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Wednesday, May. 08, 2002 / 6:50 p.m. ~Where Do the Words Go?~
Here's what I did at work today:
I finally filed my 2001 State Income Tax - I owed $2, for which I wrote out a check. I imagine I'll be penalized for filing three or so weeks late, and for that I will write another check. I picture a grand total of some $3., including postage for mailing the two checks. What if the penalty is $.10? Imagine writing a check for 10 cents.
I listened to three really good CDs in my CD Walkman: Loudon Wainwright III "Grown Man", The Doors "Morrison Hotel" and Timbuk 3 "A Hundred Lovers". During this time, my CD player malfunctioned and I panicked and became very angry. I somehow managed to keep myself from reacting violently to said CD player. I wanted to hit it, throw it across my cubicle, or worse. But I did not.
I also started a new journal, on paper, in the notebook I bought to take with me to D.C. I didn't write much in D.C., in fact I didn't really write at all. I wrote a little bit on the bus during the day that Saturday, right when I woke up. In fact, here it is, reprinted with permission from the author, moi:
bus stopping And this:
Courtney Love said in an interview that Jim Barber made her a compilation tape as part of his courtship: "He made me a compilation tape, beginning with, of course, The Flamin' Groovies' 'Shake Some Action'" - That's exactly what Greg did for me.
So, today I kept writing. I used a pen on paper, and it was different, really, really different, but I imagined myself sitting years from now, somewhere, reading it much as I read my other journal yesterday. I have a stack of old journals, and another stack of calendars on which I've written documentation of my life. This, here, writing in the netherworld, the ether, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, ones and zeroes, codes and HTML, this is new, I don't trust it anymore. Where do the letters go? How does it all happen? And what happens when Andrew tires of it, or the new equipment breaks and he doesn't have funds to fix it? No longer wants to?
I'll back it all up, just as we all so frantically did when we received the fateful email re: Themestream. We'd all written so much there, "articles" for money, and my contribution was small comparatively. I copied and pasted to Word, saved some as HTML files in Composer, those files were smaller. I have it all to this day. But this diary? Way over 400 entries. My life the past year. One year on the 20th. Here and nowhere else. Am I saving this now? This? Are you kidding?
Nothing's changed yet, I've just started thinking, that's all. Again, I've started again.
So today I began a new journal in a college-ruled spiral notebook. It will be something I can do, at work when I'm bored, or anywhere really. At home, here, I write in my engagement calendar, a chronicle of the day's events, only what will fit in each day's boundaries, although occasionally I spill over.
Hah! "I spill over". That sounds funny to me.
I had a headache toward the end of today, not a migraine like I've had in the recent past, just an ache, just loud sounds hurting me. The women were very loud, the phones not ringing, the work done. Down time. Major Down Time. So I listened to CDs, I worried about my CD player, then it began to work again. I stopped worrying. I wrote. I sat. I listened to people singing in my ears. I remarked, as I often do, what a beautiful voice Loudon Wainwright III has, how I used to have a crush on him too. I'm a sucker for artists, musicians, men who make me feel.
You should listen to that album. I'll not say it's his best, "Grown Man", but it has a few exceptional songs on it. And Timbuk 3? "A Hundred Lovers" is a great album, pure and simple. Morrison? Need I say more? "Indian Summer"..... wow. "I I I I looooovvvv you...... the best......." Mmmmmmmm.
That was work. Now is home. This morning before work I had to almost physically stop my hand from reaching in the closet for another old journal to read at work. I'm somehow compelled to go back in time now. It's sudden. It's surprising. It feels like discovering I do like chocolate after all, and I want to eat and eat and eat chocolate now. But that's not right. Maybe it's like my clitoral stimulator I wrote about - or anyone masturbating. What harm does it do? Well, does it not remove one from reality? It's a distraction, yes?
So is living in the past, even if temporarily. But what if it were a novel? Someone else's life? Someone else's diary, like my list of favorites I read with every update? But it's not, it's me, it's my past. I'm conflicted.
Off subject, but I wrote somewhere in here, not too long ago, about an area near where I work, a greenspace between two converging roads, not an island, per se, but maybe so. One road curves around to join another, a greenspace lies in between them, and on this greenspace were several trees, and shrubs, all flowering at the beginning of this Spring. Were they Bradford Pears? Forsythias? All yellow and white and flowering, and green and it was beautiful, and one day I drove past and men were uprooting all of it and suddenly I hated all of mankind, hated the world, no longer wanted to live here on this planet.
Um, well, since then I've noticed the men tagging the trees, the shrubs, carefully loading them on to trucks, taking them away. I felt kind of bad for automatically assuming the worst. Today (and the past few days) the men were back, lots of men, planting beautiful bright pink flowering shrubs (azaleas?), carefully laying everything out, this new and beautiful planting. They never meant to ruin anything, they were only changing the landscaping. Can mankind surprise me yet? Thrill me, warm my heart, my soul?
Now I drive by, twice a day, on my way home at lunch, on my way home after work, on my way to the Interstate, along which grows something fragrant and reminiscent of every Summer I've known, and there will be new flowers, flowers of a different color, shrubs and trees of different sizes, heights, shapes. I feel good every time I see it.
Off subject once more: Last night's "A Cook's Tour" was really interesting. Tony Bourdain was in Morocco, the cameras watching women prepare feasts in huge open kitchens. Tangines (Tagines?) filled with stews, couscous, food upon food, upon food. All so enticing. And Tony was so low key for a change.
I'm tired. I stayed up 'til 1:30 or so the past three nights. I'm crashing. I've had this boundless energy, talking, planning, thinking, not wanting to take the time to sleep, but this morning I was awakened in the middle of a dream and I have been tired ever since. I was dreaming of that first apartment, the one from the journal I read yesterday, and my cat Steve had been lost, in the dream, but he came back, I gave him a big hug! But he was Gladys, not Steve at all. I haven't seen Steve since he was killed in '87, I barely remember him, sad to admit.
Groggy, tired, headachy, all day really. Now I'll rest. I got food from Hardee's on the way home. Not good food, old chicken, fries. I thought about fast food chicken, the inferiority of all meat at these places, whilst in line at the drive thru, idling, wasting gas, emitting pollutants into the atmosphere, I felt guilty all the way around, but I was fucking hungry! And I wanted to spend very little money, I wanted it fast, I wanted something satisfying, I didn't know the chicken would be old and dry. The timing was wrong. Usually it's very good.
*Sigh*
My point is I'm sated, I can relax now. I can whatever now. This is my time. I'm going to read my latest email from Skipper (we're going out Saturday, to the party thing, whatever it is), diaries, watch some TV. "Amazing Race" is on later - and I'll tape "Felicity" to watch whenever.
And, I'll stop worrying about where all these words go when I click on "done!". Cost of the War in Iraq
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