the Shore and liked it a lot. I join the general concensus that there is a feeling of something lost in translation. I find it (and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle) beautiful though, and Norwegian Wood is one of those "first" books (like Chabon's Mysteries of Pittsburgh) where an author writes something pure and simple (like a fluid line drawing). Everything that comes after has more complexity, more volume. I like those "firsts".

Fuck You, Bitches

Fuck you, Bitches! (I don't know. It just felt like a good beginning. Yell it now.) FUCK YOU, BITCHES! (Nice, huh?)

So I am without a car for three days while the bent frame is being fixed. I am thoroughly enjoying (Goddamn it!) being without any sort of transportation whatsoever. I walked to the library yesterday, a one and a half-mile experience that turned out... not all that pleasant, actually. Road crews busily making "improvements" sent clouds of dirt, dredged up by loud monster machines into the air most of the way. And if you walk in this town you become a novelty to be stared at. We don't do walking here, except for the occasional (women only!) powerwalker, spacey Buddhist nature admirer or a kid. You run, for christsake, and you wear the correct clothing while running, and you'd better be thin, too. So FUCK YOU, bitches.

Speaking of which, I saw An Inconvenient Truth a couple of days ago. I thought it was worth seeing and did offer some hope that we have a few years left to prevent ourselves from destroying ourselves and the entire rest of the world. But when we are told to turn lights out or unplug cell phone chargers when we aren't using them, it just seems so pathetic in comparison to the enormous problem of overpopulation. The earth just can't sustain this many people. Can it? And the population projections are ridiculous. Areas around here that used to be rural are filled with McMansions (starter houses!) and that's what people expect. Cars and big houses and boats and money and $25,000 weddings and trinkets and baubles. I'd move to Alaska, but soon it will be permanent summer there. Fuck us. Fucking Americans. We hate people who are poor, don't we? And we hate art, we destroy our environment, we are anti-intellectual, we are stupid, morally void idiots. We are totally turned around and being led by George W Bush. Fuck us.

Once, while teaching at the alternative school, a student sat with me and said gravely, "I am so filled with hate." We looked at each other and laughed, but we both knew he was revealing something real. We shared a moment of truth. And it was ok. He was still a human being and I still loved him. There is all too little of that going on.

Yea, so I guess I'll go spread joy someplace else for a while.

Coney Island

Keep On Keepin On

My blog and I are having our two-year anniversary celebration today, and I must confess that I've been considering a break-up. I have been feeling the need to put this site to sleep and move on to something new and improved (hasn't everyone?). Perhaps I am in need of something more transformative something more "real". On the other hand it's good discipline and decent company when friends are scarce.

As usual, I struggle. This space has become important to me even if no one else is reading it (blog friends blow through your life like ghosts on the highway). It may be too personal, not entertaining enough, lacking focus. Ultimately I am talking to myself, entertaining myself, carrying on a relationship with myself, which admittedly has been my most intimate relationship during the hardest years of my life...

Today I'm missing sassy Veronica and white sand, I'm missing NYC, beautiful Mo and PS lying on a gold silk sheet with their feet in the air speeding through NYC in the back of a pickup truck. I miss pure AJ sweetness, intelligence and strength. I have seen a natural wonder of the world carry a burden on his back up a steep path, and now I have PC withdrawal. I'm thankful for all of that. It gives me hope.

I'm also sad for all the lost promise of the past. But I'll keep on keepin on. Let the future come.

On the Roof

Image008.jpg
Originally uploaded by 2MJ.

NYC

NYC
Originally uploaded by 2MJ.

This is where I am today.

"Still, inside here, this is what I think: If we reverse the outer shell and the essence - in other words, consider the outer shell the essence and the essence only the shell - our lives might be a whole lot easier to understand." -Kafka on the Shore