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if i were to type the facts of the situation it would still fall far short of the truth. last night i heard Jack whispering to me, and i had to make myself go to bed lest i fall into the delusion of believing it was 1953.

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day 1

this is the first day of the experiment.

i've never blogged twice in one day before; i never had a reason to until now. my day has gone nothing like i planned, which is to say i'm not getting what i want, but it is amazing nonetheless. in fact, it seems even more amazing because of the not getting, and ultimately this is what connects the experiment to the Experiment.

note: the experiment will end at dusk on the day of the new moon, February 2009. the nature of the experiment, and its results, will be examined on that day.

"Wonderful prelude..."

(for Hafiz)

I felt like getting
rid of all my things
one Saturday morning;
I took a walk to clear my head

and missed her call,
looking at the Buddha
(green), impassive
stare reflection.

How many more did I miss,
distracted by Modigliani,
distracted by Botticelli,

I watched a boy so high stumble
through the art parade of life
on a Saturday morning

and met La Cienega,
smiling vision of Kali,
another fractured heart
dangling round her neck.

My mind is unable
to comprehend,
utterly, all the
beauty I see.

Why else would I write these poems?

tofu beats the stuffing out of turkey (a true holiday story)

i walked up to ring the doorbell and was struck by the buttery sick smell of semen. i stepped into the bushes, trying unsuccessfully to find the source, and when she opened the door she asked, "doesn't it smell like semen out here?" i assured her it did, and we made our way upstairs to an exceptionally controversial game of Scrabble.

and these are merely the mentionables of how i spent the third Thursday in November.

waking 1:30am Thanksgiving morning

from my journal, 1:30am, Thanksgiving morning:

i woke to the low groan of the revelers next door and the dull throb of my intestines, cold from a nightmare i can't remember and plagued by thoughts of a woman i was almost tired of waiting for.
i heard her voice in that low groan; i felt her in that dull throb.
i wondered why she hadn't answered the phone and what had kept me waiting so long.

i'm too old for these games; i do not need these insomnias.

and when i wake [tomorrow] i know that the moon will be new and missing, just like this feeling inside.

i smell Long Island!

i was minding my own business yesterday, warming up delicious nutritious gourds in an attempt to ground myself after a vision (like you do). my half-roommate came in the kitchen and i smelled Northport summer of 1997.

i was in love and not yet leaving a beautiful student of opera whose parents lived in a house overlooking the bay. we spent days going into the city and nights necking on the LIRR and the in-betweens ogling Gunther's. i played her brother's drums in the basement and her mother used magicks to make the headaches go away.

i smelled all these things in an instant, but when i took another whiff it was gone. my half-roommate had made a peanut butter sandwich, the aromas had mingled and shattered, the redolence was ruined.

weird

last night i dreamed i was in a French lesbian's class, learning to speak her language, except that she was a he and instead of teaching French he was showing films. every one was an installment in his (re)telling of the Mahabharata.

there was the same female lead in each film; she was stunning and i wondered if she was his lover. the dream was conducted half in French and half in mumbles, but it made perfect sense to me.

(i do not speak French.)

"dead [moths] and the dirty ground"

i have a poem stuck in my throat, but my oeuvre keeps getting in the way of my libido. i treat it with half-plagiarisms and allusions aborted (and otherwise) because some euphemisms are better than others;

i am not eating you mother's baklava.

(the pseudonymery has ended, Jache.)

study break

the homework is done, the writing has barely begun, and there is a woman chanting Sanskrit on my computer. i have been reading about U.S. Left film criticism for better than an hour, and now that it's time for a break but i'm not sure what i want to do. my body is still shaky from an impromptu vinyasa class this morning, and i would be well-served by sitting except that the eggplant is still holding court in my tummy. but all this is beside the point.

the point is that i have no point (again) and i woke this morning from a long unpleasant dream of Saylor and Tarah's departure. in the Dreaming reality was inverted, and she was the first to go. by the time Saylor left it was Halloween and i was left all alone, living in Raleigh, wanting to return to Chapel Hill but knowing Franklin Street was closed.

[return]

last night, in the maya, i sat next to a glass full of cherries and ate farewell mango gazpacho with Tarah, discussing Shane MacGowan's teeth and Black Mountain College. Saylor has been gone only three days, and Halloween is far, far away.

random heart bleating and the dumbstruck lament of sheep

i just watched Son of Rambow and i don't know what i think about it. it had this bizarre quirksomeness to it, intermingled with the type of hokesome (not to be confused with Hoke-some) sentimentality i usually find loathsome. it was like watching a three-legged mohawked puppy dog chasing its tail. but this is beside the point.

the point is that this is my last vacant Saturday night until next year, and the fact that i am alone at my apartment watching independent British cinema and blogging says far more about my relationship to this night than words could ever describe.

no title needed

i stopped by a (friendly) acquaintance's house last night to pick up yet another load of free books. most of them were by a Dutch-American psychoanalyst but this is beside the point.

the point is that he had that famous photograph of Tiananmen Square from June 4, 1989 on his wall. it was a black and white photo, slightly wrinkled, and he told me it was one of the first prints of the event. i am dubious of its provenance, but this too, is beside the point.

the point is i told him what an effect it had on me as a child, watching it the summer i was 12 years old. the bags the man held seemed so out of place, so comically light in contrast to the gravity of the situation. i watched him step back and forth, blocking the tank as it tried to go around him, and the absurdity of the iconography underscored his anonymous heroism. it made a profound sub-conscious impact on me; it was like watching Buster Keaton.

San Francisco 4, me 0

Saylor left this morning at 6am for California. i was at his place last night and he gifted me a whole trove of goodies ranging from blank canvases to olive oil to a back scratcher. he's spending tonight in a hostel in New Orleans, and before he left i wrote him a note to keep in his wallet: "there is more than enough money to repay student loans." and there is, but this is beside the point.

the point is that Saylor makes three, and in two weeks Tarah will follow, bringing the score to four friends fallen and Franciscan. the first to go was Mardou, followed by La Cienega and i can't help but wonder who will be the next.

i have half an eye on Berkeley myself, but my time frame is measured in years... and the greedy Golden Gate could never wait that long.

resolve/crumble

introductions were made.

the backdrop:

patch-top anarchist chatter,
comparing flashlights in the dark.

topics:

androgyny,
honky-tonk Omaha hipsters,
dreams of David Bowie.

searching
for a label
to name
thi/e/s/e
thing/s.

it seams to remain,
the stitching removed.

days keep shrinking and...

i remember when i used to thrive on the nights, waiting for the sun to rise over the streets of Atlanta or set across the mountains of Denver. i spent hours in the bath, talking to my shadow and watching for the loons. i painted bad portraits of visions and sketched my dreams from Peachtree to Colfax. i pretended i was Dorian Gray.

i slept, i slept, i slept.

(the solstice is barely a month away)

i wait, i wait, i wait.

dueling dialects and the delectable dialectic

Saylor came by with a bag full of words and a box full of art, his Franciscan departure delayed another day. i thanked him for both and listened to his instructions. but this is beside the point.

the point is that tonight i saw a peephole into a potential thesis via Queer theory which, of course, leads back to my precious Foucault. somehow the pieces are falling into place, and i am considering the most absurd experiment to amuse myself during their descent.

at this point any yogi will do

i'm staring at a fork, so i'm thinking about Yogi Berra, Yogi Bear, and Pramahansa Yogananda.

if Yogi was here, he would advise me to take it, but i'm not exactly certain what i would do with it once it was mine. for all i know it might end up in my eye, and i have a strong aversion to blindness.

if Yogi was here, he would be out looking for a pic-a-nic basket, and it is a beautiful day for a picnic. i walked across the bridge this morning just because i could, and the the cool morning air felt amazing after days of 80 degree weather and hours on top of hours spent in a dark box.

if Yogananda was here, i don't know what he would say or do.
i imagine he wouldn't say a word, but just sit quietly, and reflect back the truth i already know.

the circles keep growing

i just got back from Saylor's farewell bonfire, and one of Mardou's former lovers gave me a DVD of Russian animation. i haven't watched it yet, but in the course of our conversation he told me he had a box full of books he was getting rid of, for me to come by on Sunday if i wanted them.

and so it seems this deluge of books continues.

i have the house to myself but...

it is not my house, and i just woke from a sweaty afternoon nap asking if my self is even really myself. strange intra-ballet slumbers in a home not my own. suffering from low blood sugar and the shadows of outlines of dreams; i hear Ginsberg, i eat cookies,
i impose (and then nurse) dolors de mi estómago.

and wait for los sueños to return.

this is how the universe works (right now)

yesterday Saylor came over before the opening so we could throw some art around in my living room floor and make plans for his coming departure. after the tempeh came the metaphysics (like you do) and he asked for a book recommendation. i gave him my favorite copy of Patanjali despite his protests, telling him that the book would find its way back into my life in its own time.

this morning i was walking across campus, thinking about karma, when i came upon a wandering monk. he reached in his bag and pulled out a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and asked me if i had read it before. i told him i had and then another book followed. i called Saylor to tell him what happened.

but it wasn't over.

tonight, before class, before chocolate, before the unveiling of the shirts, even more books came into my life and i now look at seven where once lay one. this is the way the universe works (right now) and this is precisely the point.

but - if this was not the point - it would be that i watched the full moon hurtling across the sky at incredible speed from the safety (?) of a wood chip sandbox in a parking lot playground. it made it impossible to tell which was the karma i'm creating and which is the karma past and which is the karma i am yet to read in my inbox.

i'm still not sure, so...

i'm putting all these things on display for anyone who cares to see, and i dreamed many months ago that i was ripping up the lives of my friends to form a collage. and i am, but what does that mean when they read? how will the people i love and cherish and meet and lose in my life react? how can i ever expect anyone to wade through the affect and see that these words may be beautiful, these words may be true - but they can never be real.

i'm still not sure.

Howling at the moon

i woke at 6am from a dream about walking a girl back to her kayak. the kayak was her mode of transportation to and from school, but this is beside the point.

the point is that i drove home from the opening last night tired, bloated and bothered, half-dreading the morrow. i had a tummy full of chocolate milkshake and grilled cheese sandwich (with tomato). the source of the discomfort, however, was not the dairy;

i was suffering from an overload of douchebaggery.

(i talked to her while he rambled in the background.)

how is this possible? how is this possible? how is this possible?

flashbacks collide with mimicry

we fed eggplant parmesan to a feral cat climbing a palm tree,
but this is beside the point.

the point is that as we left i pointed to a man eating at a table alone and told a story. my story was that he was just off work and sad and lonely and wifeless and childless and petless and loverless and that this is a ritual for him, that he makes meaning out of these solitary meals sitting in front of Whole Foods on a Monday night.

this man's wife or partner or lover was not out of town becuase he had brought his iPod with him. this indicated, to me, a routine and normalcy. perhaps he eats occasionally elsewhere, perhaps he sometimes grabs a beer with his co-workers, perhaps every once in a while he goes to the movies alone.

but i don't think so.

my story is that this man is making meaning in his life as best he can and, in the end, am i any different?

counting primes and receiving digits

numerology seems like a pleasant option sometimes. i have looked at the time at 1:11, 2:22, 3:33, and 10:10 in the past day. every time seemed happenstance, but i am no longer foolish enough to believe in coincidences. but this is beside the point.

the point is that i moved to this town two years ago today, and i have watched two seasons cycles. i sat last night reflecting with a friend about all that has transpired during that time. it seems so fantastical and yet i touched every bit of it; i know it was real.

and then, at 1:11pm, i received a text from Mardou telling me tomorrow would have been two years with the boy she didn't leave for me.

111+222+333+1010+111=a prime number.

and

1:11+2:22+3:33+10:10+1:11=5 occurrences of "make a wish."

untitled (accidentally)

i read my sister's life with envy. i boil endless quantities of water and drink bottomless cups of tea. i watch existential films by Woody Allen and listen to bands i've never heard of from sources i do not remember. i make impromptu man-dates and abstract essays on serialization and feminine narrative forms. i read other people's journals from 1975. i have one.five roommates and wonder if this night might see the breakdown.

how many pajama bottom afternoons does it take,
how many peeking bedroom mornings,
how many open window nights?

what do you do with a dead girl's mail?

biding my time

i'm not to crazy about this night, this show, this week to come.
i hear the sound of a suture closing, but i'm still scratching,
trying to make the trying less trying.

if there were more time - and less words - pehaps i could better impart how it feels to be sitting backstage tonight with the rattling Caribbean sounds of a hundred steel drums colliding into my own stone wall of apathy. nine years ago i walked away from a career that would have sent me to Japan, to Europe, to Buenos Aires - but it would have been the same theater no matter where i went. i've spent the past two years tying up loose ends and frayed knots...

this particular karma, perhaps, is nearly complete.

bruises

i woke last night from a nightmare, mouth stuck open somewhere between gasp and sob. [she] was in the grips of the Rage and the police were coming. i was in my childhood home, up a dirt road, overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains in late summer. i did not know if the door would hold (but it did) and by the time the officers arrived [she] was catatonic on a mattress in the floor, still not knowing it was over.

i muttered an explanation across the bed and fell back asleep.

i dreamed a penitent dream of the woman i left for [her]. i was a boarder in her mother's house though her mother was (and is) dead. the occupant of the next room told me the woman i left for [her] still owned the house, and i asked if he could pass along a message.
he told me he would.

i woke hopeful.

returning princess incognito

and so this is how it ends, cowboy boots and denim, blond giving way to auburn. all the walls look like a hotel now; the records are gone. two chihuahuas scampered about where once lived a ghost. i asked questions neither of us could answer, and recognized her by the shape of her knees on the beach.

some things are better left unread

there will be no mention of last night except to say that it involved the reading of Rumi, the bedroom glow of indigo, and the gentle whine of Bessie Smith.

the blues never felt so good.

all i wanted was a kiwi

last night i was reading Tom Wolfe and was struck by a powerful mean urge for kiwi. so i took a final sip of my electric kool-aid and headed to the store. i filled my basket with honeyed lemon yellow pineapple and fresh-picked cadmium strawberries and, of course, my precious DayGlo kiwi cloaked in its deceitful muted chestnut.

i made my way to the register and there was a madman in front of me buying brownies and a case of Bud Light. he was wild-eyed and manic, institution green scrub bottoms with the drawstring red, asking the tall Haitian (black as night bag boy) to help him load up his backpack, tipping in daps and snaps, "take the cans out man, take the cans out man..."

he must have heard me watching because he turned his head, looked down at my basket, and said "i used to eat like that and someday i will again." one more soul searching for satori in the faux-autumn Florida night.

i went home and ate my kiwi and finished devouring the book;
what a trip, man.

if you can't say something nice...

suffice to say that last night's show did not meet my preference. but this is beside the point.

the point it that i woke well-rested to a beautiful sunny day. i slept soundly, and reached only twice for my glasses which weren't there. my beloved spectacles were left in another county yesterday morning during a hasty retreat from Oakland Park. the night before was magnificent, and beautiful boys were chased through the homosexual streets of Wilton with a wire hanger while i searched for the American dream and tried to avoid the bats. if i were to diagram the experiment, it would read like:

capital of Texas + 1 year = ~i~ = Faye = Joan

if i = Johnny = Hunter, solve for i.

and this, too, is a ramification of the manifesto.