When I Get Where I'm Going

Ever flown over the Atlantic in the middle of the night with a handful of babies on board, when all of the sudden one baby begins to wail like a frightened bird and shortly afterwards, every child under the age of common sense is crying and wailing, too? What an experience. The mother of the first baby has about a five second window to get the crying under control before the cacophony begins, because emotions are contagious.

But emotions aren't just contagious from one person to another. Even inside our funny human little bodies, there's something bubonic catchy about emotion. Like little tiled masterpieces within us, our emotional landscapes are so interconnected that one feeling sets off another which sets off another, like dominoes.

The big culprit for me these days--the sand in my shoe--the cockroach in my Pancake Pantry omelet: is joy. Joy & the place it always takes me: its chain reaction cousin: sorrow.

It's like taking an optimistic walk through Hyde Park and getting blown up by a land mine. Unexpected. The tiniest moments of relief set off hours of sorrow. Little joys trigger spotted pangs of grief that move through my intestines.

I thought I wouldn't write about my Dad; but lately he is always on my mind. It feels like I've been holding my breath every moment since he left. I am so sad, so often. It feels like it will never get better.

For some reason, sorrow is the end of the line. There don't appear to be any dominoes beyond this last piece.

There's a reason why I love Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew."

Yeah, it takes me awhile to come around. But look at it this way: If you do manage to win me over, you get the best of me. Because all of us have a stash of gold we keep hidden from the romantic gamblers in our midst.

I surprise even myself.

No More Bare Fingers

It's that time again. The time of year I associate with unhappy lives and the subordination of the foolish to extreme cold.

As much as I love checking in on my Blackberry, checking my denumerable Web 2.0 sites and reading big ideas on a small screen thanks to the New York Times app and the You Version Bible app...there's only so much that can be done in the rain and with muffly mittens on.

So, in this final dark moment before the canoe of winter's sad maelstrom takes me careening over the edge of Disconnected Falls, I'm standing here under a stop sign on the corner of my street, forcing myself to type this.

No more bare fingers in the warm night air. No more of the casual loping under pastel streetlamps while clicking through Google Reader.

Sigh.

It's All in the Percentage

"If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience."
- John Cage

One must be careful how much he prefers exciting, delicious, luxurious experiences. He may begin to refuse experiences that are not as fulfilling and in that way cut himself off from most of the human existence.

Of course, for someone like me, who buys exactly one bar of Lindt dark chocolate (70% Cacao) each week to divide among the dull hours and who sits on abandoned cement in the sunshine as a personal version of the "spa experience," preference for luxurious is sort of conjugated. I have what the lay people might call a preference for facility.

If by facility, I mean that which is non-difficult, of course.

Of course, one must also be careful how much he prefers to create his own words.

A Note on the Unsuitability of My Story For Publication

I frequent a cafe that is owned by Aramark, so there's really no fear of my daily life getting swept away into one of those early 21st century-coming-of-age-at-30-years novels.

Those novels don't take place in places zoned for homogeneity, as it happens.

Reminders

Fall. The end of things. The beginning of things.

Saw Sarah and Todd tonight at FIDO (and Greg, Jenna, Graham, Cory, Matt and Saban). They reminded me about why I do what I do the way I do it. For myself and not for others. We together remembered a time when this city felt alive and full of creative energy.

I'm alive.

Why is that so hard to remember from moment to moment. I don't need to pysche myself out or anything. Just have to be open to experiencing every moment for the first time.

Dreaming

It's difficult to focus. Difficult to keep my concentration.

The most interesting thing I do week to week is work on the development of my quadriceps. I don't know why quads--why legs muscles--why muscles at all.

I'm part of a transitional group; we're reinventing the wheel. Nothing avant-garde, nothing heroic. We're playing musical chairs with our jobs, our cities, our love. We love our music and we love to feel alive. We can't sit down.

I loved this weekend. I loved new faces and old faces, and the feeling that I'm still on the cusp of something. I met a man who had such a beautiful face that I couldn't look away and hours later I felt like I dreamed the whole thing. This weekend felt like a dream, like a foray into a golden make-believe time for all of us. A time before we all split apart, a time when I listened more than I talked.

The hours wind down. I'm sprawled out across the carpet, legs twisted around each other, stuffed with macaroni and cheese, wishing the dream could last a little longer.