28.11.12

1. I am reclining in the dentist chair, my mouth full of my own tongue and novocain. It is the only time I will allow myself to the control of another, a depressor jabbed into my mouth with only noise and no words to protest. Somehow, numbed to dull pain with a sallow light glaring in my face, I cannot remain awake. In and out I drift of the world with its tortuous drills and sterile palms.

2. Hours later I lie, but it is not familiar, it is a prisoner's bed. The only light that drips in comes from beneath the opaque shade, but it is as if my greatest enemy himself had scuttled up the wall outside and, balancing effortlessly on the impossible ledge, breathed a mocking canopy of sunbeams into the room. The room is not haunted, but my heart races, or is that my mind? On the plank I lie, chills running down my back and the sunbeams twinkling into my eyes and scalding my face and chest. Sleeplessly, I toss and turn and though the room is silent, I can bring not a quiet thought to mind. I cannot find comfort under my favorite blanket.

3. So it often is, as the body is still, the mind is not. I curse that demon mind, I run from it, I try to fill it with petty thought. A boomerang it is, the mind! Thrown many times over and always it returns to make it's same snaking course, cutting a well-worn (or is it worn out?) path through the soul. It is the head that is our master, our predator even, filling itself greedily with our insecurities and shortcomings. The mind is but a stomach, the more fed, the hungrier it will be, opening its caverns endlessly for darker secrets.

4. But perhaps the mind is merely vengeful. It has gifted me deptless thought and curiousity, and yet I have scorned it. Sometimes I hold its depth close to my chest, not to protect it, but to shield it from other's view. What should they think if they know I wonder upon so many things with such joy and at times, agony? It is especially when he who I admire passes that I clutch it under my overcoat, flattening it against my racing chest. He should not know that my glowing face is afflicted by such tumultuous thought. And yet, as he passes, though I know him not and his dullness gleams unmistakeably from his being, I imagine his mind brooding on profound matters and his footsteps disappearing to pressing and empathetic tasks. Right it is to be angry, for the very gift it gives I have banished and mistakenly celebrated with adoration in many another. My eyelids flutter restlessly but I fall into a fitfull sleep.

07.06.12

1. I've started to consider blogging again as I run down the Schuylkill river path. Unsure what I would name it, I  am certain I would write it in the concise style that I have adopted since my last post. People don't respond to paragraphs, but instead short lines. Punch, punch, punch done- as if typing on a broken typewriter that can only complete one line before crumbling in the attempt to return to default position. Creative expression must be compromised to make room for practical message- space only enough for twenty words at the most. No time for the reader's mind to wander or skip. No time for the embarrassment of being ignored or idly distracted . I've decided I'd name it  Seen and Heard (And thought too). It's likely this will be the only time i ever mention the thought and no blog will be created to add to the trailing line of beginning attempts. However, in the case that this becomes the second thing I can manage to keep consistent in my life (along with running), I'll remember when it originated and why here. (It's scary how we forget things that began and ended just a few years ago, as I did the previous post on this blog, as well as the man described in it).

2. Seen : A license plate that reads BRACES (THOUGHT: 1. WHY WOULD YOU EVER MAKE YOUR LICENSE PLATE ABOUT DENTAL WELLNESS. 2. IF THIS IS NOT A REFERENCE TO TEETH, I AM A COMPLETE JERK.)


3. Heard : 'yo she dressed like she lookin a bag of WEED' (THOUGHT: THE AWKWARD MOMENT WHEn YOU'RE NOT SURE IF ITS WORSE TO CRANE YOUR NECK TO LOOK INSIDE THE CAR FULL OF SCARY BLACK MEN OR NEVER GET TO SEE WHAT A PERSON WHO APPEARS TO BE A BAG OF WEED LOOKS LIKE)


We'll see.. maybe ill be back.

28.07.10

1. My professor is of the best of the most loathsome kind- smug and sarcastic enough for one to tire of almost instantly, but accurate and astute often enough to resist ignoring. He is 55 at least, with a slight paunch and an accidentally speckled salt and pepper ponytail tied with a household rubber band. His outie belly button frequently bulges through his sloppily tucked in polo shirt, and I wonder if anyone else in the class notices, before I realize that I'm staring at him and he's unabashedly studying me back as he speaks.

We're reading Pygmalion aloud, and though his brazen, sexual style seems to declare the opposite, he demands essays and reflection almost entirely on the love between the characters.

'What is it that you ladies hate most? What is it that this character, seemingly a gentleman, done in this simple speech to her?'

'Told her how she feels'- its a mutter, but there are only 7 of us (i've never actually taken a formal count) and my half self reflective, half subconsciously textually analytical statement is clearly audible.

'It usually takes far longer' he says, with a look that has turned from the unabashed physical enjoyment to amusement, study, and perhaps a slight tinge of disappointment that I have ruined his game. 'Happened to you before?'

I realize with satisfaction that I am no more but a specimen, a fragment of a case study to this man who, though verbally promiscuous, is quite satisfied with the love of his wife (whom even he cannot resist subtly referencing time and again) and I smile, but he doesn't notice. He has already looked away.


2. I'm on my way home and I stop in the drug store to buy some snacks and a large canister of Metamucil for my mom. As I approach the counter with my arms full of cookies, crackers and laxatives, I wonder if the older lady who is checking me out will think I have some sort of complex binge and purge eating disorder, but she rings me up quickly with her head barely high enough to keep her chin from touching her breastbone.

3. My sister and I are facebook stalking from opposing rooms and shouting our comments back and forth. Appropriately, we quickly progress from the girlfriends of old love interests to googling the world's ugliest dogs, and we competitively search to find a more heinous creature than the last. Each time, we simultaneously shriek, run to the other's screen, and find an identical image to the one we have just left.