something about books, covers, and judgment (ramble much?)

i dreamed last night in (parenthetical notation) and although this wasn't particularly odd, it also wasn't particularly pleasant, and i woke with a strange disquietitude that has not yet (entirely) lifted. but this is beside the point.

the point is that i just saw myself in the mirror, and i look like some sort of strange, half-bearded man-beast. the closely-shorn days of yore have been replaced by the bushy-haired excess of (non)hippiedom, and the tactile response it seems to elicit. moreover, my nails are very long, an apparent side effect caused by the fact that i stopped biting them.

this is not the point.

the point is that i have: a wedding to attend this weekend (not mine), a breakfast date with the grooom-to-be in just over an hour, a bachelor party tomorrow, a tux to retrieve on Friday morning, a rehearsal dinner, a night on the isle, the witnessing of vows, the bearing of rings, and (hopefully) the happily ever after. all this marital hubbub signifies the last gasp hurrah of my spring semester's ceaseless commotion, and Sunday's (belated) birthday celebration marks a(nother) new beginning.

(needless to say,) i look forward to the productive laze of summer, the writing, the travel, the days at the beach, the nights of budoir samadhi...

this morning

this morning was the departure, and we rose alert and alarm-less at 5am, almost as if we were the ones who were leaving. we brought breakfast for four, and enjoyed almost an hour together, sipping coffee and spooning yogurt, waiting on the sunrise before i had to leave and go to school.

the next time we see each other it will be in Boston, and it's amazing to think how much things have changed since i met them there last summer.

there are circles,

and circles,

and circles,

(all the way down):

the movement from

surreal,

to

so real,

is

a beautiful thing.

yesterday morning

yesterday morning's breakfast was brought to the brink of urination by means of laughter and madness. it started innocently enough...

we were eating yogurt poolside with ample portions delicious mango, homemade cinnamon granola, fresh blackberries, organic bananas, and a single orphaned strawberry whose deep rouge added a little panache to the mélange.

(oui, mon examen de français était hier)

this idyllic petit déjeuner nearly came to halt, however, when our next door neighbor waved at us as she was leaving, calling out to (the one who is never mentioned but always there),

"Bye Mark!"
and then to me,
"Bye Mark's friend!"
and then correcting,
"Brad!"

(mon nom n'est pas Brad)

i know (the one who is never mentioned but always there) by at least two names, but neither of them are Mark, and we spent the next several minutes in hysterical convulsions, thinking about our neighbor karma, and grabbing our crotches in an attempt to coerce the obedience of bladders.

the Burgh

last night we went to a farewell soiree on the water, a lavish affair with giant skinny doors and marble galore. the departing couple left, in their own way, this time last year and never really found their way back, still wandering in the Tetons and Yellowstone and Pittsburgh(?) but this is beside the point.

the point is:

1) there was dessert at this party
2) it was delicious

and

3) there is more than one way to eat guava mousse...

the first ten minutes of waking

what woke you?

the sound of Mozart.

how did you sleep?

i dreamed in leitmotif.

and then?

i read Whitman.

what did he say?

"the smallest sprout shows
there really is no death."

what happened next?

i found a love note from Buddha sitting on my nightstand,
a scrap of paper from the beautiful woman,
asking me questions intertwined in bed.

(ostensibly) finished

there is still the editing, the bibliography, and the footnotes. there is still a sofa and an altar, a decade worth of journals. some clothes and a bottle of tamari. there are three finals but only two of them are taking (the other is for giving). there is a bachelor party and a wedding but neither of them are mine, and somewhere in New Jersey the mother of a mentor is dying.

there are letters of recommendation and an application for a fellowship. return flights are unbooked and the window is open; Al Green is singing. my sister is writing, Saylor called to tell me Mardou has absconded the city. there are two books waiting to be returned to the library, and yesterday a student asked (in a whisper): do you smoke weed?

but all this is beside the point.

the point is that a girl once told me - in all seriousness - that she didn't know if she wanted to be an artist or a scientist, and therefore she was going to be a firefighter. apparently the intervening two years have provided her with some clarity because, when i spoke to her yesterday, she told me that she was going to start studying polar animals. my first thought?

but you live in South Florida...

Poem

inspired by Deborah Stratman's In Order Not To Be Here

What lupine
machinations
operate
(un/seen)
giving us
safe
clean
well-lit
places in the night?

the home stretch

i went to bed last night at 2:45am; i rose at 5:45am this morning, after a night on the floor, without a sheet, waking at least once each hour. this is the home stretch, and it will all be over in less than 72 hours. and then?

the finals, the departure, the move, the wedding...

how to get from point A to point B

point A

leave me alone and unsupervised.
find a set of keys to a Volvo.
drive south 3.2 miles.
arrive at my apartment.
realize i have no house key.
have a thought:
one small misdemeanor can solve everything.
commit minor vandalism.
crawl through window.
replace screen.
turn on computer.
blog.

point B

"Taylorism has been around since Taylor."

at last night's class,
when we weren't discussing auteurism,
or alluding to the text's elision of Frederick Winslow Taylor,
or lambasting the Lucas/Spielberg cycle...

we were eating cheese-stained grapes over cups of wine,
discussing bell hooks and how a teacher must first be a healer
- and this was the point -
but it didn't happen inside the four walls of the classroom.

there's a mélange in my mouth!

i just ate the most amazing bowl of yogurt with strawberries, granola, and raw pumpkin seeds. but this is beside the point.

the point is that what made breakfast spectacular (as opposed to merely delicious) was the banana i personally liberated from its tree this past Saturday. it was about this time last year - April 22nd - that i had that first taste of a fresh banana, and it changed my life -
who knew how sweet it could be?

looking back, it seems so far away, and:

in spite of Mardou's weeping San Franciscan Tuesday, in spite of my sister's poetic dogwood Baltimore malaise, in spite of their doppelgänger Aquarian break-ups, in spite of the fact that this time last year the three of us were hardly ever speaking...

life just keeps getting sweeter.

Whitman Sleeps Tonight

There is no sleep so sublime
as Whitman, under a tree
in Brooklyn, I dream
of my grandfather

fresh cut grass,
two cycle engine oil
and nostalgia.
Childhood

spent on the front porch,
chewing on sprigs of birch
pine needles in the fall.
The redolence of spring

mingling autumnal decay

the smell of impotence,
the taste eternal.

cusps, communes, and...

i finally spoke to Mardou yesterday afternoon, after days of missed calls and messaging. she told me of her cuspy Aquarian break-up and last week's precipitating post-brunch coitus. the suture is still weeping, and she was en route to a hippie nudist commune in Napa, which seemed logical to me. we agreed to catch up more when i didn't have veggies on the stove, but this is beside the point.

the point is that last night i woke from a dream at 2:18am and wrote:

waking with the mother goddess, creator of all things.
(the blue light is on)
i have been dreaming of us since my eyes closed,
i have been dreaming of us since my eyes opened.

the con

Darvocet dreams of doubt

and

the waking horrors of wonder -

how

are we

to know,

this life we happen

to be

living is

real.

this is the question, the fiction

we wake to each morning.

diaphragm v. paradigm?

there was dinner table discussion of diaphragms and the frequency of their removal, but this is beside the point.

the point is that somehow the anecdote meandered its way to the discussion of paradigms, the primacy of discernment, and the dissection of difference between help and support. the very notion of "help" maintains distance, a certain sense of separation, a subtle implication that the "helper" possesses something ("help") that the "helped" does not.

and this is false;

we are whole
and complete
in and of
ourselves.

the noblest goal is to support
- not help -
one another in our respective paths,
to realize the truth of our own the divinity,
the unspeakable extent of our greatness.

a short story about the weekend

3pm, Friday

i sat trying to keep my eyes closed in a room full of people trying to keep their eyes closed, so i retreated the retreat to lounge poolside and drift into the Interzone. i wake to voice, lovely, unknown, singing me Gayatri and i walk inside, falling further and further in, watching expectation rise and fall.

i project the Fear onto people i love and watch it pass; a blessing falls from a pen writing in two different voices. first the samskara, the same scarred Romantic with his back turned to the woman he loves, but then comes the setting sun over the rooftops through the chain link fence and with it comes the truth: this is not that, and every word i write is false.

can my back be turned to anyone when i see my Self all around me?

9:30pm, Friday

a parking lot goodbye, one breath and then the long exhale home to find my roommate with the sofa pulled out watching TV loudly. it there anything out of place in your apartment?

my roommate sleeps in the living room with the television on and a pint of Ben & Jerry's, six Diet Cokes, one cherry pie, and an open package of stevia over the sink. it has been there 6 months, i have been there 18.

la nuit, Saturday

i wake at 1:50am, i wake at 3:20am, i wake at 4:40am and do not go to sleep. i do not eat. i have lost 5lbs this week - i'm not sure where it came from or where they went.

6am, Saturday

a poem by Hafiz falls into my lap and it is beautiful. one breath, and then the long exhale on the walk to the beach. when i open my eyes everyone is gone, everything looks strange. i have heard the Satchidananda bile story many times before. the Satchidananda bile story was one of the thoughts in my head before everything disappeared, before i heard the wave crashing behind me, leaving only a shirt and towel behind.

i make myself eat a second bowl of breakfast, thinking how i was told to eat more...

oatmeal is delicious.

sorry i opened my mouth

the weekend has come (and nearly passed) and (obviously) i have rekindled my relationship with technology. but this is beside the point.

the point is that i was silent from 2:30pm Friday afternoon until 3:57pm Saturday, approximately 90 minutes short of my goal. my concentration lapsed over a stove top, stirring matar paneer and dal. a question about the burner's intensity was asked and before i knew what happened, the words were already out of my mouth.

you might say the question disturbed my peas...

zip it

i have been up since just after 4am, and it is plausible that my rabbit-esque diet this week has given me some sort of superhuman (in)ability to sleep. the upside, of course, is that sleep presently seems superfluous. but this is beside the point.

the point is several hours from now, i will turn off my cell phone, email, web browser, vocal cords etc. i have decided to take some time away from all this incessant chatter and connectivity that has somehow come to substitute for communication.

rabbit v. dream

i woke last night at 2:20am and wrote:

a dream, looping, of fragmentation and reunification. am i giving a lecture or is it all in my head? set to a music i know but do not remember.

i do not know if this dream was a result of McLuhan's examination of phonetic literacy or Patanjali's examination of the mind, and i suppose it really doesn't matter.

but i do wonder about that lecture, i wonder about that music. what is the nature of these profundities we dream and forget upon waking?

how many Siddharthas pass in the night?
how many Buddhas are lost in the slumber?

(rabbit rabbit)