Wednesday, May 23, 2007

the written version of a guitar string about to snap

the familiar is tweaked ever so slightly. i am using my laptop for the first time in months and it still has m's snowy montreal street as the wallpaper. the sirius radio at the cafe is turned to something playing a lot of robyn hitchcock and the magnetic fields, not the boston-bto-frampton clusterfuck to which i've grown resigned. and i feel like i'm teetering on the verge of something. ambiguous antsiness. i made a detour to buy cigarettes from Newsstand Boy (the one i've had a carnal crush on for over a year); he seemed to be having a lousy, or at least indifferent evening. and i was reminded anew, again, of how ridiculously small i keep my world.
sex sex sex. i have been debating the possibilities of every fucking person i see. not actual intercourse, per se... but the fumblings leading up to it, yes. i want our frantic hands to push our naked bodies together. their sweat on my skin. that gorgeous feeling of being wrung out and used up, legs sore, eyes glassy, blood pulsing everywhere but my brain. that "oh shit, what next" feeling of panic mingling with exhultion. is it true that everyone feels perpetually eighteen, even as their responsibilities and mortality and common sense belie them?
is it even fucking POSSIBLE, knowing what i know now, and knowing that everyone else i may potentially come in contact with feels equally jaded/shat upon by the world/cynical, to ever feel those feelings of trust and exhilaration and timelessness again?
this seems to be a recurring theme. a fucking depressing theme, indeed. i am, in fact, scowling as i type this.
and the fucking magnetic fields are playing again.
this world, i tell you: poignant to a fault. and i feel, however falsely, like i am the only one here to witness it.
i put a post on craigslist for local new orleans advice. someone wrote back with a litany of wonderful ideas: places to get pie, see good music, which cemetaries are the safest. i am so fucking excited to go. i have been looking at the rentals there. what the fuck? i have not yet been there, excess heat makes me Rather Bitchy, and everything is, overall, pretty goddamn good here. this is simply another symptom of my current manic what's-next-what's-new-what-am-i-missing bullshit. i need a fucking dose of Settle Down. appreciation. life is not a fucking race. enjoy what is now. why is this so often near-impossible?
better things, already:
-the article in Newsweek about gender. recommended.
-kamut crisps and vanilla soymilk
-'our love's in jeopardy, baby' on the radio in my car. i turned it up.
-red sunset reflecting off the buildings downtown
-huge hydrangea bushes and remembering my mother saying "hydrangeas always remind me of old people"
-the driver kicking the two shrieking boys off the bus. i thanked him as i left. he smiled widely.
-"where did you get your socks?" the woman across from me asked. i pulled up my jangly beaded anklet ($2.99 in the u-district) to reveal pink boring ankle-high socks (from a 9-pack at target, which is horrid in its own right but NOT WAL-MART). she had assumed they were attached. "they aren't really that cool" i said. we both laughed. talkin' socks with strangers: the extent of my social life.
-the elderly couple, both smiling into space, her arms wrapped around his, murmuring to one another. "they are still in love" i thought as i watched them walk away.
-tunisian frankincense
-freshly watered plants
-picking scabs off my new tattoo (i cannot help it)
-pina colada creme savers
-chocolate-covered ginger altoids (FUCKING FANTASTIC! the cinnamon ones, not so much)
-being able to remember what it feels like, even if i cannot currently apply it to my reality

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