i have in my wallet...

a piece of paper. drawn on this piece of paper is the outline of a book. the diagram consists of three circles and six words. the circles are all connected and the center of each circle contains one section of the book.

on the other side of the piece of paper is the following:

title=in this outline of untitled book,

paper+ink=utterly beyond
the capacity of
your mind to
conceive.

the piece of paper is an implication of a manifesto,
the piece of paper being in my wallet is a ramification of the manifesto.

an exercise in dramatic irony

i am listening to Petrushka and transcribing journals from nearly a decade ago. it is an exercise in dramatic irony because i know what came within months of those entries. i can see how close i was, how similar my voice, how i teetered on the cusp, how -

and i know how long it took me to return to those ideas and return to that voice, how the intervening years allowed me to make that voice my own. how the slightest shift in intent can make all the difference.

last night i dreamed...

cat puke dreams of San Francisco with two tone pigeons on the roof and dog hair in my mouth.

i laid down next to her in the floor and twice she pulled her hand away. washing off my mala in the sink before leaving, pedestrian incantations of protection as i walk to the station. i'm leaving on the train, unsure of my return to Manhattan, staring at John Jay's mansion on the hill.

just finished...

a bio of Burroughs in Paris and i'm half-mad from the reading. i'm thinking in cut-ups and scrying into pearls, hoping for a string, seeking some semblance of reason. my head aches, and i studied today accounts of me, aged 22, and madly in love. i am conducting surveys (of one) via text and answering questions about my relation to Lloyd Dobler.

this is just the beginning.

the limits of my intelligence...

fall short somewhere this side of French films directed by Chinese directors. i saw today The Flight of the Red Balloon, and upon leaving the proprietor(ess) asked me what i thought of it. i told her i was not smart enough to watch that movie unaccompanied, but that i enjoyed very much the use of rack focus and window panes. somehow this conversation led to her recommending a film called Into Great Silence which is apparently nearly 3 hours long, set in a monastery, and completely silent.

sounds like a great date movie...

flirting through indeterminacy

there was a line out the door of the ice cream parlor, and i would have fled if not for the cute girl behind the counter. so instead i concocted an experiment with the following criteria for placing my order:

1) if other than cute girl, order chocolate.
2) if cute girl, ask her favorite flavor, and order in a come-hither manner.

i got the cute girl and was thus treated to a delicious coconut ice cream with chocolate chips and almonds.

spiders, Charlotte & the art of the brief layover

so i sat next to a woman on the plane and we talked about 8 inch spiders and formaldehyde. as the conversation progressed, i learned that she was from Ohio and suddenly everything seemed so much clearer because...

"dude, people talk to you if you're from Ohio."

in lieu of juggling... New England!

i leave tomorrow for a week and the timing could not be better.

it feels like i've been juggling non-stop for three weeks (oh how i do love to juggling), but the last week has felt like the part of the act where the assistant just keeps on throwing one more pin.

and one more pin.
and one more pin.
and one more pin.

until all the pins fall down.

the law of unintended consequences

i just applied for a scholarship online and somehow or another a requisite of the application process required me to post on another blog. this is a subtly devious media. but all this is besides the point.

the point is that i am sending another one away tonight, this time to the West Coast (as opposed to the west coast). i met her when we sent away the first one, nearly 10 months ago. i spent the morning making her parting gift, and i know that no matter how much i put into it, it can never mean as much to her as it did to me.

the results are in...

from last night's "loud, smoky club experiment." the last time i ran this particular experiment it was with "free ticket" and "dark-eyed hobo photographer" modifiers. i woke the next morning with influenza, or possibly even consumption.

the modifiers this time included "the long, quick drive to Miami" and "a band that sounds like sex." the experiment seems to be success, and Ladytron really, really kicks ass.

a hypothetical question?

if Neko Case and Ryan Adams had a child, it would obviously grow up to kill Bob Dylan, but what would be spawned when his blood touched the water?

from an email... unsent

i just got back from St. Pete and it was an incredible trip and i really feel like talking with [her], but my friend just called and i told him i would meet him for coffee.

the last thing i need is coffee.

what i need is a good night's rest and to write, which is what i intended to do on this trip, but somehow i got swept up into:

1) First Friday festivities, watching the throngs from balconies and falling in love with blond hair, green dress servers in lesbian wine bars.

2) long talks with crazy old women with shining young eyes in new age bookstores, wearing a fitted Ganesh t-shirt and discussing Pramahansa Yogananda.

3) watching a bug crawl across Dali's "Three Graces of Cova d'Or" and the irony of one of the only bug-less displays in the whole museum becoming an entomological exhibit.

now that is surreal.

a slippery slope?

i broke my practice of vegetarianism tonight at dinner. i would like to attribute it to a mercury deficiency, but i think it has more to do with the confluence of yellow tail, tuna, and salmon into a single, delicious tricolor roll. i intend to resume my practice, but a friend of mine returned from Peru several weeks ago with a harrowing tale...

my friend is an educator and an artist and a practicing vegetarian and went to Peru to help children. between sanding doors and running around Machu Picchu and watching cows run into apartment buildings, she managed to find time to eat... llamas. she told me: "I was in Peru, I had to llama."

there was a certain logic to what she said, but as the weeks passed by it was revealed that she didn't actually eat llama, she ate alpaca - the cutest animal known to man. she has developed the taste for blood since her return, and so far as i know there isn't a safe alpaca in all of South Florida.

Vegenaise

so we got to St. Pete earlier today and went straight to a health food store, where i had the most incredible vegan potato salad. i'm not against eggs on any moral or political grounds, it's just that i have a complicated relationship with mayonnaise.

weekend getaway

so i'm leaving for St. Pete tomorrow to write, loiter and check out the Dali museum. i have also heard whispers as to the location of the bar where Kerouac did his premortem drinking, but i have had little success in verifying the rumors. actually i've had no success, but that's besides the point.

the point is that Dali's stuff kinda disgusts me. why does he always have to have all those bugs crawling all over the place? i really dig The Persistence of Memory, i mean how can you go wrong with melting clocks? Soft Watch at the Moment of First Explosion, that's how. all it takes is a handful of bugs.

Tempeh v. Dostoevsky

so i've just been told that my tempeh sub will be ready in about 20 minutes. i'm really not even certain what tempeh is, but i know it's delicious as well as yummy and i'm assuming it's good for me. i bet soy beans are involved in there somewhere...

but all this is besides the point. the point is that i just returned from meeting with my meditation group and after we finished i spoke with one of the members who had just taken her literature final. she told me that she had to write a short essay explaining why Notes from Underground is a proto-existential novel. i told her that my response would have been: "Because it was written by Fyodor mother-effn Dostoevsky. Next question."

all coconut, all the time

i drove to a friend's condo yesterday, and there were coconuts everywhere. perhaps a half dozen (unripe) were lying in the yard. i discovered at least that many more on various steps and landings as i made my way to her door. the closer i came to the entrance of the home, the more mature and inviting the coconuts, clearly an offering to the indwelling coconut goddess that dwelled within.

my friend, you see, is "all coconut, all the time." but i don't think i had ever truly realized what this meant until yesterday.

i walked from her place to the beach with coconut in hand and gave it to her. she pulled a hatchet from her beach bag and proceed to hack away at the coconut. there was a brief stabbing incident when it came time to pry the meat away from the husk, but otherwise the ceremony went off without a hitch.

the day after...

and so my sister left yesterday, but not before giving me some mangoes which Wikipedia tells me are full of carotenoids and polyphenols. i approve.

what i'm not so keen on is that it also says that there is copper in there, and that it's at a "good level." what exactly is a "good level" of copper? and why are delicious tropical fruits always mucked up by transition metals? you can hardly even bite into a pineapple or kiwi nowadays without getting a mouthful manganese. but all this is besides the point.

the point is that i miss her, and i hope she gets some sleep amongst all those train people, with their cigar box smells and gray panther stares.