There is a game called the ball and the stairs at my house. You throw the ball up the stairs, the dog sits there, catches it, and drops it back down. HOURS OF ENTERTAINMENT. This is made exponentially more exciting by using a spitslimed purple thing instead.
I wrote this as a letter to a really close friend. It’s a little cheap to post it, but I’m going to Hawaii on Monday and I think that this sums it up/bums it out about as much as you could possibly hope for. Fuck yeah.
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My mom left for Hawai’i on Tuesday. Things still feel broken here, and I hope they feel better in tropical paradise. I can’t imagine that they don’t. How could they? There are not enough hours in the day. I say that sometimes, I feel that–I truly believe it. If there were more, I’d do this, be this, have this. But in the mornings, my alarm goes off, and I lie there in bed and stare at my black sheets, curl in the warm fog of near-consciousness and think about whatever. I’d have another hour of the day if I didn’t stay down when my alarm went off.
I think a mid-life crisis is realizing how many days you’ve wasted laying in bed while your alarm’s insistence pangs at your conscience, and you’ve pushed your goals further into the background. But I think 93% (or thereabouts) of who I am comes to me in warm early morning near-consciousness. It fades as the day goes on. I throw the tennis ball for the dogs in the backyard. It fades. I brush my teeth. Rake the bristles on my gums–mind not on plaque but holding to the near-consciousness. I bleed, spit frothy mint flavored blood into the sink, rinse out the sink and look at the mirror. My bleeding gums hold the near-consciousness, but the other contours of my face are too awake and it fades. I walk to the train.
My cousin took Paxil for a while, and when she stopped, her blood pressure was so low that she would faint if she stood up too quickly. I imagine her having a conversation, her blond hair resting on the back of a couch too comfortable. And she stands and I am behind her eyes. I can feel the blood’s inability to make it to the top of her head, collecting in her throat and the fade in blackness like the end of that movie that ended before you wanted it to. The music fades in (silence), the soft helicopter shot of town square in summer fades to blackness, the inevitable credit line. The way the feeling and the picture fade at the same time. And you’re left reeling and wanting. And you come to (come to), and you’re in a theater (on the floor). Suddenly aware of all of the people standing around you. From the warm black sheets to the bleeding gums to awareness of the people standing around you.
Apparently, in Russian, there is a word for “wanderlust” that Americans cannot/will never understand. But every time I am about to leave somewhere, all is perfect where I will go. Hawai’i, at this moment, is perfect. Sand and sun and (surf) cyan water and just a long enough break for [ ]. And a week of near-consciousness at the edge of the water. Where dry land is growing in the middle of nowhere, defying the ocean, baptized by lava (A’A) and waves and clouds of hydrochloric acid.
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I’m bringing the fiddy and probably film as well, so I’ll have the obligatory adventure-of-a-lifetime/look-where-i-got-to-go/blah-blah-blah evidence. But mostly I’m just excited to see my mom happy on a beach and swimming with turtles and stuff.
I do the same thing every day.
Ducan wakes me up.
And He and Spunky show me how to get downstairs.
It was foggy today.
Before I had a job, I just played with the dogs all day.
Now we just play for a little in the morning or when I get home.
Cinnamon Toast Crunch and yesterday’s newspaper.
My Mom just left for Hawai’i. She also left me a note.
Sometimes I take overexposed photographs of me brushing my teeth, but not every day.
I say goodbye to the dogs.
And walk to the train station.
Which looks like this.
Contents of Bag: Dark Tower V, Half Eaten Muffin, Camera Bag, iPod, Marshmallows.
Sometimes I take this train.
And transfer to this one at Macarthur.
It was foggy in West Oakland, too.
Pretty much every body works pretty much every day.
After the stairs, I’m in Downtown San Francisco.
And then I’m at work. Russ and Alexander are good at computers.
I personalized my cubicle!
I personalized my company mug! (Plus I know you thought those marshmallows were worthless until right now.)
My new startup for underprivileged applicants.
And then I work for a little bit.
And then back on Bart!
You can see all of these in a larger format here:
