comment rêvez-vous?

so i've been dreaming (a bit) in French, and yet, i do not (yet) speak French. it is a mystery, and the situation has me asking questions about the (exact) nature and proportion of my brain. i have two possible (explanatory) interrogatives:

is it possible that i'm already dreaming in my minuscule vocabulary?

or

has the French part of my brain subsumed my dream self?

my left eyelid is twitching

my left eyelid is twitching and i blame it on intellectual overload coupled with academic insecurity. this is the third time i've tried to write this sentence, failing each time to convey the exact nature of the strain i'm under.

i am:

facing the consumption of tens of thousands of words each weeks and the production of tens of thousands more, papers to be written, classes to be taught, articles to be read, a book proposal, the presentation, legal documentation, synopses, sample chapters, contracts, a chap book, the prose, and poem frag-ments scattered amidst peaces of mantra.

study break/feeding time

i spent most of last night with a dead, imprisoned Italian Marxist (like you do) - but a man has to eat. so i went to a Vietnamese restaurant for a bowl of soup...

the server saw the beads on my wrist and told me back in Vietnam they are made of tamarind seeds. he elaborated that the wood from the tamarind is used to make cutting boards because it is "very, very strong."

i listened intently and then asked him how vegetarian was their vegetarian soup. he told me that vegetarian meant vegetarian to him: no beef, no chicken, no fish. i placed my order, and as he walked away saying that he had never seen anyone wear their beads like that before...

he returned with a specially-made soup, "not on the menu," with basil leaves still on the stem and fresh limes. he told me this was for "extra flavor" and i thanked him for his generosity.

it was Pho-nomenal.

trinity / beautiful places

i have two trinties in my window sill:

three obscure (living) women, two famous (dead) men,
one immortal whose words and presence permeate them all.

i reside somewhere in the middle of forces i do not understand;

it is a beautiful place to be.

up to the minute (minute) coverage

i just watched Slumdog Millionaire and am still in the process of regaining the breath taken from me. but this is beside the point.

the point is that my birthday spanned two days, two counties, and two exceptional movies, but now it is time to do some work, journal, and tend to my studies. c'est la vie.

"like sand through the hour glass..."

i was born 32 years ago today during Days of Our Lives (really), and i have spent a goodly number of the days since then immersed and enmeshed in one form of drama or the other.

but

today is (largely) drama-free, and i'm going to look at vulva-esque art with Jache this afternoon. we spoke last night, and i mentioned that it was a little more than two years ago since we first visited the same museum, the days of being new in town, when our friendship was forged under the fateful gaze of Weimaraners...

i can still feel the still, but...

i have a friendly acquaintance, perhaps even a friend, who once told me he required a certain amount of stress (i believe it was a 7-7.5) to function. he said that a level or 1 or 2 was inadequate, whereas an 8 or 9 was too much. i remember thinking at the time what an odd way to order one's life.

[lapse]

it seems i have spent the past three weeks at an 8, making escalatory decisions masquerading as obligation. i can still feel the still, but it's been taking me longer to get there. luckily, fate interceded and my foolhardy vocational assent was rescinded.

i'm taking this empty weekend for some reflection, some pizza, and some Madness - reminding myself exactly what it is i'm doing here.

when i was in the 6th grade

my parents bought me a trombone so i could play in the school band. i really wanted a saxophone, but it was more expensive and for whatever reason the trumpet just seemed lame. but this is beside the point.

the point is that, if my life were one of those basic band method books, i could really use a breath mark right about now...

hurray for Tuesday

apparently we have a new president now, and i received a text from my sister yesterday before 6am telling me she was on the way to watch the inauguration. i felt confused because she rarely wakes before the onset of double digits, and i don't think she votes, but she does love a good party...

be healed! (welcome home)

my car has had a hitch in its gitty-up for a number of months now, but somewhere south of Florida City i must have driven past an automotive faith healer because the hiccup on the downshift from 3rd to 2nd gear has disappeared. but this is beside the point.

the point is that i arrived home last night and dropped my toothbrush into the commode. i am no stranger to such actions, but this time i decided to sacrifice the object in question rather than running an experiment. i reached into the bowl (pre-use, thankfully) and deposited it into the trashcan. it was too late to run buy a replacement and so, after washing my hand, i brushed my teeth using my finger. wait a minute, this too is beside the point.

the point is that tomorrow morning i have a meeting with a federal agent and, in preparation, i am: listening to Smokey Robinson, reading Foucault, and speaking French badly (but with enthusiasm) to people i hardly know...

breakfast

this morning there was a cat in a cupboard, roosters on the roof, and a moluccan cockatoo across the street. i had fresh blueberry pancakes in the courtyard (twice recommended) and listened to my family weigh in on topics ranging from the caste system to private property rights to a homeless mountain man from whom i once bought a poem and gifted to La Cienega. but all this is beside the point.

the point is that my brother is napping on the sofa and my father is on the porch reading the newspaper. we leave tomorrow, and it has been a pleasure to spend time with them, but sometimes getting closer to the ones we love makes it all the more apparent how far we are apart.

i am on a small island, and

tonight i will sleep closer to Castro (Fidel) than any night before or any night to come (probably). i have just loaded an obscenely large number of French mp3’s onto my computer, the television is blaring financial news, and there are signs of iguanas in the sand below.
but all this is beside the point.

the point is that i slept restlessly last night, dreaming about indexicality, iconicity and the insidious alienation of temporality.

worth mentioning

"Trace and aura. The trace is the appearance of nearness, however far removed the thing that left it behind may be. The aura is the appearance of distance, however close the thing that calls it forth. In the trace, we gain possession of the thing; in the aura, it takes possession of us."

- Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project

Dad, Papa and the certitude of past karma

this time last year i was on a plane, returning from a trip to North Carolina. i was trying to mediate the karmas i incurred during six years spent trying to make a foolish decision wise.

the trying was futile, the mediation failed.

but this is beside the point.

the point is that tomorrow my father and brother arrive from the frigid Appalachian cold for a long weekend in the Keys. i look forward to seeing them, and the six-toed cats Papa kept before that russet Idaho morning in July...

yin v. yang

i have one professor with a mouth full of amphetamines, and another whose heart pumps pure lorazepam. but this is beside the point.

the point is that i wrote my first academic paper since 1999 yesterday, and i am curious as to how it will be received given my proclivity for alternative epistemologies. i left class (be)musing how i might integrate my approach. what i need is:

a postindustrial primitivism coupled with pastiche anarchomysticism.

revelatory juggling

two mornings ago i was doing my juggling practice and noticed, for the first time, that my success was not so much a function of altitude as i had previously thought.

rather, success rested upon minimizing the amount of time i was touching the balls; the more time they were in the air, doing their own thing (and allowing gravity to do its own thing), the easier it became.

deep.

things better left in bed

i verged on discombobulation at points, especially on the drive down, eavesdropping on the conversations of strangers and acquaintances, listening to a nine year old echo of myself in a mirror. it was odd, and i watched myself wander towards distraction.

there were a lot of pictures, some art, and
the gallery mingle smell of too much cologne;

some things are better left in bed.

the Madman and his Bride

i sat eating my edamame, minding my own business amidst the bickering, when in walked the Madman and his Bride. he approached (she did not) and told me that he modeled his life upon that of a blind hot dog vendor who tirelessly plied his trade in the Great Depression, oblivious to collapse around him. he spoke of poetries unspoken and i told him of Barthelme.

(all of these disclosures took place in a cloud of nicotine mist)

the beauty took pause (to breathe) and one of the bickering parties asked the Madman, "what's been going on with you?"

the Madman responded (equal parts genius and panache), "the same things that have been going on with you, just in a different place."

the Madman returned to his Bride; i returned to my edamame.

homonym v. double entendre (1st class impression)

last night i walked in to find a madman ranting through a mouthful of amphetamine and Foucault. somewhere between the punk rock and the Cornell West came a small bag of pita chips. but, as one might expect, this is beside the point.

the point is that the first week of the second semester of classes has come to a close, and somehow my empty day of catch up has already become crowded. the incense is burning, Marvin is singing, the sun is shining - but still i feel the wait.

dreams, minutia and the Fear

yesterday between classes i sat around talking with a French-speaking Romanian about the malicious nature of nostaligias. she was unpersuaded by my arguments, and it was refreshing to talk with someone more concerned with nuance than minutia. but this is beside the point.

the point is that i dreamed last night of waves crashing higher and higher, closer and closer, until they threatened to tear down the little room with the big windows sitting by the sea. i woke at 4am, afraid and uncertain. eventually i fell back asleep.

when i woke this morning the Fear was gone, and i thought back to Sumati-ji and what she said about the (foolish) water (really) believing it was a wave.

maybe tonight i will dream of waves a little higher, a little bit closer. maybe one morning i will wake and realize i've been swimming in it all along.

"there is a light that never goes out"

my head is spinning, and i suppose the French is getting in the way of the Sanskrit, but this is beside the point.

the point is that i had a lovely morning and day and night and still i feel a little less than easy. at this particular moment there seem to be too many things on my plate, and i keep losing balance from moving my gaze from one delicious entree to the other. perhaps tonight i will dream...

things to do

i ended my night with Mozart, i'm starting my day with Beethoven, and somewhere in between fall five hours of sleep and a nightmare of New Jersey;

there is much to do today.

point A, point B (simple arithmetic)

point A = probation office.

workshopping a chapter of my first book,
juggling one minute on advice of my meditation teacher,
giving a clementine to a sadhu on an interstate off-ramp,
(re)meeting a poet last seen under the influence of ayahuasca,
fleeing from a rabid raccoon while reading the New York Times.

point B = grad school.

the distance between point A and point B is 12 hours;
these are interesting times.

get out of my mouth, Bukowski!

When we met
she told me she
wanted to be
alone.

But I didn’t listen
and soon I was in
her bed
until

one day
she said she
needed to be
alone.

But I didn’t listen
and this was repeated
many times
until

one night
she told me that
she didn’t not want
to spend the night
with me.

I looked around
her room and I saw
the cat on the bed
and a stack of books
on the nightstand and
I realized the

only
thing in her
life saying
she wasn't
alone
was me.

luddite (lite)

i spent my morning in a disagreement with one of my favorite purveyors of technology. the source of our misunderstanding is unimportant, but lies somewhere in the intersection of their website, my expectation and timing. i stepped back from the situation, taking a walk so i could clear my head before a meeting. but this is beside the point.

the point is that when i arrived at the meeting, i felt like i was walking into a David Lynch film. the Man in Red sat on the couch with a cow on his shirt while the Woman in Yellow stood on one leg by the counter. the Sick Lady was gliding about in a white robe, convalescing from the vomitous night that was. everyone in the room wore names from some long-dead language, and an eerie jazz soundtrack filled the room from a cell phone's loudspeaker.

"There [are] mysteries around here." - Kerouac

rabbit rabbit