integrally obsolete

i am an overspecialized memory.

i am the cd you bought years ago because i was popular at the time and you listened to me a hundred times, but not anymore. i sit stacked on your bookshelf or in your cd case next to Bel Biv Devoe or David Bowie.

 

you know exactly what i sound like. you know exactly what part of your life i remind you of, and that time is not now. i don't fit.

 

you've tried to put me in the player on one of those days when you were feeling nostalgic, perhaps to impress someone with the breadth and diversity of your music collection... only to get part way into the first song and realize it was a mistake... i don't fit... you'd be much better off with some hooverphonic or kate earl or ekova. i'm a old emotion that you've outgrown; lacking the complexity of the life you've created, i no longer apply.

 

but you hold onto me. i stay there in your collection. another ring in your musical tree trunk... another layer that was once your skin that you wore, but that now is just another hidden layer above your core.

 

my purpose no longer to sing, but to remind and support... silently.

white noise

i tried to sleep without the air conditioner on, because i got too cold. it was fairly cold outside... more cool really, enough for a pair of running pants and a windbreaker (if you wear that kind of thing), but definitely not the kind of weather where you need an air conditioner. i mean, it's january.

i couldn't use the heater though. the prior occupant was very clear on that account:

"if you turn the heater on, it will smell like something is burning. then all of your clothes and things will smell like burning, and you will not like it" (he e-nun-ci-a-ted)

i didn't believe him at first... smell like burning, HA. he probably didn't clean out the filter. i opened up the access door and Voila! it was filthy. so i gently removed it and carried it outside so as not to knock even a modicum of dust onto my rug. once outside however, i beat it against the railing for a minute in the somewhat unchoreographed ballet style of a drunken swashbuckler.

i returned back inside, somewhat disheveled and all-together covered in dust, replaced the filter, turned the heater onto the lowest setting, and waited all of 4 seconds before i could smell the burning. it was all of 10 seconds before i smelled like burning, and i most definitely did not like it.

it smelled as if the whole thing would blow at any minute: coppery ozone with a little of burnt dust and hair thrown in there for good measure. it tingled my tongue and stuck in my throat when i inhaled. there was no question, the heater was definitely not turning back on. so it was off then... if a/c is too cold and heat will burn the place down, then i wasn't going to use the damn thing at all. so off went the light, and into the bed i went.

i heard the door down the hall open, someone took 23 steps to the end of the hall and opened the far door into the wind, slamming it into the railing. then someone two rooms down coughed. then the person next door came home, and i heard every single article of their clothing hit the floor. then i heard the music they were playing... in their earphones. someone else left their room. someone else came back. someone told a funny joke, and somebody didn't sleep.

me

so the fan came back on, filling the room with a soft teddy bear of a noise that hid the world from my ears. i put my running pants and windbreaker on, pulled the covers up over my head... and fell blissfully asleep.

sweet dreams.

a shiny tool

if i were a screwdriver...

i would aim to keep my edge. i would seat myself firmly in the screw and torque evenly, so as not to slip out of my groove and strip the head. i would dedicate my existence to it, being there for the screws: making sure they can all remain firmly seated, so that none work their way loose, to be lost forever. i would watch over them and make them my responsibility and i would find my honor in that.

 

i would pray at night that the hands that held me would honor me. i know sometimes a screwdriver is used to pry up a lid... or chip away at something with a hammer. i know sometimes they are used to shimmy locks or punch holes or to break something apart.

 

you can tell when you see them. they are twisted, gouged, and bent ever so slightly... just enough that they no longer quite seat; they slip from the groove. they are passed over for another. they are discarded. they are lost. they are forgotten.

 

oh what desires are there for a tool other than to be used with respect and good purpose?

book report

i am listening to Tricky in my room and thinking how i
would like to meditate.
i just finished reading A Fortune Teller Told Me by
Tiziano Terzani.

i would recommend it to my closest friends. it is an
autobiography of the international correspondent
during the year 1993 when Mr. Terzani was warned by a
fortune teller (back in 1976) that he faced a grave
risk of dying if he chose to fly that year. choosing
to honor the possible danger, he travels by boat,
train, automobile, and foot, all throughout the far
east and relates his travels and insights in this
book. i liked it because he is honest and open with
his voice. he does not sugar coat, nor does he
apologize for, his opinion.

so now i just recommended it to you.
with love
p

Needs

I need a cave.

I have to be able to extinguish the fire to stop the movement across the walls. I need to be able to feel the breath from my nose as it touches my upper lip. I need to close my ears.

I want there to be vibrations in the stone at my feet that i can press my forehead into. I want to feel earth against my skin in gritty units of age.

 

I would swallow huge spheres of ice, as large as my head, and i would enjoy the inner numbness as i melted them away, all the while concentrating on my breathing.

All the while concentrating on my bones relaxing...

 

I want to read the wall with my fingertips. I want to interpret the eons of movement and pressure in the braille cracks and fissures. I want to walk barefoot on the rocks and remember the sharpness before the skin callouses.

 

i need a cave that i can leave... so that even the moonlight blinds me.

OUT OF TOUCH CONTINUED...

HA!

that relatively buffoonerous act was me hitting send before i was even done. (not like that has ever happened before) although it could have been the doings of THE MAN, being the all powerful entity that it is.

 

so here is the deal. there will be no responses of mine in the comments section... not because i don't wish to respond, but rather because, in my somewhat ethereally-handcuffed state, i am unable to get to the page to respond... so therefore, i will have to respond here:

 

elijah,

i love you too, and i feel your love and support and the love, peace, and harmony that accompany it. i arrived here a just after the new year chimed in to find the land much muddier and a great deal colder than when i last left it. it is a strange thing, this place. it is easy to forget what day it is because i go to work everyday. it's groundhog day in a strangely communist world where everyone is wearing the same clothes and shows up to work at the same time everyday and does the same thing. everyone has health care. everyone has shoes. everyone gets paid about the same. we all live in the same little trailers with two beds and two cabinets and two desk lamps and two bedstands. instead of monday tuesday wednesday, we have curry day, and taco day, steak and lobster day, and chicken cordon bleu day. i measure time by how many pairs of clean underwear are in my cabinet and to a greater extent, how many times i have done laundry. it's a silly little world that i find myself in. yet the silliest thing is that part of me craves this while i am far from here. i will talk to you soon.

 

heather,

love of my love. right now you are navigating the streets of istambul with your walking feet and your looking eyes. how i wish i could be walking at your side with your hand in my hand and your scent in my nose. my feet feel too heavy when you aren't standing on my toes and dancing through the kitchen with your blinding smile. i am jealous of istambul and of all the other strange lands that feel the touch of your toes instead of me.

this is a strange life, and i do not know why i so hunger for things that challenge me. nor can i explain my affinity for contradiction and opposition. i am reading and thinking. i am feeling my way out again and searching for the part of me that i haven't seen since school. i know he is around somewhere.

speaking of school, i ran into a splendid gentleman who also went to santa cruz. it is a strange thing in my world and we both had to admit that we were both the first people that we knew to share that in common. not only that, but we were in the same dorm... we were both residential advisors... and we both had responsibility of the SAME HALL.

we spent all of our middle meal (hard to call it lunch when it happens at 4am) reminiscing about the school and the area and the people and the magically unique environment that we left for this world.

the exchange was a bittersweet, and it helped me remember a little more about who i am.

 

there is a lot of sarcasm and negativity sometimes when one is surrounded by others who are separated from their friends and loved ones for hundreds of days at a time. i endeavor to keep that in check, and to foil the sour emissions from others as i am able. this is a serious work that all these men and women have undertaken, and i pray that they do not forget the little bits that make them individual and beautiful. nor that they forget the implications of their actions, as i endeavor to do.

with all the hurt, pain, disillusionment, and destructive elements in this world, i pray my actions do more to alleviate these things rather than inflame them. my fear is that i will never know.

 

with all of my love,

p

out of touch

i am officially out of touch.

for one, my internet/email access is limited. the man has got me down. when i can get online, i can't even check out my own blog. why you ask? because it is BLOCKED! FORBIDDEN! VERBOTEN! OUT OF BOUNDS! STAY OFF THE GRASS! DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS!