Saturday, February 25, 2012
The Bull
This is silly and funny and silly and wow it is a Very Hard Thing to make a poem out of a newspaper article.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Very Small Thoughts
I have a lot of Very Small Thoughts today.
When I was a kid I asked my mom how people knew God existed. She said that sometimes you know that things are there even if you cannot see them. She said, "You know Daddy and I love each other very much, but you can't see that." And I said, "Yes I can Mommy, when you look at Daddy pink smoke comes out of your eyes."
One of my friends lost a parent when she was young like I did, and she said that whenever she sits down to write she has to ask herself if she will write about him or about something else.
This is true.
It's almost like a binary switch, a one or a zero, Mom or NotMom. Will I write about Mom today? Will I write about something else. Write about Mom? Write about something else. The funny thing is that even though the NotMom category includes the Entirety of the Universe and excludes only one infinitely small pinprick of a thing, Mom still feels bigger. Mom still holds more—I could write forever about it, and I probably will (whether I want to or not).
I watched Dead Poet's Society last week. It is a movie after my own heart. It made me want to start reading poetry, which I have (thanks C.W.!), and it made me think very hard about becoming a teacher. It also made me think that, if my art were being suppressed like theirs was, that my rebellious writing would make life much sexier. There's something sexy about making art in secret, using fingers in dimly lit rooms and talking low.
Along with Bad Underwear Days and Good Underwear Days I have to add two new things: Body Hair Days and Big Pimple Days. One of these is a very good day and the other is terribly bad. I had a Big Pimple Day today. I could make a chart of my face showing pimple placement in relationship to embarrassment. It would look like heat vision—the hotter the place, the more embarrassing it is to have a zit there. My cheeks and neck would be very cold—these are very acceptable and OK places to get a fat pimple. The nose would be a bit warmer—it does shoot off your face in a triangle, after all. I used to think the worst was around the lips. It's still pretty damn bad. The upper lip is loathsome, but on the lip itself, that's grounds for self-induced exile. The worst though, as I discovered today, is a big fat juicy plump little sucker right in the middle of your forehead. Foreheads are the face's billboards. Advertising space. When you have a B.P.D. on your forehead you shy away from conversations, you keep your head turned to the side, you make damage assessments in the restroom frequently. "Who have I talked to today and are my chances to know them as a person ruined forever?" I did not meet any new people today. I also ran back to my dorm, but that was more for the sake of running than anything else. Sometimes it's good to remind yourself that you are 21 years old and your legs still work.
Body Hair Days are great. No details necessary, really. You trim trim trim and you feel good good good. For me, it's a long process. Trim the noggin, trim the beard. Trim downstairs. Now that's nice. Nothing like a finely cropped and shapely bonsai tree to give you a boost.
In my Shakespeare and Dickens class my professor was talking about sex, which always makes me stop doodling because sex is something very important to me. Because I am a Human Being. He was talking about how sex satisfies an appetite we all have, which I knew, but he also said that sex could be seen as just another form of physical connection between two people. That it was a way for people to connect with each other in the same way we connect with handshakes and hugs, just something much more intimate. That sex could be just that—intimacy for the sake of intimacy, because intimacy feels nice and why not?
I wore a sequin flower shirt to a Madonna dance party on Friday at Reed College in Portland. My friend C.W. lent it to me. I haven't been checked out by that many girls in a very long time. The next time I go to Goodwill I am buying a sequin shirt.
I want to dress up as No Face for the next costume party I'm invited to.
Life feels pretty calm and that feels weird and I don't know what to do with it.
I need to start a new story.
When I was a kid I asked my mom how people knew God existed. She said that sometimes you know that things are there even if you cannot see them. She said, "You know Daddy and I love each other very much, but you can't see that." And I said, "Yes I can Mommy, when you look at Daddy pink smoke comes out of your eyes."
One of my friends lost a parent when she was young like I did, and she said that whenever she sits down to write she has to ask herself if she will write about him or about something else.
This is true.
It's almost like a binary switch, a one or a zero, Mom or NotMom. Will I write about Mom today? Will I write about something else. Write about Mom? Write about something else. The funny thing is that even though the NotMom category includes the Entirety of the Universe and excludes only one infinitely small pinprick of a thing, Mom still feels bigger. Mom still holds more—I could write forever about it, and I probably will (whether I want to or not).
I watched Dead Poet's Society last week. It is a movie after my own heart. It made me want to start reading poetry, which I have (thanks C.W.!), and it made me think very hard about becoming a teacher. It also made me think that, if my art were being suppressed like theirs was, that my rebellious writing would make life much sexier. There's something sexy about making art in secret, using fingers in dimly lit rooms and talking low.
Along with Bad Underwear Days and Good Underwear Days I have to add two new things: Body Hair Days and Big Pimple Days. One of these is a very good day and the other is terribly bad. I had a Big Pimple Day today. I could make a chart of my face showing pimple placement in relationship to embarrassment. It would look like heat vision—the hotter the place, the more embarrassing it is to have a zit there. My cheeks and neck would be very cold—these are very acceptable and OK places to get a fat pimple. The nose would be a bit warmer—it does shoot off your face in a triangle, after all. I used to think the worst was around the lips. It's still pretty damn bad. The upper lip is loathsome, but on the lip itself, that's grounds for self-induced exile. The worst though, as I discovered today, is a big fat juicy plump little sucker right in the middle of your forehead. Foreheads are the face's billboards. Advertising space. When you have a B.P.D. on your forehead you shy away from conversations, you keep your head turned to the side, you make damage assessments in the restroom frequently. "Who have I talked to today and are my chances to know them as a person ruined forever?" I did not meet any new people today. I also ran back to my dorm, but that was more for the sake of running than anything else. Sometimes it's good to remind yourself that you are 21 years old and your legs still work.
Body Hair Days are great. No details necessary, really. You trim trim trim and you feel good good good. For me, it's a long process. Trim the noggin, trim the beard. Trim downstairs. Now that's nice. Nothing like a finely cropped and shapely bonsai tree to give you a boost.
In my Shakespeare and Dickens class my professor was talking about sex, which always makes me stop doodling because sex is something very important to me. Because I am a Human Being. He was talking about how sex satisfies an appetite we all have, which I knew, but he also said that sex could be seen as just another form of physical connection between two people. That it was a way for people to connect with each other in the same way we connect with handshakes and hugs, just something much more intimate. That sex could be just that—intimacy for the sake of intimacy, because intimacy feels nice and why not?
I wore a sequin flower shirt to a Madonna dance party on Friday at Reed College in Portland. My friend C.W. lent it to me. I haven't been checked out by that many girls in a very long time. The next time I go to Goodwill I am buying a sequin shirt.
I want to dress up as No Face for the next costume party I'm invited to.
Life feels pretty calm and that feels weird and I don't know what to do with it.
I need to start a new story.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Bad Underwear Days
Two days ago I remembered I had green eyes. That's a weird thing to remember. I was in the restroom in the library washing my hands, and I looked in the mirror and it was like I had been wearing sunglasses for a long time, and was used to seeing myself that way, and I just took them off. Whenever anyone asks the, "What's your favorite body part" question, I always say my eyes, even though it sounds sappy, because it's true, and I'm proud of them, and my mom had green eyes and everyone who knew my mom always says that I have her eyes. I've noticed that whenever I'm conscious of my eye color that my eyes always feel very kind, and I like looking at people with kind eyes. What's it like for Dad whenever he looks at my eyes and sees Mom?
The urinals in the creative writing building stick out too far. They look like malformed toilets stuck to the wall. They look like they want to be sat on. See the problem with a Very Large Urinal is that you have to stand very far back from it, which leads to Exposure, which is a problem when you take a piss next to Tobias Wolff. This happened. I didn't look down at his junk, and he didn't look down at mine, but you can't help but see a flash of skin when you're both standing two feet from a wall aiming into what might as well be a toilet stationed a million miles away. This is the problem with Very Large Urinals.
Speaking of Tobias Wolff's penis, I've actually seen it before. Swimming. I had just swam at the Avery Aquatics Center and I was getting dressed when Tobias Wolff came in and changed in that unselfconscious way that older men do. I can do that now, change unselfconsciously. It's something I learned in College. Because it's just skin anyway, and everyone's naked under their clothes, and who cares. The point is, I didn't look or anything but there it was, and it reminded me that writers are Human Beings too and they just happen to be good at writing, and that was what I like to call a Nice Realization.
I like Good Underwear Days. These exist. They are days when you decide you will wear one of your sexiest, best-fitting, most arresting pairs of underwear. On Good Underwear Days you feel sexy all day and you know that no matter what situation you get into—namely, situations with little clothing—you'll be able to drop your pants and put your hands on your hips and thrust out your pelvis and say, "Look at me, don't I look nice?"
Similar to Good Underwear Days are what I like to call Bad Underwear Days or, if you'd rather, a B.U.D. for short. On a B.U.D. (usually the last day before laundry, or on a day you feel under the weather, or on a day you just want to feel unsexy for whatever reason), you wear that one pair of underwear that doesn't fit well and maybe has holes and is most likely threadbare and Depressing. The problem with B.U.D.s is that, for one, you go around feeling unsexy all day. No one can see your underwear and you know that but you can tell that, somehow, they sense it, they sense your threadbare underwear and now there's no way in hell they'll give you the time of day. The other problem with B.U.D.s is that sometimes on this day you run into a situation where you really, really wish you had decided to make it a Good Underwear Day. Have you ever avoided a sexual situation because you were having a Bad Underwear Day? I hope I never do. I think I probably have.
I want to have so many good pairs of underwear that every day is a Good Underwear Day.
The urinals in the creative writing building stick out too far. They look like malformed toilets stuck to the wall. They look like they want to be sat on. See the problem with a Very Large Urinal is that you have to stand very far back from it, which leads to Exposure, which is a problem when you take a piss next to Tobias Wolff. This happened. I didn't look down at his junk, and he didn't look down at mine, but you can't help but see a flash of skin when you're both standing two feet from a wall aiming into what might as well be a toilet stationed a million miles away. This is the problem with Very Large Urinals.
Speaking of Tobias Wolff's penis, I've actually seen it before. Swimming. I had just swam at the Avery Aquatics Center and I was getting dressed when Tobias Wolff came in and changed in that unselfconscious way that older men do. I can do that now, change unselfconsciously. It's something I learned in College. Because it's just skin anyway, and everyone's naked under their clothes, and who cares. The point is, I didn't look or anything but there it was, and it reminded me that writers are Human Beings too and they just happen to be good at writing, and that was what I like to call a Nice Realization.
I like Good Underwear Days. These exist. They are days when you decide you will wear one of your sexiest, best-fitting, most arresting pairs of underwear. On Good Underwear Days you feel sexy all day and you know that no matter what situation you get into—namely, situations with little clothing—you'll be able to drop your pants and put your hands on your hips and thrust out your pelvis and say, "Look at me, don't I look nice?"
Similar to Good Underwear Days are what I like to call Bad Underwear Days or, if you'd rather, a B.U.D. for short. On a B.U.D. (usually the last day before laundry, or on a day you feel under the weather, or on a day you just want to feel unsexy for whatever reason), you wear that one pair of underwear that doesn't fit well and maybe has holes and is most likely threadbare and Depressing. The problem with B.U.D.s is that, for one, you go around feeling unsexy all day. No one can see your underwear and you know that but you can tell that, somehow, they sense it, they sense your threadbare underwear and now there's no way in hell they'll give you the time of day. The other problem with B.U.D.s is that sometimes on this day you run into a situation where you really, really wish you had decided to make it a Good Underwear Day. Have you ever avoided a sexual situation because you were having a Bad Underwear Day? I hope I never do. I think I probably have.
I want to have so many good pairs of underwear that every day is a Good Underwear Day.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
What about?
What about time travel? What about the speed of light?
What about an Infinite Telescope?
An Infinite Telescope happens when you've gone so far away and gone so fast that you can look back and see History.
Take a telescope with you on a trip to the outer edges of the universe. You have to have a very good telescope because it must be able to see an Infinite Distance, and you must have a very good spaceship because it must be able to go faster than The Speed of Light—which is very fast.
Now if you could travel a distance of sixty-one lightseconds in the span of one second, that means you would arrive one minute faster than the light you emitted when you left Earth. Then is the magic. Get out. Turn around. Look through your Telescope. You can see yourself shutting the hatch door, you see the rocket boosters explode like a dust mote smearing the green carpet of Earth, you see yourself streaking toward you like a ghost being reeled toward its body.
Now imagine you travel a distance of one lightyear in the span of a day. Get out. Turn around. Look through your Telescope—there, picking a white pumpkin from the pumpkin patch at the state fair. There, that night, too drunk to stand so your friend prepares for you a toothbrush with paste. There, falling asleep next to Delilah your rottweiler because you would never admit it but you still feel a pang of fear the moment light slowly sinks below your windowsill. There, you, one year younger, never knowing that with an Infinite Telescope you were watching yourself make History.
Next, try something bold. Travel a distance of two lightseconds every second and point your Telescope through the porthole at the back of the ship. See your life unfold in reverse. Inhale carbon dioxide. Breathe oxygen. Watch your hair grow stronger and see the kinks leave your body and watch your spirit lift. Watch your pen pass over a letter to your mother and see it drink words through the nib. Watch your fingernails grow into your hands.
And then you could find a moment. Slow down. Travel at The Speed of Light. Point your telescope back at that blue splotch in space called Earth. You have frozen time. You have stopped all of History and it will never start again. Focus in. Watch your small hand live inside your mother's that time after the park when you learned how to swing and when you learned what a Brontosaurus was. Watch that moment paralyzed in exhale. Watch the oak's branches split by the power line, and the cold wash of clouds above a neighbor's frozen garden. Watch blue lips never come. Watch houses never shaking.
And you could go on forever but the problem is you're hurtling through space and it feels like this moment is frozen in time but in reality you're simply traveling too fast and the Universe is only so big and you can only go so far before you run out of space—
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