At 4:30 this morning, I couldn't breathe. I sat up in bed, mind foggy with the tail end of a dream, and coughed for what seemed like an hour. Then I struggled to find myself in the comfort of sleep again, trying to ignore whatever was wrong. It didn't work. In my restlessness, I ended up on the couch. I laid there the rest of the night, listening to crickets and cars driving past in the world outside the window. The trash collector came by at some point, breaking the relative city quiet with the subdued thunder of the large metal garbage bin. My cat sang a song to something I couldn't see, clicking and chirping with the intensity that only a crepuscular animal can have that early in the morning. Richard came downstairs ready for work and left the house. I just stayed on the couch.
Today a friend sent me a song about loneliness and working on and on until you're old and wasted and used up and your body just stops. Almost everyone I know is hashing out this problem right now - I guess we're just that age. Why does the future seem so bleak when our lives are really just beginning? The longer I'm alive the more I feel trapped, the more it seems like the most enjoyable times are already behind me, the more restless I get. I think growing up is unfortunately sad.
I've been on the couch all day. The cats have been sleeping, curled up, lazily stretching and purring. If they can find happiness within the tight confines of this apartment, then it can't be too much of a stretch for us to find it in the confines of a job, a few nights at the bar, and a few good friends, can it? I try to take the comforts where I find them and remind myself that I'm only as trapped as I'm willing to be.
12.19.2007
12.11.2007
grey and grey and grey
For the last two days, everything has been grey. The fog closed in around our building yesterday, truncating the world and containing it within a half-mile dome. I imagined the block an island, cars below me on the highway disappearing into unknown waters, our building the only beacon of a small civilization. When it got dark, UFOs hovered next to the roadways, orange otherworldly light illuminating the fog around them. It was almost eerie how still the fog made everything. When day gave way to evening (much earlier than it felt it should), the world felt even smaller. Driving home I could hardly see the usually bright neon signs on building tops and brake lights in front of me appeared disembodied.
10.05.2007
mix CD
On Tuesday, a song found me. The melody crept in on the periphery of my mind, the profound and soaring horns caught me unaware and carried me off from my work. When a song finds me, it often happens like this.
It followed me this week, chasing after my car in traffic early in the morning, haunting me as I tried to focus on writing documents and e-mails. When I went home, it was there from dinner until it echoed through the slumberous halls of my mind as I tried to sleep. Every now and then, a song comes along like this and stirs you.
Last night I got in the car at 11, sitting in the emptiness of the parking lot with a CD in hand. With the keys in the ignition, I sat for a while in the inadequate fluorescent light and still air inside the car. Everything seemed to anticipate the sound of the engine, some dynamic event, the start of some grand adventure. I never turned it over. I took the CD I had made and trudged back inside the apartment. I put it down on the counter with the spam mail and went to bed.
It followed me this week, chasing after my car in traffic early in the morning, haunting me as I tried to focus on writing documents and e-mails. When I went home, it was there from dinner until it echoed through the slumberous halls of my mind as I tried to sleep. Every now and then, a song comes along like this and stirs you.
Last night I got in the car at 11, sitting in the emptiness of the parking lot with a CD in hand. With the keys in the ignition, I sat for a while in the inadequate fluorescent light and still air inside the car. Everything seemed to anticipate the sound of the engine, some dynamic event, the start of some grand adventure. I never turned it over. I took the CD I had made and trudged back inside the apartment. I put it down on the counter with the spam mail and went to bed.
9.18.2007
picnic
Every day I take the highway home. Four lanes of inconsistent speed and frustrated drivers just trying to get home to appreciate the few hours they've got left in the day. It's slow every day unless I'm driving home late at night.
Today something was different. Everything was slow, people were honking at each other, and even I grew tired of my air conditioner deciding to turn itself off. This is all the usual. What was new was the cause of the today's slowdown. Usually, it's a wreck. Sometimes it's just the natural confusion of hundreds of cars all with their own plan trying to be the fastest instead of making way and cooperating. Today, it was bears.
Some loud and careless truck had managed to lose a plain cardboard box right in the middle of the highway. In what I can only guess was the chaos of the impact, bouncing off a windshield as a car swerved, the tape could no longer hold in the contents, and stuffed teddy bears all in different vivid colors exploded onto the highway. When I drove by the incident had already passed, and what remained were bears - blue, yellow, purple, red, all sorts of colors, laying motionless on the packed road.
Today something was different. Everything was slow, people were honking at each other, and even I grew tired of my air conditioner deciding to turn itself off. This is all the usual. What was new was the cause of the today's slowdown. Usually, it's a wreck. Sometimes it's just the natural confusion of hundreds of cars all with their own plan trying to be the fastest instead of making way and cooperating. Today, it was bears.
Some loud and careless truck had managed to lose a plain cardboard box right in the middle of the highway. In what I can only guess was the chaos of the impact, bouncing off a windshield as a car swerved, the tape could no longer hold in the contents, and stuffed teddy bears all in different vivid colors exploded onto the highway. When I drove by the incident had already passed, and what remained were bears - blue, yellow, purple, red, all sorts of colors, laying motionless on the packed road.
9.17.2007
awake on a plane
Night is just a big shadow. I rolled the idea around in my head. Planes are little boxes full of forced meditation for me. I can't sleep on them, no matter how long the flight, no matter how drowsy I try and make myself. All of us strangers flew from day into night somewhere over the East coast, a physical transaction leaving the sun behind for dark and quiet.
When you're moving through nighttime, flying hundreds of miles an hour over the cold miles of Atlantic, time takes far too long to pass. I got to know the passengers around me even though they were asleep, devising stories in my head about where they were from or what they'd had for breakfast. The guy to my right was heading home after a short business trip to Dallas (why else would you go there anyway?), where he hadn't even had time to have a decent meal. An old couple nearby were traveling the world, trying to fit it all in while they still had the time. A little girl near me had as much trouble trying to sleep as I did, and she leaned over to see what I was playing on my DS, never saying a word but watching intently.
And then the sky lightened. We hurtled toward the sun while the light turned the clouds below us into a landscape that I could have walked on. The tiny world inside the capsule of the cabin woke up, stretched, yawned, and drank complimentary orange juice off of a cart pushed by an aging flight attendant who had circled the world hundreds of times.
When we were about to land, a special announcement was made amidst the usual instructions to buckle and place our tray tables in the upright position. Today was Linda's last flight. After thirty years of service, thirty years of flying around the world serving small cups of orange juice and pre-packaged dinners, this very flight was Linda's last. A smattering of applause sounded out, just a few people clapping after thirty years of what I know must be one of the toughest jobs in the world. I felt special then, to see this lady cry and thank the passengers nearby.
When you're moving through nighttime, flying hundreds of miles an hour over the cold miles of Atlantic, time takes far too long to pass. I got to know the passengers around me even though they were asleep, devising stories in my head about where they were from or what they'd had for breakfast. The guy to my right was heading home after a short business trip to Dallas (why else would you go there anyway?), where he hadn't even had time to have a decent meal. An old couple nearby were traveling the world, trying to fit it all in while they still had the time. A little girl near me had as much trouble trying to sleep as I did, and she leaned over to see what I was playing on my DS, never saying a word but watching intently.
And then the sky lightened. We hurtled toward the sun while the light turned the clouds below us into a landscape that I could have walked on. The tiny world inside the capsule of the cabin woke up, stretched, yawned, and drank complimentary orange juice off of a cart pushed by an aging flight attendant who had circled the world hundreds of times.
When we were about to land, a special announcement was made amidst the usual instructions to buckle and place our tray tables in the upright position. Today was Linda's last flight. After thirty years of service, thirty years of flying around the world serving small cups of orange juice and pre-packaged dinners, this very flight was Linda's last. A smattering of applause sounded out, just a few people clapping after thirty years of what I know must be one of the toughest jobs in the world. I felt special then, to see this lady cry and thank the passengers nearby.
8.17.2007
don't you ever write poetry?
It rained last night. It was a welcome break from the sweltering, nearly immobilizing heat we've been having. On my way home, lightning arced back and forth across the sky and the rhythm of my windshield wipers gave music to the British lady delivering news over my radio. I was going to meet my best friend at a bar, a sort of broken down place in the broken down part of town. My favorite kind of place; it's the kind where you have drink after drink and take polaroids that you'll look at again years from now and feel a dull nostalgic longing for the good ol' times.
I parked in the sparsely-lit gravel parking lot, treacherous and uneven from years of neglect and full of puddles with depths indiscernible, and made my way to the unadorned side door to the bar. I could already smell the smoke, and there was a phantom taste of whiskey already on my tongue. Thoughts of seeing my friend, who has moved away to another city, rolled around in my brain but were suddenly interrupted.
"Don't you ever write poetry?"
Startled, I turned to search for the source of the distraction.
"Do you have a pen?" She was shorter than me, thin and dry as a stalk of wheat in a drought. Dark circles framed her eyes, her voice had a desperate and unsettling edge. I didn't have a pen, I knew that. I told her. "You have that big purse, and you don't even have a pen?" She indicated the large and beaten-up messenger bag that I always keep with me. Making a cursory exploration of the front pocket, I turned up with nothing, as expected. "I really don't, sorry..." I kept walking toward the door of the bar, wishing that I hadn't left the pen on my keyboard at work.
"Doesn't anyone write poetry any more?" More quietly, almost an inward remark, she walked on. I wish I'd had a pen, I haven't read any poetry in a while.
I parked in the sparsely-lit gravel parking lot, treacherous and uneven from years of neglect and full of puddles with depths indiscernible, and made my way to the unadorned side door to the bar. I could already smell the smoke, and there was a phantom taste of whiskey already on my tongue. Thoughts of seeing my friend, who has moved away to another city, rolled around in my brain but were suddenly interrupted.
"Don't you ever write poetry?"
Startled, I turned to search for the source of the distraction.
"Do you have a pen?" She was shorter than me, thin and dry as a stalk of wheat in a drought. Dark circles framed her eyes, her voice had a desperate and unsettling edge. I didn't have a pen, I knew that. I told her. "You have that big purse, and you don't even have a pen?" She indicated the large and beaten-up messenger bag that I always keep with me. Making a cursory exploration of the front pocket, I turned up with nothing, as expected. "I really don't, sorry..." I kept walking toward the door of the bar, wishing that I hadn't left the pen on my keyboard at work.
"Doesn't anyone write poetry any more?" More quietly, almost an inward remark, she walked on. I wish I'd had a pen, I haven't read any poetry in a while.
8.13.2007
it's not permanent
Driving north on the highway to work early in the morning, I'm just one little cell in an artery suffering from some serious cholesterol buildup. We're all hustling past each other to deliver our oxygen all over this city, exiting the highway off into lesser arteries and turning off into capillaries until we reach our destinations, then traveling small paths on foot until we're spent and weary.
The lady on the news with the smooth voice drones on about the already mounting temperature. We're under a "heat advisory" through the end of this week. I'm trying to stay awake, trying not to think how I tossed and turned last night and hardly slept, hardly got a refill of the oxygen I need to carry out my tasks. A red truck that's seen kinder times passes me on the right. I must be going too slow. On the side of the truck, in handwritten letters on what must be a large white magnet, the phrase "don't take life so serious, it's not permanent" is scrawled in bubbly green and black marker. The man driving the truck has a cowboy hat on his head and a cigarette in his hand, and as the truck passes I can feel the bass of whatever he's singing along to.
At the end of the day, used up and tired and worrying about the next day already while I traveled back up the vein, was when I remembered the cowboy's hand-crafted message. I smiled.
The lady on the news with the smooth voice drones on about the already mounting temperature. We're under a "heat advisory" through the end of this week. I'm trying to stay awake, trying not to think how I tossed and turned last night and hardly slept, hardly got a refill of the oxygen I need to carry out my tasks. A red truck that's seen kinder times passes me on the right. I must be going too slow. On the side of the truck, in handwritten letters on what must be a large white magnet, the phrase "don't take life so serious, it's not permanent" is scrawled in bubbly green and black marker. The man driving the truck has a cowboy hat on his head and a cigarette in his hand, and as the truck passes I can feel the bass of whatever he's singing along to.
At the end of the day, used up and tired and worrying about the next day already while I traveled back up the vein, was when I remembered the cowboy's hand-crafted message. I smiled.
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