surroundings

every time i bite my lip i do it in the same place. the same angle. perhaps not the same force.

yesterday while riding the Q train into work i watched a woman riding her bike. she decided she didn't like the song or the album she was listening to so she took her hands of the handle, pulled her bag around to the front, reached in, and started fiddling with her ipod. i was impressed by her agility and frightened by her microscopic lens of the world and her surroundings.

has anyone seen the animation that has been created just before you hit the manhattan bridge on either the b or the q? sit on the left side of the subway car and keep your eyes focused on the graffiti.

each morning when i wake up i feel an air of freedom as i commute to work from prospect heights. something about the neighborhood, the big avenues, the diverse faces. it could be spring, the flowers and trees in blossom. or it could be the beginning of a new life.


i'm choosing not to write tangents or frames or moments that have been frightening me lately, but i thank my friends for putting up with my mood swings. i think anger is the worst emotion to work though. melancholia probably the most uncomfortable for those surrounding me.

olive sneakers

my toes reach to the tip.

it's raining out.

my old shoes have holes.

if the new shoes are snug but water proof, do i keep them anyway?

no. as much as i want to - monday i must to the post office. i'm way over due anyhow to send my two little one's their presents. fox and hippo travel to paris. i wish i was as well.

confession

the title of this blog was not originated by me, but by a woman who i hold as my dearest friend. back in college susan had a radio show that i would ocassionally co-host with her; though, those moments were rare and she had the fortitude to get up very early and provide new music to the local kids in poughkeepsie who were on their way to school. while i on the other hand tended to sleep until the latest moment possible before going off to class. but like walter benjamin, i like to collect and use what has been thrown out into the world.

and there we have it - again, walter - didn't even mean to think about him. what is my obsession? i had no intention of referencing him today. just wanted to put a few sentences down to keep the habit of writing alive in my body. t-minus a few months til i have to express myself on the page again. or perhaps on the screen. we are going green are we not?

fear #1 - i've never written without smoking ... will i be able to?
i won't be able to afford it if it's the case and it's not healthy. (that should be written in reverse, should being the operative word.)

fear #2 - what if i'm not as smart or artistic as they seem to think i am.

fear #3 - what if i'm not as smart or artsitc as they seem to think i am.

i'm trying to remember and find my voice - which hilary said is clear and strong. so a few moments every day tinkering about on this hopefully will be helpful.

favorite words of the moment:

once
of

favorite project right now:

skimming through all of my books before putting them in boxes

least favorite project:

going through the papers and journals and notebooks that exist in my room and either consolodating or throwing things out. right now i am actually considering chucking ... so not like me.

less home

last night after the joyce i came home to tackle packing up the bookshelf in our living room.

two months ago my whole being was enveloped in melancholia as i began to register and live with the impending breakup between my apartment and me. weeks ago i stopped sleeping in my bed and moved out to the sofa. i kept the television on to numb my mind and put me to sleep.

good friends teased me when i told them i had sent BED (i'll name it that as it was also at one point a center to piece to our set design of a play with the self-same name) to my friends apartment weeks before my scheduled move out. but somehow it made absolute sense in my mind. it was the beginning step that i needed to take to move forward with my life.

and now i'm moving onto chairs and pots, spices and impulse food purchases that have been stored in my cupboard for one day:

a bag of hot chilli peppers that susan had bequeathed to me before her move to paris.

a bottle of olive oil i needed to purchase for the shape of the glass.

boxes of annie's mac and cheese that had been on super sale at whole foods one night that i couldn't pass up purchasing.

bottles and bottles of capers because i always forget if i have them or not.

cans of cranberry sauce because we order too many every thanksgiving but forget that we did the year before and so fresh direct brings us one.

tonight, i tackle the bookshelf in my room. box up the books that have sat on my shelf for too long because i've not had the time or mental focus to read or reread them. they are my only objects that i feel a comfort in boxing for the moment. packed with love and care, and the knowledge that some new place, some new room will find them in the future sitting on the shelves of the only piece of furniture that i will not part from.

reaching the last page

this morning at the laundromat i did something i haven't done in years. i finished a novel.

this is not for a lack of reading, though i don't read as often as i should - allowing my mind to numb itself to tv or internet rather than ... rather than say reading and finishing a novel.

for more years past than i can remember - anytime that i came close to finishing a book and seeing how it would end - my stomach would become a little queasy or my breath, my breathing would become shallow. i would allow myself enough air to breath but not enough to feel comfortable. if i put the book down and distracted myself with something new or different i'd feel at ease once more. and so countless books rest of my bookshelves, never completed.

if i think for a few moments on this habit, it's nothing unexpected from me. i have always had a fear of things ending. i love adieus - the subjunctive and what is the other - super subjunctive. and there have been moments of being at ease with the future - though i have taken a passive lead with that one for some time. but today - with finishing my first book i have completed an event, a moment in my life. and there is a future, another action for me to take with and for myself. i don't know why i find it melancholic. i think there is an element of this action that makes me proud and is hopeful for what may come. but it doesn't sit easy. and perhaps you find it silly that so much thought for the next actions stems from such a microscopic moment in my life.

i'll leave with the last sentences of the book i read - which i did not see coming but i think is a good omen for my future:

"Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?" - lawrence dureell, justine

ghosts on the internet

i turn to the pages of google to see what the weather will be in new port rhode island this weekend.

my letter writing days have sadly succomb to the world of email so the ready knowledge of the zip code is not so ready.

i type in my grandparents address: 24 topa blvd to remind myself of the five digits needed to bring me an "accurate" weather forcast.

i find:

US Patent Agents in RI, US14825, ATTORNEY, Louis Applebaum, 401-846-1241, 24 Toppa Blvd Newport, RI 02840 US. 46641, ATTORNEY, Kevin Correll, 401-295-7377, K P Correll & Associates, ...
patents.oncloud8.com/paa/us_patent_agents_in_us_ri.php - 19k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

my grandfather passed away last year. and his absence in my life remains a ghost. perhaps more so for its ebbing of a generation and a loss of stories and experiences to share with future children.

yet there he is - present in a language that categorizes much of who he was proud to be.

have we begun to talk about life and traces or the internet? would gordon pick up on this as a valuable experience to write toward?

facial expressions

i've come to notice that when i write gchats or aims i make facial gestures as my fingers move across the keyboard forming sentences and phrases.

i wonder what kittler might think about that.