Writing At Work

(on scratch paper)


You know, it shouldn't be this hard.  Even this, now, right now, my mind feels like its running circles in my head.  there's a sensation when you're looking at a lighthouse from a distance; it appears that its simply flashing, pulsing, like a metronome, constantly and directly at you.  Those are my thoughts now.  It's how they're coming to me, like little blips on a lurching storm-tossed horizon i need to get closer.

(next sheet)

It just happened again.  The flash and the darkness.  I need to be closer.  I need to be at the base of it, or better yet right there inside the head of the thing on the catwalk around the bulb, running around it at the same speed, looking right at it with my eyes jammed open and my whole body, hair-tip to toe-nail feeling the heat of the one million, twenty million, two hundred million candles, whatever it is, however strong it may be, it's blinding.

(out of paper)

It needs to be.  Blinding.  Or binding...

"The difference between the almost-right or and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

~ Mark Twain

XOXONORI

"Eagles are sacred--if you see one, it means you're on the right path."

It's funny.  When I read that, I remembered.  I remembered those days living at home, jumping on the 405 right behind my parent's house at Howard Hughes Parkway, on the way to wherever in the daytime, blue skies and cotton clouds, and there at the peak as the onramp went up and over and yawned left into northbound traffic, there at the peak, above everything sat a brown eagle with streaks of black.  It was a large bird, scanning the vacant lot they're building apartments on now.  He wasn't always there, but I saw him often, and for some reason he always brought joy to me.

This was back when I was writing my first book, and I thought it was my destiny.  I thought I was writing a gospel, or at least that's what I told myself.  I was writing something people could believe in and follow, not just something to read.

And it felt so write right.

Universe

The universe is a wonderful thing.
From my bed,
looking back,
I can't believe all the people
I saw tonight,
all the cigarettes I smoked tonight.
And from what?

If I remember clearly
and I had to choose one thing,
it was the smell.
Riding home.
Hands off the bars,
and the curious smell
of burnt wood,
like an old camp bonfire.

Something I remember from long ago.

(like this shirt, it's damn near six years old)

Finn McCool's

There's an old-timey sounding bluegrass band playing tonight.
When I look over at the band though,
they don't look so old-timey.
They look young,
just a little bit older than me;
one guy with a beard,
one guy with a stand-up bass,
one guy with long hair playing his guitar facing up,
metal twang tube,
and I'm still sitting across a table from the girl I've always wished for.

It's Wednesday,
it's happy hour
and I'm (not) drinking a Black Wednesday

It's a Je Suis Charlie,
a French margarita by the taste of it.

Selfish Me

"I could have died in your arms, now I'm back at your feet."

(It's a song by The Love Language)

I met a Swedish teacher today.  He was here in LA going over his lectures for the next class.  He's a professor in Literature, so we get to talking, the usual.  Not the same old story, but not unlike it on my end.  "I'm a writer," I tell him, and it goes on like it always does.  Like that scene from I Heart Huckabees when Dustin Hoffman plays the recordings to Jude Law.

Tuna salad, no mayo.  

Like that, you know.  Something I've said before, almost to the point of practice.  But I like it.  It's something I like to talk about, because when I talk about it, I suddenly feel like writing, so I write.

While we were talking I came to a soft realization.  I asked him, "So what do you guys look at in these novels - you and your students.  What do you talk about."  And it suddenly occurred to me that most of these novels are these incredible stories.  Over-the-top, awe-inspiring courage or horror, or the worst of things or the craziest of things happening to these characters, made up or not.  There's death.  There's deceit or destruction, or some callousness and pain and torture of the soul or mind or something, some overcoming of great odds.  And through these stories, made up or not, the author tries as he or she might to shine a light on a great universal truth.

Or not.  Sometimes it's just a fuckin' story to make you say, "Oh my god!"

Or to give perspective.  To make someone take a step back for a second and see the whole world instead of just what's in front of them.

So realization: I don't have any good stories.  They're plain Jane.  Banal.  Eh.  Chicken and rice.  So I guess I just gotta flavor the shit out of them.

Honestly, plenty of good writers do.  Writing about the everyday.  The day-to-day, the routine, and what it means.  Hell, I think I just write about it (and I can say this now because I'm single again) to keep from killing myself out of disappointment.

That's the universal failure: giving up.

Never gather moss.  Never roll slow, or at least never stop.  Whatever it is that you're doing.

I guess my roll is writing (role?).  I'll take pictures to just for the fun of it.

Thanks, Eriksson.

(His name is Sven lol. I only know one Sven and he's a mannequin)

Man's Rationale

"It's okay, I dated a black guy once.  Well half."

"You half dated a black guy? Did you half fuck him too?"

"I didn't fuck him at all actually."

"Then what's dating constitute? So you got dinner with a black guy once..."

"I was on tour with him for a month and didn't want to fuck him until he could prove that he could stay faithful on tour."

"Gag. I never understood that."

"What."

"Why being faithful to someone means you don't fuck anybody else.  Since when?"

"Since forever, idiot. This is why you never have girlfriends."

"Yeah but faithful? Why faithful? Being faithful is to believe in something.  I can still believe in someone and fuck other girls.  I don't believe in them any less.  To be true?  I won't tell lies.  Just don't ask me questions that could hurt you.  Be pain averse.  Believe in me that I believe in you.  It's a two way street, and I don't think sex should necessarily be a part of it.  Relationships centered around sex never work out.  It's the cap to the cookie jar, it's the vinyl record plastic wrap, something to take off first to get to all the sweet inside, all the music and the words and the art and the images and the everything that defines love.  Sex is the latex condom standing in the way.  And I've never liked rubbers."

Winter's End

Madelyn was making bow-ties at the time.  But they weren't for boys.  Girls only.  Bow-ties for women.  Power women.  Tycoon Neckwear she called it.  She made all the bow-ties herself, and she sold them online and in little boutiques all around Los Angeles, including the one she worked at occasionally on Sawtelle by all the Japanese noodle places.  I'd always flirted with her, she was interesting to text and to talk to, and we got dinner a handful of times, there at the very end, just before Paris.

I was good at dating then, I knew how to charm a girl, especially the quirky sexy ones.  She had thick red Angelina Jolie lips, Madelyn, and athletic legs from I don't know what.  That's just the way she came, I guess, and she came with a healthy ass too.  Slim arms, she was fit. A sharp jaw, straight hair.  Brown eyes, thin neck.  Sophisticated sex, she was.  A wild dancer.  A quick thinker.  A women who knew what she wanted, and knew what power was too.  The physicality of it, sure, but she knew it was a strength of mind as well.  And she was strong.  She was intimidating. but back in those days, I always liked a good challenge.  I reveled in them actually.  And she was keen on me.  At least I think she was, for whatever reason.

[stop]

Was I so attractive really?  What is it about me that hath women fall to their knees about me?  What is the look that I always see in their eyes, always so discernible.  It's not sex, it's intrigue.  I know, I know.  Physical attraction plays a role, I'm sure.  But for now, and for all you reading, let's pretend its what we all call charm.

I seemed charming to her, I suppose.  In a cavalier sailorly sort of way, because immediately off the bat, she knew I was up to no good.  That I had a mind for the more carnal aspects of nature.  And she reveled in it.  She liked me alone in romantic places.  At dinner.  At houses she was watching for a friend.  All by herself.  Vulnerable.  She was trusting.  And with me she believed there was nothing to fear of.  Except healthy sex and a familiar, elusive back pain and a strain through the inner thighs that she longed to get back again.  I don't know.

I'm only guessing.  I took her to dinner at Mao's, of course.  As always.  I bought a bottle of wine beforehand.  From Trader Joe's.  A four dollar Malbec.  Nick was our server at Mao's, as always.  He said hi, and we talked quickly and quaintly like every other date I've been on there.  The toe of Maddie's boot ran up my leg while Nick and I talked swell and wave height and the short rides in the South Bay.

I ordered the Curry Rice Stick with BBQ pork.  She loved it, and afterwards we went to a local arts show at the north end of Abbot Kinney in an old one-story, wood-siding, beach house sort of place.  It wasn't a shallow building, it went deep, and although the pieces weren't necessarily jaw-dropping or particularly thought provoking, they were plentiful and filled all the various nooks and crannies nicely.  In one such cranny, there was a man drawing caricatures and in another a man serving drinks - glasses of wine or beer - free of charge.  We went to the bar first and left with quite the kitchy drawing of the two of us with oblong noses and broad lips, and in the car back to her place, I had my hand on her leg, and she would raise her knee up, her foot balanced on the balls of her feet, coaxing my hand upward.  Or downward depending on your vantage point.

LOOK WHAT THIS FEELING HAS DONE TO ME

We drove back to her parent's house.  In her room, she pulled her dress up over her head.  Black lace. Why is it always black lace?  Girl's got taste.  And one hell of an ass.

I told her I couldn't get hard with a condom on.  "I wish I could, but it's the unfortunate truth," I said.

"Well, have you been tested?"

"Yes, just two months ago." I lied.  "I'm clean trust me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Positive." I wish I wasn't such a good liar.

"Well, fuck me then already."

I did.  Healthily.  I didn't cum though.  In the morning I had to leave early for work, and I kissed her good-bye, and told her I'd see her after Paris maybe.

It was a week until my flight.  Paris beckoned.

I'd never been more ready to leave.  I'd never been so lost.  It was some great adventure to be found though.  The process.  When I look back, now, from Buenos Aires, it's beautiful.  But in the moment I was such a mess.

The test results came back two days later.  I got a call from my doctor telling me I had chlamydia, so of course I freaked so he calmed me down, and told me it happens to everyone and that I'd just have to pick up a prescription.  It'd be fine.

I wasn't worried about my body though, as I assume he thought.  I was worried about the responsibility.  I picked up the prescription in the Marina, a day before my flight.  Maddie was the only girl I called.  She deserved better.

I felt a duty that I couldn't ignore, and to my luck it went straight to voicemail.  It was the hardest message I'd ever had to leave.  To anyone.  If you've been there, and you were man enough, you know.

An hour later, Mom was taking me to the airport.

Hotels, Man

And so it is, not starting now, it is.  I'm a hotel man.  At a desk and a computer with a most minimal of work tasked to me.

And so it is.  I must make my own work now.  I must create, I must write, I must do what feels right again, not what feels easy.  Not droning on the Internet for hours, no--God, no--give me the strength.  I must write.  Even this, now, the pencil to paper feels infinitely more, infinitely swell, infinitely better than the hours before in the abyss online.  This is what I needed, this is what I always need to do here at this desk.  I need to write. 

I need to feel this ache in my hand again.

Birthday Girl

When The Levee Breaks

I work doubles now.  Friday and Saturday.  It seems funny to me though that it's not the work that's killing me.  It's the school.  Or more precisely, not the school, or the work (well, maybe in part the work), but the proximity of the end.  Of school that is.

What really irks me though is this picture.  Look at it.  Ugh.  The joy in that child's face.  The secrets, the love, the curiosity.  The struggle.  The diaper butt.  It's all from a time that no longer exists now.  There is an incredible animation in the living of these kids.  Their eyes see past their hands and hell, who knows what they're thinking about.

No phones, no Internet, no video games.  Welded pipes bring them infinite joy.  Maybe they're not as articulate, not as knowledgeable as the children today.  But you know what?  I'd bet the farm that they were sure as shit a lot more pure.  In every emotion.  And to such an amplitude that it echos through the decades to us now, and I think to myself, "Fuck, that must've been cool.  To be so free of the mind."  When they take pictures of kids in New York in the future, it's going to be slack faces looking at digital screens.  And forty years from then, someone will see the pictures and say, "Man, look at all the fun they're having.  I wish life was still like that."