The clenched purple fist of my own particular heart

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I told myself I was going to start writing in here once a day again--even if what I write is that I'm tired and I don't want to write--so here I am doing it. We'll see how long I last... Last time I made this resolution it was about a week and a half.

I'm feeling good about it this time though. It's a good time of life--summer is starting, days are longer, I'm reading more, watching strangers and noticing things.

I started reading The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace last night. I'm only on page 59 but I'm hooked. He's hilarious and so fun to read--totally my style so far. I don't know why I waited so long to read something of his. I'm so very late to the party.

But better late than never I suppose.

Either way, here is a passage from my train ride home to end the night on...

I feel an empty draft and look down and find a hole in my chest and spy, in the open polyurethane purse of Lenore Beadsman, among the aspirins and bars of hotel soap and lottery tickets and the ridiculous books that mean nothing at all, the clenched purple fist of my own particular heart, what am I to say to Rex Metalman and Scarsdale and the sod webworms and the past, except that it does not exist, that it has been obliterated, that footballs never climbed into crisp skies, that my support checks disappear into a black void, that a man can be and is and must be reborn, at some point, perhaps points?

Oscar Wilde

is the answer to the trivia question I totally dropped the ball on tonight. Figures... they ask about Irish authors and all I can think of is Joyce, Yeats, and Burns. :)

But yes... fun night, fun times, and a new old ritual.

Now I'm sitting at the Bart listening to The Workingman's Dead and waiting for that damn J train.

Looking forward to tomorrow's adventures...

There are things of which I may not speak

From Agnes of Iowa by Lorrie Moore

Now he beamed at her with such relief that she knew she had for once said the right thing. It filled her with afffection for him. Perahps, she thought, that was where affection began: an unlikely phrase, in a moment of someone's having unexpectedly but at last said the right thing.

From The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

There is only one thing he can do: listen to people, see how they stick themselves into the world, hand them along always in their dark journey and be handed along, and for good and selfish reasons.

From My Lost Youth by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There are things of which I may not speak; 
There are dreams that cannot die; 
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak, 
And bring a pallor into the cheek, 
And a mist before the eye. 
And the words of that fatal song 
Come over me like a chill: 
'A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'

From David Foster Wallace's commencement speech:

There are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving... The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing

 

 

Thank you Lorrie Moore for making me get lost in your stories and miss my MUNI stop

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It's been a long day and I don't know where it went. (I guess since it's after 12:00 it must be over, but I've always said that it never really feels like tomorrow until I've gone to sleep and awakened again.) 

So yes... Good work. Fun work. I like exchanging somewhat crazy emails filled with ideas, chatting about how to help people, and giggling over coworkers that are so dedicated they have meetings on the eliptical. Sometimes I think we're all nuts.

But yes, I worked late then hopped on the bus and started reading Lorrie Moore's collection of short stories Birds of America. I started it on the way into work this morning and, my goodness, she's amazing. I read her in college and I've read stories here and there in different publications but I've never actually picked up anything that's all hers. She's so funny!  But thoughtful and beautiful. And so very, well, Megan. So very me. 

Ha, which is kind of sad since her stories are about somewhat spunky, funny yet bitter woman who get hurt by men and life. Well, so far. I'm sure there's more coming. But man, that is so like me. Only I'm not really quite that dramatic (or funny for that matter--her stories are hilarious) so it's great because it's me to the tenth power and more articulate, sad, and beautiful. 

So ya, I like her a lot. I spaced out while reading and ended up at the end of the line. The. End. Of. The. Line. That's like a good 10 minutes off my route. Ooops. 

Here's a selection of her beautiful, hilarious pain-writing from Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People:

Starting out through the windshiled, off into the horizon, Abby began to think that all the beauty and ugliness and turbulence one found scattered through nature, one could also find in people themselves, all collected there, all together in a single place. No matter what terror or loveliness the earth could produce--windes, seas--a person could produce the same, lived with teh same, lived witha ll that mixed-up nature swirling inside, every bit. There was nothing as complex in the world--no flower or stone--as a single hello from a human being.

Okay, so that selection isn't really funny but, damn, isn't that great? Don't you just love it. I mean, that's miss your stop great.

So yes, then I had to wait for the next train, read some more, and I got home late. As I was walking in I chatted with my neighbor for a bit who, as it turns out, has a fucking set of midevil armor in his appartment. (Or is it armour? I'm too lazy to look it up but I suspect it's a grey/gray thing anyways.) But I mean, come on! Armor!

I love that. So cool. I love when you get to know people and these little fascinating pieces of them come spilling out. It's always surprising to me. And exciting in a way. And, I mean, it's midevil armor. That's just badass. 

So then I came in and saw my lily had bloomed. (Ya, I like to buy flowers for myself. So what?) Then I went running and came home and had breakfast for dinner. (Which always feels like a treat and always reminds me of my dad.) Then I admired my nails which I painted multiple colors over the weekend like i'm some kind of 14-year old girl. (But fun nails always make me unreasonably happy.) And thn I read a bunch more and before I knew it, it was 12:00 and now it's 1:00 and I'm still very awake. I have the endorphin buzz. And maybe all the beautiful words had something to do with it too. 

I also read, David Foster Wallace's commencement speech tonight. Check it out here: http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words 

My friend Victoria told me about it a while back and said it was worth reading. She was right. 

And I think I'll end with a piece of that tonight. What a nice day it was. I hope I can do better tomorrow. 

There are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving.... The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational the way a commencement speech is supposed to sound. What it is, as far as I can see, is the capital-T Truth, with a whole lot of rhetorical niceties stripped away. You are, of course, free to think of it whatever you wish. But please don't just dismiss it as just some finger-wagging Dr Laura sermon. None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions of life after death.

The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death.

It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:

"This is water."

"This is water."

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now.

I wish you way more than luck.

 

Lately I've been running by day, drinking by night

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Finally, finally, I feel well enough to join the living again!

I went for a nice run today, but the only thing I drank tonight was tea. (Sadly. Some wine might have been nice.) I have been reading poetry however, which is where the headline for this post came from. 

It's from a passage I came across in Phillip Levine's Words.

Lately I've been
running by day,
drinking by night,
as though first to build
a man and then destroy
him--this for
three months, and
I don't find it foolish
--a man almost 50
who still knows so
little of why he's
alive and would turn
away from answers,
turn to the blankness
that follows my nights
or the pounding of
the breath, the sweat
oiling every part
of me, running
even from my hair. 

There's probably more of me in this passage than I'd care to admit. 

Still, it's good to be back. :)

 

It is an aching kind of growing...

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I'm still feeling kind of yucky today but also restless and bored with this whole rest and fluids thing. Ha, so I took my book and my blanket and walked to Dolores Park and read outside in the sun and spring air along with all the hipsters and couples with their dogs. It was nice and calm and oddly familiar. It reminded me of how I used to go to the beach whenever I was sick so I could nap outside and feel normal and healthy even when I had the sniffles. Funny how I find new ways to go back to my old rituals. Makes me feel like this place I've found for myself is actually starting to become a kind of home.

Huh. Imagine that.

I walked back along Dolores street instead of Church to take in some new sites. The houses there are ridiculously lovely but then, I feel like there are ridiculously lovely houses all over San Francisco. I found a coffee shop/wine bar that looks fun and college for yoga instructors. 

Started East of Eden by Steinbeck. It's been a long time since I picked him up and reading him now is such a treat. His words and thoughts and the scenes he paints are so poetic and lovely. It's like everything he says has such weight to it, every line is so packed.

Here's a piece of it:

When a child frist catches adults out--when if first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have dinve intelligence, that their judgements are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just--his world falls into panic desolation. The god are fallen and all safely gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little;they crash and shatter ans ink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again, they never quite shine. And the child's world is never whole again. It is an aching kind of growing. 

Sick and tired of being sick and tired

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If this hideous picture of me with my mason jar of orange juice didn't tip you off then I'll just come right out and say it--I'm sick. I have a cold. I can't go to Tahoe or to the Rogue Brewery and play with my friends and I'm home and my head hurts and my ears feel weird and I can't read without falling asleep and it's lame. 

I. Hate. Being. Sick.

Living alone is wonderful but, I will say, when you're sick it's kind of sad. There's nobody around to see you suffer or feel bad for you. Ha, you just have to be miserable by yourself. This is always when I start to feel sorry for myself and I want an old friend or a hot guy to come knock on my door like they do in the movies and bring me soup. And I don't even like soup. Ha, and then I also miss my mom and dad because I'm kind of a big ol' baby like that. But I'm lucky. I'm lucky I even have the types of parents you miss when you're sick.

Mom:
I have this really vivid memory of being sick as a kid and my mom taking care of me. I had just finished a particularly violent bust of vomiting (sorry if that's gross) and I'm in bed just completely exhausted and drained. You know when you've just got nothing left in you and you can't even lift your pinkie finger let alone an arm or leg? So I'm stuck there breathing slowly and unevenly and my mom comes in the room and sits down on the bed next to me and she just starts pushing my hair back from my face and tucking the wet strands behind my ears. She doesn't say anything but sits there with me for a while, I don't even know how long, and plays with my hair in this way. It was really nice. It didn't make me feel better but it was nice.

To this day, I love it when people play with my hair in this way. It's just about the most comforting thing ever.

Dad: 
I had a couple of years where I always got sick at the holidays. One year I ended up getting the flu at Christmas and it was the strand of flu that's especially contagious so I had to stay home on Christmas Eve while the rest of the family left and went to this huge party we had ever year. I remember being at my grandparent's house sick and alone watching The Christmas Story on TBS for the third time that day when the door opened and my dad walked in. He didn't want to leave me alone on Christmas Eve so he dropped everyone off at the party and came back to stay with me. I don't remember much else from that night because I fell asleep pretty soon after he got home. But I do remember laying down to watch TV with my head in my dad's lap, curled up with one of my grandma's afghans, the dim colored lights from the Christmas tree and the glow the TV, my dad and I not saying anything, just sitting there quiet before I fell asleep.  

Parents are nice. Especially when they take care of you. Now I'm a grownup (I mean, as much as a grownup as I can be) and they're not here but my mom has text-messaged me three times to tell me to drink liquids, go to urgent care if I need to, and go to sleep. 

Oddly enough, there's a comfort in that too. 

 

Bernal Heights West, Two Circles Walk

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My brother gave me this Stairway Walks in San Francisco book after the winter break and I thought I'd take this Superbowl Sunday to try one out. (I could really care less about the game now that the 49ers are out of it.) It made for a fun day of urban hiking. There were lots of beautiful views of the city, cute houses, random pieces of city life--a couple making out in the park, a message carved into the sidewalk, a hipster garage sale, and a group of old ladlies taking pictures together in front of a particulary lovely turquoise Bel Air. And I took a sidetrip to walk down Courtland street and check out the Bernal strip. I'll definitely have to go back there to try some of the breakfast spots.

It's been a good mellow weekend filled with massive amounts of reading, writing, and walking. I found myself alone on Friday night with absolutely nothing to do and, oddly enough, felt giddy and excited walking home after work. Kind of like how I used to feel as a teenager and my parents would go out of town. Freedom! Ha, so I indulged myself with a good bottle of Ridge wine and The Dud Avacado by Elaine Dundy. 

Nothing all that exciting this weekend I'm afraid. But then, things don't have to be exciting in order to be completely wonderful.