tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24816129623236000532024-02-08T10:53:02.872-08:00Some Trembling MelodyStephen Tully Dierkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01499679865436285505noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2481612962323600053.post-14050769866618034292010-08-26T18:00:00.000-07:002010-08-31T18:55:59.091-07:00Some Trembling Melody<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">Can we have fun? Is there a party somewhere? Why don’t I have more friends? Where are all my friends? Is there a place where they gather? And no one told me the place? Such a big city. Must be people in it. Think think. Or don’t, actually. Only leave your “garden-level” apartment to drag your unshowered ass to the corner store to buy a 40 of (Ye) Olde English, or Mickey’s, and like, a bag of Cheese Fix or something, and then sitting in your bedroom, which is about the size of your queen-sized bed, and closing the door, and not talking to your roommate, who’s a girl but somehow the dirtiest roommate you’ve ever had, beats all the guys, truly remarkable, sitting there watching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Flirting With Disaster</i> I believe was the title</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-size:12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Symbol, serif;">---</span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">that’s a fun movie, early David O. Russell</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Symbol, serif;">---</span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">anyways, just sitting there in your queen-sized-bed-sized room watching <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Flirting With Disaster</i> on your laptop, thinking to yourself, “Hmm, Patricia Arquette is hot in this movie…was not aware of Patricia Arquette,” and feeling like you have constipation of the heart, drinking until you’re giving yourself shit-eating grins in the bathroom mirror, but realizing immediately that it’s an inauthentic grin, you’ll be sad again soon, you’re sad already, is the corner store still open</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Symbol, serif;">---</span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">is that a pathetic night? Ever have one of those?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">Ever have a really incredible first kiss with someone? Had one of those once. It was this older girl, only older girl I’ve “been with,” so to speak. She was this girl whose last name is the same as the name of the street my parents still live on in Milwaukee. I remember we walked all the way to the capitol building and then all the way back to the Lake Mendota terrace, and sat down by the water, fed some ducks. All the while talking about her trips to Europe and South America, my friends, her friends, her younger brother (same age as me), “that time her and said younger brother had to share a sleeping bag in this shady hostel in Belgium on a wickedly cold night and were forced to huddle together for warmth in a vaguely ‘wrong-ish’ fashion,” etc. We talked for two hours straight, I’d estimate. So when I dropped her off at her friend’s doorstep in this alley off of State Street, there was a pause, and then she said, “Are you going to kiss me or what?” She actually said that. And we kissed, and I remember thinking: “Wow, she is like 50X better kisser than every girl I’ve ever kissed. Damn.” I remember she made fun of me for drinking a mocha at a coffee shop. She called me a “malt shopper.” That was the last time I ordered a mocha for at least a month. Oh, and she played Prince when I came to her apartment for the first time. I was impressed. My closing detail re Mystery Older Girl of Yesteryear is that the morning after we “traversed the fjord” for the first time, she was making biscuits or something and said, as casually as if she were saying she was meeting her friend for lunch later, she said, “You know I think I’d like to try dating a girl.” Seemed like poor timing. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">Maybe it’s because of growing up with 2 sisters, but I really miss it when there aren’t any girls around with whom to talk. I mean, there is no fun quite like uninhibited, toe-curling sex, but even just talking to girls makes me feel more whole, divested of some worthless burden I’ve been dragging around. Girls often make an effort to understand how the other person is feeling and to try to “cater” at least a bit to that person in the interest of making him or her feel better about life…whereas men tend to show the minimal effort possible in all social situations unless they need something from you, are drunk, or are trying to sleep with you. That is my inelegant, impressively banal analysis of how women talk to people versus men. Huge generalizations, of course. Kind of bugs me sometimes that you’re not allowed to make generalizations. What if they are compliments? I just said all women are nice, or something. There was that one, though, Cari. Kind of a bitch. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">Now that it’s been some-odd years since those glory days in the garden-level apartment of dreams, one of my main comforts when I’m still feeling lonely and underfriended and generally “kind of lame,” “you spend too much time on the internet,” “what are you doing with your liiiiiiiife, my Gaahhhhhddd…”</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-size:12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Symbol, serif;">---</span></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">when I’m feeling like that, I take a medium-large to enormous amount of comfort from going over to the token straight bar in my homosexual neighborhood for a comedy night on Sundays that is devoted to what the three lovely hosts (all women) call “Go-Gals” (there are some “Go-Guys” at this event, as well). The hosts have this hilarious bit where each of them sings a “song” about incidents that precipitate a Go-Gal “getting her wings.” It’s usually some variation on: “When youuuuu move-to-some-random-part-of-Florida-from-Cleveland- and-your-alcoholic-abusive-father-can’t-find-a-job-and-has-to-resort-to-selling-hot-dogs- at-the-local-carnival-grounds-and-moves-out-of-the-house-and-doesn’t-pay-child-support-and-leaves-his-children-with-irreparable-emotional-damage…A GO-GAL GETS HER WINGS!” They’re usually not quite as brutal as my example, but you get the idea. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:106.65pt"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">I’ve never been genuinely suicidal I don’t think, but there have been times since moving to Chicago when I’m on a train platform, waiting, and it occurs to me that if an insane, inexplicable impulse seized me, I might throw myself onto the tracks, which would presumably lead to me being run over by a train, unless someone felt like a hero that day. Yeah, there have been times when I felt the impulse a little, but I’m so terrified of death and I have some basic survival impulse, so it’s more a queer mortal dread coming over me as opposed to a suicidal impulse, I guess. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">My mom almost committed suicide. She was adopted by this third-generation Irish couple in Queens, and her parents were mean to her, and they were threatening to not let her move to Indiana to attend college (out of the many colleges which had accepted her, she purposely chose the one farthest away from home). At her high school, Mom had been accused of doing drugs, with no proof to back up the charge (back in those days, the nuns were very paranoid about “kids today and their drugs”). This was why her parents were threatening her. So my mom was at a study session with some girlfriends in this third-floor apartment, and she stood up and went to the open window and she had one foot over the sash and was about to jump when her friend Connie yelled something and they talked her out of it. To think of all the chance in life, that I am even here to tell the tale.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">My dad wrote a poem about my mom once. It is about the sadness of her childhood, I think. I haven’t read it. I don’t need to. It is enough to know it exists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">When I was being born, I kicked a lot and came out much faster than normal. I was a bald-headed baby. So were my two sisters. This black lady at church came up to my mom after my younger sister was born, the third of us to be born hairless, and the lady said, “Ooh, I love dem baaald-headed babies!” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">I wonder if it was the “Hat Lady” who said that to my mom. We had a Hat Lady at church. So called because of her eclectic, colorful collection of massive hats, one of which she wore every Sunday to church. I would call them readymades.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span style="font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">Readymades being the term Marcel Duchamp used to describe his selected, modified, “found” everyday manufactured objects. Art. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Though of course the Hat Lady may not have been aware she was wearing art. And if art sometimes relies on context, how did the context of her fine head, her joyous self, add to or even create the art? Art because she wore the hats to church every Sunday? She is art but the hat is “simply” a hat? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Rhetorical questions?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I don’t believe in art. I believe in artists,” being something Duchamp once said. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Though of course in literature the Author is “dead,” according to Roland Barthes. Does this mean, retroactively, that Duchamp believes in people that do not exist or do not exist anymore?<span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>And of course Duchamp died on October 2<sup>nd</sup>, 1968, and “The Death of the Author” was published in English in 1967. One assumes Duchamp stopped believing in artists the year before he died, owing to the essay that had “appeared” under the name of Roland Barthes.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I sincerely hope my Literary Forefathers and Foremothers would say, “This is on the mark, son!”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Bad joke. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Who is bad?” being an approximation of something Michael Jackson once asked, rhetorically, Rest In Peace.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>The joke refers to David Markson, author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Wittgenstein’s Mistress</i>, published by Dalkey Archive Press, which was founded by John O’Brien in Chicago the year before I was born. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>The style of this passage seeming somewhat similar to the style employed in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Wittgenstein’s Mistress</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>With modifications, of course.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>The effect of this being not entirely unlike that achieved in hip-hop/rap music via the sample. The sample being the “best part of the song” cut out of the rest of the original song, repeated, and “fucked with.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Hip-hop/rap music being a genre of music I enjoy immensely and have even been known to “philosophize” about. There being departments in universities for this sort of thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Me not having any “advanced degrees,” as of now. Me not “really” seeking any such advanced degrees, “for some reason.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Advanced degrees” having become “standard,” or “the norm.” Having become plaguelike. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>These comments being grounds for the appellation “sour grapes,” if the reader happens to have such degrees and/or a “small, narrow mind impervious to fun.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>An “artistic” reference to Michael Jackson occurred previously in literature, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">2666</i> by Roberto Bola</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica;font-size:13.0pt;">ño, an author first published in the United States by New Directions. </span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>New Directions being a publishing press founded by James Laughlin when he was a sophomore at Harvard. This decision spurred by Ezra Pound’s advice to the young Laughlin, that he “do ‘something’ useful.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Ezra Pound being the “lynchpin” of the Modernist scene in Paris, circa 1920-1924. Also the author of the epic poem <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Cantos</i>, and a “traitor,” a “Fascist,” and an “anti-Semite,” allegedly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Pound having been forced to live in an insane asylum in the U.S., St. Elizabeths, for 12 years, after being found incompetent to face trial for treason. Upon his release, following a campaign spearheaded by his fellow artists, Pound was quoted as saying: “…all America is an insane asylum.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Pound having been born in 1885 in the Idaho Territory, before it was a United State. Pound having met William Carlos Williams and H.D. at the University of Pennsylvania.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Pound having been engaged to H.D. for a short time. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>H.D. Imagiste. Dubbed, dumped. Later bisexual, nowadays rediscovered. A special Imagist issue of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Egoist</i> (an organ which “recognise[d] no taboos”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Pound having subsequently taught at Wabash College in Indiana. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Pound having allegedly let a “stranded actress” stay overnight while teaching at Wabash, which resulted in a scandal.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Causing Pound to be dismissed after only 4 months.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“All accusations having been ultimately refuted except that of being ‘the Latin Quarter type,’” according to Pound.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Witz</i>. Being the title of a novel by Joshua Cohen, also published by Dalkey Archive. “Witz” being a German word for “joke.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Though Pound did later recant on his anti-Semitism, saying: “The worst mistake I made was that stupid, suburban prejudice of anti-Semitism.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Pound having aided many famous Modernist artists in their survival and publication, including James Joyce. Giving them his money, writing letters to editors, tirelessly, on their behalf.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>The Michael Jackson reference in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">2666</i> concerns a disagreement between 2 characters over whether or not Michael Jackson knows things the rest of us do not. The second man opines that everyone thinks they know things that no one else does.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I saw this as an indirect reference to Michael Jackson’s loneliness and alienation at times in his career, like when he was first accused of child molestation. There being a song by Michael concerning this loneliness, entitled “Stranger in Moscow.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Though no one much cares if celebrities have feelings. They are not real and they have way too much money, so they are “asking for it,” of course. Given that some things are “unforgivable,” even if one is eventually proven “innocent” or “pardoned” by the victim him/herself. There being no double standards re these situations. There being no undue, relentless hostility from the public in the cases of, say, Michael Jackson or Michael Vick.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">Though Roman Polanski’s stint on the whipping post continues apace.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">There being better things to care about than some “notable” artist’s feelings and life and family, like charities and protest rallies and “being ‘right’.” Charity of course not founded upon empathy for others, no matter who they are. There being no need for wisdom or forgiveness in the world. There being only a need to roast more meat.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>There being a need to redirect one’s insecurities and biases and fears and anger and pain into hating people, day in and day out, because those people are “rich, disgusting douchebags.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>There being not enough people to hate at one’s job, at one’s school, at the soccer game, at the supermarket, in the park, at a party, on the internet, in the morning, late at night, day after day, hating and hating and hating, oneself most of all.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>And of course the hater has no faults, has never done anything wrong, has never hurt anyone or offended anyone or made mistakes. Not to mention the hater has perfect judgment, the best taste imaginable, and superior knowledge of everything ever compared to anyone anywhere ever.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Jesus having told those who would stone to death Saint Stephen, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>This tastes of bitterness, strange passion. It is wiped away, gone.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>One never knows where it comes from, the passion to defend others. The passion to promote detachment, understanding, empathy, love.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>It is late. Another day.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>This being written two days later. On paper and then typed up. Hand having cramped up from the onward scroll of words and words, beats and beats. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>This being all hip-hop “really is,” words and beats. Sometimes melodies.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Thump</i>…<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">thump</i>…<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">thump</i>, and words, moving in time, then ceasing. Starting again.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Rebirth</i> (2010) being the name of a rap/rock fusion album by Lil Wayne.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Birth of the Cool</i> (1949/1950) being the name of a post-bebop jazz album by Miles Davis which features innovative arrangements inspired by classical music. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Miles Davis having created one of the first fusion albums, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Bitches Brew</i> (1970).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Life’s a gamble,” being something Lil Wayne once said.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Lil Wayne currently serving time in Rikers for “weapon possession.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Lil Wayne having also said, “My thoughts wild/My ideas are scattered.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Oscar Wilde having gone to prison as well, after being convicted of “gross indecency,” AKA being gay.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>This leading to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">De Profundis</i>, written while in prison to an erstwhile lover. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>The title meaning “from the depths,” an allusion to Psalm 130.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground,” Wilde wrote.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And now a feeling I have, a feeling of being free. Sorrow leaving me. Because I have new friends. I feel love.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>The internet connecting me to kindred spirits. “IRL” having become a necessary acronym, meaning “In Real Life.” So much life buzzing over wires, these days. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Oscar Wilde having been mentioned in at least 2 “notable” literary works, James Joyce’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Ulysses</i> and Tao Lin’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Shoplifting from American Apparel</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Though when I told my mom that Tao was going to be in my magazine, she didn’t know whom I was talking about. And she has never read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Ulysses</i>. And many people will never read <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Ulysses</i>. Not to even mention <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Finnegans Wake</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>And of course Ann Beattie said of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Wittgenstein’s Mistress</i>: “As precise and dazzling as Joyce.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Ann Beattie having published a novel and a collection of stories, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Chilly Scenes of Winter</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Distortions</i>, respectively, simultaneously, in 1976, a feat duplicated in 2007 by Tao Lin, with the simultaneous publication of the novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Eeeee Eee Eeee</i>, and the story collection, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Bed</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Tao Lin being widely considered the “lynchpin” of “some kind of” new “movement” or something, via “’minimalist’ realism,” “internet-referencing literature,” “severely disillusioned emo shit,” Muumuu House, selling “shit from your room” on the internet, promotional gimmicks/stunts, publishing Gmail chats, and other things, or something.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Ezra Pound, Modernist “lynchpin,” having said of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Finnegans Wake</i>: “Nothing so far as I can make out, nothing short of divine vision or a new cure for the clapp can possibly be worth all that circumambient peripherization.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Oscar Wilde having been rumored to have said,</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-size:12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Symbol, serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">upon being asked by U.S. Customs officials if he had anything to declare</span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Symbol, serif;">, </span></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">”I have nothing to declare but my genius.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Wilde. Joyce. Pound. Tao. Witz.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Markson.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Ann Beattie.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“You better keep your wits about you,” being something my mom has doubtless said to me, on some occasion.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>When I was in danger of something.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“At wit’s end.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>My dad having said that the 2 essences of the world are fear and love. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Though my mom, my dad, a song in church told me “be not afraid.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I haven’t been to church in years.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Well, I’ve been in churches, as a tourist in London. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Visiting a friend studying abroad. This being the kind of thing white people love to do, study abroad. My feeling being that not studying abroad was the biggest mistake I made in college. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Though there are no mistakes, right?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Chances there are. And randomness. Chances to be brave. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>This being the “bravura” section. How so far? <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Though of course, after Beckett, what’s brave?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>What’s smart?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>What?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Watt?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Wut wut wut inna butt.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Being an approximation of some random gay club jam.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>The phrase preceding.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>About butts.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Dicks in butts.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>You know.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Like Wilde, maybe. Did he “consummate” with anybody?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Not sure.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I live near Boystown.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I live near boys.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>In a town.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>That’s in a city.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Sometimes called “Chi Town,” which is confusing, because it’s not a town, it’s a city. But I mean…<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>There being nothing to say, again and again.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Oh but I am still awake. It is already morning. I may not sleep tonight. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Perhaps too many mornings with hazy memories of night before and also, contacts still in, dehydrated.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Must have hit up Delilah’s or something.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Being the cause, usually.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>With a friend, Nellie.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>A girl. A platonic friend.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Take that, Billy Crystal!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Or Chris Rock!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Whomever.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I believed those jokes.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>But then I have 2 sisters. Why can’t I have more sisters?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Sisterhood of the traveling paunce.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Paunce” meaning “a weak individual” or “a homosexual.” According to the online dictionary.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Which means I am a weak individual, according to me.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Don’t fuck with me! I’m weak. Heh.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Nellie being a friend of a friend.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>We commiserate on the phone.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Nellie is whomever I call to not feel quite as bad.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>We all need to not feel quite as bad sometimes.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>(“Hey,” I said.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“What’s up, dude?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Not much. How’s it going?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I don’t know.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Work was…all right?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“This guy tried to get my number.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Yeah. Was that good?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“No, he was old and gross.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Oh. Sorry.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I think I wanna quit.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Really? What about the benefits?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I don’t have benefits.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“All-you-can-eat free breakfast.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Fuck hashbrowns.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“OK… Yeah, I mean, I guess you could ‘do better,’ right, or something?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Wait, what?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“No, I mean, I don’t know, I… I don’t, me I don’t have any… I have no opinion about anything, I was just, I was channeling you, what you would…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“OK, Daniel.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“No, seriously. No offense. I think…your job…seems ‘swell.’ ‘Cause there’s food and…in this economy…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Shut up, Daniel.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I really… I have no opinion on your job. If you don’t like it, then I don’t like it. If you don’t care about it, I don’t care about it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I don’t care about it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“OK, then I don’t care about it either.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“What should we care about?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I care about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">youuu</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“No you don’t.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“OK, fine.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Do you really?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“No.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“That’s what I thought. This conversation is stupid.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I know. What’d you eat, what are you eating for dinner?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I’m not hungry.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Of course you’re hungry.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I’m not hungry.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Not at all?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Fuck. I was supposed to call my dad.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Do you need…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Can I call you back?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Sure.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“You sure?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Yeah, I’m sure.”)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Though I’m not sure if anyone’s sure that they are ever sure of anything.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Owing to the amorphous nature of the universe. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Randomness.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Randyness, being the reason we are still here. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Until we aren’t anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>One day I’ll be dead. Well, it won’t be a day. One moment I’ll exist, and then, I won’t. And I won’t ever exist again. Unless I come back as like a cow in India or something. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Scares the shit out of me.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>All the fear I’ve ever had derives from that queer mortal dread.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>The sum of all fears. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Being the title of this thriller novel by Tom Clancy. Concerning Russian politics after the fall of the Berlin Wall, according to Wikipedia. Happened to be released days before the Moscow uprising in 1991. Interesting, or something.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Probably nothing, actually.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Nothingness being what I was talking about. Or nonexistence, if you prefer.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Being a very charming and lighthearted topic, nonexistence. Right cheery old topic! The subject of many jokes.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“But then, existence itself is a very special kind of joke,” as J.G. Ballard said. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Witz. Could be a mantra. Witz witz witz. Witz witz witz. Watt? Witz. Who? On first.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Are you bored yet?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Here’s another conversation with Nellie, because why not.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>(“I’m having a suck day, I think.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“It’s sucking?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“There’s a lot of suckage.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I stubbed my toe. This morning.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Where’d you stub it?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“On my toe.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“No, like, what on?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“The dresser. Or my bed or something. It’s a hard wooden bed.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Is it hard and wooden?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Really</i>?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“No.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“It hurts.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Well, like, I don’t know, ice it or something.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I don’t have any ice.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Well, like, take some water and put it in the freezer for awhile.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Then take it out. Ice cubes.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“What I need is an ice pack.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“A pack.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Didn’t you ever have swelling?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Probably.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Well if shit swells, you need an ice pack.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I’m hungry.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Then eat something?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I’m not that hungry.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Which one is it?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Which…wait what?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“What? Huh?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Not funny.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“What’s not funny.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Clever.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I hate us. And all the other people.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Really? Seems sadly inclusive.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Inclusive of all the fucks!”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Are you drunk?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Maybe.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Seriously. Why aren’t you sharing? Why aren’t we at a bar?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I don’t know. Why am I not orgasming right this second?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Maybe you are.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I am the opposite of an orgasm, currently.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Stop being such a sex fiend.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Who’s a sex fiend?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“You are.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“A sex fiend?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Fiending for sex?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Fiending for the fuck.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“This is depressing. I’m hanging up.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Don’t hang up! I’ll…I’ll do something inconsiderate and selfish, if you hang up.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“You’ll what.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">“I’m going to put Whiskers in the oven, if you hang up.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Whiskers?! Jesus Christ, Nellie.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I’m serious. The cat gets it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“This is even more depressing. I feel like we’re mentally handicapped 12-year-olds.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“With autism. And maybe missing a limb.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Missing purpose in life.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Missing a hand, because of the compactor. That one hand-eating compactor.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“The one time. That gobbled it up.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Fuck you hand, you’re dead.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Dead.”)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I feel better. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Where was I?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Can’t be sure, right? Remember from before?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Boredom.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Irrelevancy. The problem, across the board.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>What would be relevant, really, if you stripped down to your needs and desires and detritus?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>[…]<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Because I don’t think we have been morbid enough yet, I would like to write some more about death, specifically the many horrendous and/or bizarre methods of achieving death, to wit:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Standing in the way of an axe. And then getting fed to a wood chipper.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Self-inflicted gunshot to the temple. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Death by hemlock, as punishment for “corrupting the youth.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Found wearing someone else’s clothing, lying dead on the streets of Baltimore after spending the previous night with “the jimjams,” or “jazz hands,” or “the staggers and jags,” or “the horrors,” that is, suffering from wicked wicked alcohol withdrawal, muttering the name “Reynolds” over and over again for some reason, then collapsing on the street, mumbling “Lord help my poor soul” before expiring.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>From starvation, in a Viennese sanatorium, while suffering from “suicide headaches” and tuberculosis.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>From pneumonia and a pulmonary abscess, after being confined to a cork-lined bedroom for 3 years.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>In Bangkok, at the age of 53, electrocution by poorly grounded electric fan, while stepping out of the bathtub.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Hanging by a rope in a closet in Bangkok, following “accidental autoerotic asphyxiation.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Accidentally slipping off a boat and drowning after “seven or eight” glasses of wine. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>From peritonitis, on an ocean liner bound for Brazil, after swallowing a toothpick at a cocktail party.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Bleeding to death from a nosebleed on wedding night.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>From pneumonia, while experimenting with freezing a chicken by stuffing it with snow.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Via smashing head on board while attempting a three-and-a-half reverse somersault in the tuck position at the World University Games.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>From tuberculosis, while sipping champagne, with these last words: “I’m dying. It’s a long time since I drank champagne.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Moose…Indian…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Good-bye…why am I hemorrhaging?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Is it the Fourth?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Is it not meningitis?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Am I dying or is this my birthday?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Codeine…bourbon.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“How were the receipts today at Madison Square Garden?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Ah, that tastes nice. Thank you.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I am still alive!”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Ay Jesus.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I am not the least afraid to die.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Does nobody understand?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Via jumping into the thousand-foot crater of a volcano on the island of Oshima.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Via disembowelment and decapitation as a protest of the Westernization of Japan.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Via sticking head in oven with gas on.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Some claim barbiturates, others claim via wrapping a plastic bag around head, following allegations of plagiarism and suffering from an irregular heartbeat; suicide note reads: “I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call it Eternity.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Burned to death at the stake, coals raked back to expose the body, then burned twice more, following sexual molestation while being held in prison, all this due to “heresy.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Found dead in backseat of white Renault parked for 10 days on a quiet Paris street; overdose of barbiturates and alcohol, suicide note reading: “Forgive me. I can no longer live with my nerves”; this following a FBI-planted, fabricated newspaper item claiming pregnancy out-of-wedlock, planted by Hoover as revenge for voicing support for the NAACP and the Black Panthers, which allegedly led to premature labor and a stillborn child; also following a previous failed suicide attempt via jumping in front of a Metro train.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Bullet to the jaw while standing on the second-floor balcony of a motel in Memphis.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>With the words, “Let’s cool it, brothers,” followed by 16 bullets.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>A bullet in the back, a bullet in the head, while riding in a limousine in Texas. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Shot 3 times in a crowded kitchen at a hotel, with a .22-caliber revolver.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>4 bullets to the back outside the Dakota, by a man clutching a copy of <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>4 bullets, in a drive-by on the Vegas Strip.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>4 bullets to the chest, while stopped at a red light in San Francisco. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Death by bullets and grenades, while walking unarmed with 8 brothers in South Vietnam.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Death by self-immolation, in protest.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Death by gas chamber.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Via a jump into the Gulf of Mexico, exclaiming, “Goodbye, everybody!” after having been beaten for sexual advances on a fellow male crew member.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Via an internal hemorrhage caused by cirrhosis, due to a lifetime of heavy drinking.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Via propofol, lorazepam, and midazolam, at the age of 50.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Via complications from cosmetic surgery.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>From AIDS, at the age of 42.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>From congestive heart failure resulting from complications of pneumonia, after the words “I’m going away tonight” and 3 long, quiet breaths. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>From natural causes, at the age of 91, after having lived in seclusion for 57 years.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Death by hanging from a patio roof rafter, after years of suffering from severe depression, after suffering a relapse and undergoing electroconvulsive therapy, to no avail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>[…]<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>We are only human, after all.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>You know I listened to that song, “Human After All,” on the bus today.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Those life-affirming “robots.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Human beings in costume, faces hidden. Standing on a pyramid, lights’ dizzy shower, crowds of thousands.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>In order to establish a connection.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>To create a memorable moment in time.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>For no other reason.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>That being reason enough.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>In the summertime.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>In Grant Park, Chicago.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I have been there, to Grant Park, for the Lollapalooza. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I am writing now; spring is approaching.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I am writing outside at a café in Paris, with croissant and café au lait. I am writing at a hookah bar on the island of Marmara, the sea Propontis bathing me in soft wet breezes. I am writing at a table by my window over the street, my apartment in Lakeview. I am writing lying down in what were once cornfields on my grandpa’s farm in Rockford. The air is crisp and cool; the sun is shining.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember lying on the beach with you, reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Infinite Jest</i>. Infinite Summer.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>So many beautiful passages. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember you crying because we’re best friends and I had abandoned you, I wasn’t hanging out with you anymore because I was spending all my time with some girl.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember when we were in your room having a sleepover and you told me your thoughts about the collective unconscious.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember playing tackle football on your front lawn, only one of us wearing pads and a helmet.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember chipped teeth, a little blood, crying, hurt feelings.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember you carrying me on your shoulders. I remember you taking me for walks in the park, taking me to the library with my sisters. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember you reading me bedtime stories.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember shooting hoops in the alley with the cobblestones.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember “Magic Babies.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember dress-up. I remember my Elvis impersonation.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember Play Group.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember falling off the barrier wall and fracturing my skull.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember falling off my skateboard and fracturing my wrist.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember losing my balance over a hurdle and fracturing my heel.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember running 6-10 miles a day, every day.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember “strong hearts to the front of the pack.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember us crossing the finish line one after the other, having urged each other on to 2 personal bests.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember watching your soccer games, running up and down the sidelines. I remember Dad yelling, “Gooooooo Too-Tall!” with a big happy grin on his face.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember Mother’s Day on the porch.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember Father’s Day, those cards with doodles of your face, squiggles for hair, glasses, and a smile.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember you and I sitting together by the window in that Florida hotel, and what you said.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Too much to remember.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Not everyone has so many happy memories, of course.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>So much luck.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>There being chance every second of every day.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Still I believe you have your memories, too.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>I remember Nellie calling me late on a Sunday night.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>(“Hey man.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Wuzzup?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Not much. Are you…am I interrupting anything?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Shit no, I’m just sitting here not really doing anything. Surfin’ the web. Wasting my life, one day at a time.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Yeah.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“What’s going on?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Oh, I don’t know.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“You…you sound sad, or something. What’s wrong?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Nothing’s wrong. I’m… Nothing’s wrong.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“OK. Well, I mean, if you need to…you can, you know you can tell me whatever, I mean…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“No, it’s not that.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“OK.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Well, I’m listening.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“OK, don’t take this as like weird, but Daniel, do you…I mean…all right, I just…I don’t know, I’ve been feeling weird as shit and I don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with me, but it’s like I have this crazy, bullshit insecurity right now.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Insecurity.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Because of Paul and the whole…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Yeah…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“It was pretty fucked up.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Yeah. He shouldn’t…it’s not a very cool way to…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I know. And so, I’ve just been fucked up, as a result.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I’m sorry.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I know.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“These things always fuckin’ suck. Unfortunately.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Yeah.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Well anyway, all right, here, I just… Daniel, do you think I’m pretty?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“What?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Do you think I’m pretty?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Pretty?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Daniel.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I mean…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I’m serious. How old are we, 13?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Do you mean… Like, in what way?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Jesus Christ, Daniel, I asked you if I’m pretty. Apparently I’m not if you have to ask that question. Jesus… I don’t know what…I’m a moron, seriously…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Nellie, calm down. I didn’t… I didn’t mean anything by it. I just, what the hell kind of question is that?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“A perfectly normal one. That you could answer, without making me feel worse.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Well OK, do you mean would I fuck you?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Goddamnit, Daniel! That’s not what I mean.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Because I would fuck you.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“No you wouldn’t.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Yes I would! I totally would.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Yer fulla shit.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Am not.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Then why haven’t you, if you’re so into me.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I didn’t say I was into you, I just said I’d fuck you.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“This is not comforting. Why are you talking like this?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Me talking like this? You’re the one who’s like, asking…dumb questions.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“That’s a dumb question? Paul cheated on me on my fucking birthday!”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I know…”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Well then, have some fucking sympathy!”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I do.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“You do? Well show it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“All right. Sympathy.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“You’re a horrible friend. You don’t get it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“I do get it. But I know you’re going to be fine.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“Well, is it too much to ask to kind of smooth that along? So I can be miserable for less time? Is that so much…?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>“No, it’s not. I mean… C’mon Nellie… You know I love you… You’re the most beautiful girl I know. Why do you think I call you so much?”)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>That being a surefire sign of affection, that 2 people want to talk all the time, want to be together as much as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Such a rare thing.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>So hard to find.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>The ability to sit together in silence and enjoy it.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Deep silence.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Breathing.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Hands on the table. Fingers touching wood. Picking up a spoon. Bringing soup to lips. Putting down the spoon. Picking up a glass. Taking a drink. Swallowing. Putting down the glass. Staring at one another, and it not being weird. Makes both of you smile inevitably. The eye contact and the nice silence.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>My hands on top of your hands, on the table at the restaurant.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>On a Thursday night in June.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>There being little else worth doing. Eating, drinking, with a friend. The best friend imaginable. Afterwards, going home for some naked wrestling.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>There it is. I’ve said my piece. “I have had my vision,” as Virginia Woolf writes. Lily Briscoe with her paintbrush.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Orlando shape-shifting over time.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>A boy, a girl, always a lover.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>The children, boys and girls, voices, growing up together. The passage of time. Voices in the waves.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Virginia wading into the water with stones in her pockets.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Acceptance or despair?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Moments of being.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Alone in one’s room. At the library. Alone time.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Waves of sadness and acceptance.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>You know I suspect all people are artists.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Helvetica, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">And if that’s true, what’s up with people complaining about their lives all day long? Complaining about their jobs. What’s that about? No, seriously. What’s the point? When I meet someone who seems to tie all their self-worth or happiness to their career in engineering or nursing or non-profit management or whatever, I have a hard time not feeling snarky about it. I’m talking about someone who feels compelled to complain about their job and various co-workers at a party, at length, regardless of who’s listening. Seems sad, misguided, and/or annoying. Is that what life is? Having co-workers to passive-aggressively hate who also sit at desks and also have arbitrary tasks to carry out to meet some vague demand for some vague thing that some other people who also sit at desks maybe vaguely need occasionally? Seems bleak. Let’s drink, I don’t wanna talk about that on a Saturday night.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">Am I being too childish/amateurish/conversational? I had some Joyce impressions worked up, but they sucked. There’s no point. Yes. There’s no point. There’s no point. There’s no point. Yes! There’s no point. There’s no point. There’s no point! Maybe there’s a point. Hold on. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">She had dirty blond hair. Her name means “weary.” OK, here’s the story as originally written:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">It was while watching <i>The Straight Story</i> that Daniel and Daisy first made out. Daniel had been too chickenshit at work to ask her what she was doing after. For over two hours, they had leaned against their registers in the checkout lines, talking between customers. She was long-legged, tall and thin, hair dirty blond. She had a nervous laugh and a smile that dwarfed her small round face. Whenever there were no customers, she wanted either to read the paperback she had stashed in her register or to talk with someone immediately. She didn’t want to be still. Her eye contact was intermittent. To banal comments she offered an amiable nod, a polite affirmative. She wore Goodwill jeans, faded sweatshirts, and beat-up old Nike high-tops. She seemed detached, even when happy. She could be blunt, as when she told Daniel after a year of dating that “you know there will be other boys.” She couldn’t bring herself to dump him, though, so Daniel did it for her, on his porch after some sad exchange, and she said, with tears in her eyes, “Will I still get to see you ever?”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">The night they talked in the checkout lines for hours, after Daniel left the store and as he walked to his house, it bugged him that he had chickened out, and so he called her and asked her what was she doing. She said watching a movie. He asked her if she wanted company. Daisy said yes. She played hostess and brought him grapes on a tray. Daniel felt she was giving him some silent cue, so, eventually, after stalling for a few minutes, he asked if he could kiss her. She smelled of stargazer lilies.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">Daisy had the smallest bed in the smallest bedroom Daniel had ever seen. It wasn’t really a bedroom even, just a nook off the living room with a sheet hanging over the entrance. When they slept together in that tiny-ass bed they were packed like sardines in a tin box. But she had a small window that looked down on the street, and everything in her room was made up of pleasing colors. Only sometimes when he held her he could no longer feel her there.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">They had this mission to eat at every breakfast place in Madison. They made it to most of them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>One time, Daniel wrote a play to enter in a student competition. It told a thinly fictionalized version of the story of his dad’s two college relationships. The first scene showed Dad and a girlfriend’s last dance to “It’s Too Late.” The next scene was Dad sitting on a wood bench in a courtyard looking despondent as hell, so lonely that he was thinking about joining a fraternity. Mom saw him and, taking pity on him, sat down on the bench to talk with him. She was the answer to a prayer, was Dad’s take on it. Daniel emailed the play to Daisy. She replied that she liked it, but she wished there was some way for literature to be uplifting without being too picture-perfect happy. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">One night during the summer of 2007, Daniel and Daisy took a walk out to Lake Monona. They passed by black men and women fly-fishing at the lake’s edge, transferring impulse through the rod and through the line. They found an abandoned, carpet-covered block drifting right offshore. Quietly, with few words, they climbed onto the carpet block and lay down together. Daisy wondered aloud what it’d be like if they could simply drift away on this carpet block and never come back. Daniel said it’d be their carpet island. He saw that out past the visible waters everything slowly disappeared.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">I don’t know what to think about that story.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">What do you think? Is it OK if we place a moratorium on thinking for the rest of our lives? Seems impractical.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">I had this trumpet teacher once, a tall wonderful jazz trumpeter by the name of Ray Flanagan, with a gray ponytail, thick beard, and, behind his Coke-bottle glasses, inscrutable eyes. I used to go to his house for private lessons once a week, and he said that you have to learn how to say “No.” Didn’t seem like a skill that needed explaining or promoting, but he suggested to me, in a calm, highly logical tone of voice, that I was over-extending myself between school and my extracurricular stuff, and I needed to decide what I wanted to do and focus on that, not try to do everything all the time. Do one thing, and do it well. He said sometimes it is very difficult for people to learn how to say “No” to things. I had been butchering songs at my lessons. This is why he told me about saying “No.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">It is hard, yes it is hard, hard to be “nowhere without no.” This lovely phrase came to me from Rainer Maria Rilke via Thomas Merton.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">I wrote a short story for one of my creative writing workshops in college. It was called “Nowhere Without No.” It tells the story of a father, a son, and a daughter. The daughter never makes it to lunch with the others because she has been shot an hour before by a burglar. The burglar is startled to find the daughter meditating in the sunroom, oblivious to his presence, and he panics and shoots her. The concept for the story was: “What would happen to your ‘spirit’ if you died while meditating?” The story didn’t offer any answers to this question. Here is the pivotal scene:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">In that moment the poet left her body.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Betha Frey was meditating on the pristine white floor of her sunroom when she was shot. It was an hour before she planned to have lunch with her father and brother. She left the door to her apartment unlocked. It was a modern high-rise with glass windows overlooking the city lights and the shadow of the Salinas Valley. She bought the new apartment with money from her grandmother’s inheritance. Her bags had yet to be unpacked; they had been unceremoniously dumped in the living room. Above the mantelpiece was the only decoration thus far, a framed picture of Betha with her dad and Tommy. While picking through her belongings, a burglar heard a low moan from the next room. He crept in with gun drawn. Startled by what he saw, the burglar fired.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>When she was shot, Betha fell forward in her cross-legged position toward the center of the room like a bird from off its branch. Her chest came to rest upon the floor. Her arms spread up and out as wings, and her lips vibrated from deep within, like the last strum of a hollow-bodied lyre. One hand landed near the only other thing in the room, a scrap of paper upon which she had scrawled a poem. Her forehead pressed against the floor. Red blood spilled onto the white tile. The sun rested upon her crumpled form. The killer stole out the door.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>When the bullet struck her, Betha was meditating on a koan that recounts the Zen master Bassui’s letter to a disciple nearing death. It reads: “The essence of your mind is not born, so it will never die. It is not an existence, which is perishable. It is not an emptiness, which is a mere void. It has neither color nor form. It enjoys no pleasures and suffers no pains. I know you are very ill. Like a good Zen student, you are facing that sickness squarely. You may not know exactly who is suffering, but question yourself: What is the essence of this mind? Think only of this. You will need no more. Covet nothing. Your end which is endless is as a snowflake dissolving in the pure air.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>Betha’s brother left a message on her cell phone several hours after she died. This is what she would have heard: “Hey Betha, it’s Tommy. How’s it going? Remember last time we talked how you said I should start exercising more? I finally took your advice. And the other day, I meant to go for three miles, but I ended up going on for another mile or so after that. And get this, I think I finally figured out what you mean by the ‘runner’s high.’ I did feel this sort of euphoria after awhile, like my legs and arms were weightless and just floating along. Anyway, Dad and I missed you at lunch. Give me a call when you get a chance. OK, I’ll see you later.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Helvetica, serif;font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">Nearly every question or comment I received from classmates re this story had to do with the “plot” or the “narrative” or some sort of clarification of a character’s “motivations.” One boy, who had no positive feedback to offer, was nice enough to point out that a type of tree I had mentioned earlier in the story “is not commonly found in that part of California, just so you know.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">Do you ever feel alone in the world? like you got lost along the way somehow and now you reside in a dim, impenetrable chamber of your own making? You are not alone. It’s as if we are speaking to each other right now. Look at my face. Mine wants to see yours. I am with you in spirit. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">I have surrendered to the way things are; there is no point to make, only love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">Chicago<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-bidi- font-family:Helvetica;font-size:12.0pt;">March-April 2010<o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Stephen Tully Dierkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01499679865436285505noreply@blogger.com0