Remembering Existentialism, With Some Regret, Ministered By An Observant Me

Step outside
Gonna step outside,
I'm gonna step out
Heart's on fire, leaving all behind you
Dark as night, let the lightning guide you

-Jose Gonzales, Step Outside

I turned Jose on, reclining back on too many beige and white pillows.  "I have never ventured beyond..."the words in the novel said. What have I never ventured beyond? Harlem, for sure. Beige, at least in this room.  

Laying back, staring at both myself and the wall opposite me, my coral colored shirt begins to float away from me, and swirls into the walls and carpet. Finally, I see that this room is missing the color coral, and decide to cover the windows and the closet with coral cotton and paint. 

I can't ever forget the Tibetan village I stayed in at Xiahe; Oh!, the striped bedspreads and tablecloths--- so garishly red, green and then heaven-white in surprising places. .

I lay my phone on my chest with the speaker pointed at my chin.

Dark as night, let the lightning guide you...

I lay the weighty pages of my latest summer reading down on my forehead, and the gushing notes of the music fill the little triangular space between the speakers, the book and my self, until I squeeze my face up into a ball of emotion. 

Then I relax, as I see the girl who has let the emotion swell into her and knock her off course. By seeing her, I have anchored her. 

Then, finally, I resent that I ever became an existentialist. And wish that I had skipped from youthful naturalism straight to Christianity. How much less would I watch myself, I wonder?

Weekends on the UWS

I stuffed coconut shrimp and dolmas and guacamole-coated chips into my mouth.

It's been one of those celebratory weekends, I guess. 

Hamas, Israel, 3D printing, Amazon, Happy Hour, Self-discipline, CS Lewis, Jean Paul Sartre.

PlayWorld in "The Left Bank"

Currently reading Kate Muir's "Left Bank," a book which begins with a sardonic couple's trip to "PlayWorld," a Disneyland-esque theme park. Regarding the place, Muir writes:

"[It] is so good at being good that it manifests an evil: so uniformly efficient and courteous, so dependably clean and conscientious, so unfailingly entertaining that it's unreal, and therefore is an agent of pure wickedness."

Much could be said about pretense, masquerading as the real thing, and how after eating it, one might wake up with a mouth full of cankers and a tongue that's lost its taste.

Speaking of taste: I followed up cafe reading with a quick quinoa sorrento salad, topped with shrimp, avocado and tomatillo salsa. Saturdays are so...dependably good, that they're bad.