conti: combustible on the inside

it's really you?
yes, it's really me. really.

So the time has come where I can say I'm almost about to be able to think again, freely. There are a handful of weeks where this luxury is afforded me and what usually happens is

What are you blanketing about, or blanking? why can it be that the coffee stains and the upholsterer are not ever in the same room together. Its outcoming like a weathervane. It's an outcome to be considerate about, and something to hold your tongue for in public.

Once while sitting with 3 other people at a restaraunt I forgot how to talk and then afterwards how to eat. My food arrived and I smiled at it, figeting. A napkin on my lap, the glass of water very friendly and at a comfortable distance. There was noise coming from the mouths of my companions. It was very dark outside. A wonder any of our senses worked at all.

The cost of Christmas trees: $125 on Broadway above the hundreds. The cost of Christmas trees: a large steak knife and determination in penn's woods.

What means of this, discrepancy?
Oh, so really, you'd like a conversation? Noblesse Oblige.

Tomorrow is the last of my paperswimming. I will order a hat full of beer and still have to pay for it. Seriously though, I'm going to be able to carry on a conversation without telling people that "I have to ____." My most common response regarding social and political engagement. This and next week, with handfuls of serious contempt I will wander among the madly shopping throngs and attempt to make wise gift choices for the coming exchange. I really wished I knew what people wanted, or what would make them feel like I knew something about them that most people don't. Though maybe that's just the Ebay commercials that have been on all day seeping into the old noggin. They say it's the thought that counts, but what if you think wrongly about someone, as I'm often prone to doing? It may not be drastically wrong, but wrong enough. Say you have a friend who has allergies to a certain type of animal. You might give that person a picture of the allergy-animal in hopes that their comfort with it in picture form may lead to an eventual change in body chemistry so that they become magically unallergic over time due to their sustained proximity to the picture. A picture to be placed by their bedside, say. And when it's received, none of this information passes between gift giver, and gift receiver so there's a serious mistrust of judgement regarding any further interaction these two people might have. Well, maybe not that drastic. But what about giving a blender to someone who only eats baked goods that are handed to them over a countertop. And what about receiving gifts, like clothing? What do these things say to us about what people think we are? You have to love those notorious aunt hand me down sweaters. What we can become in others eyes, only their cranked up head engines can know. Oh the weather outside is perfect for that hand stitched reindeer antler hat I got for you last year, yeah the one with all of the fiberoptic lights.

And what in hell do you buy for your parents, especially when you actually like them? Someone needs to come up with a giftcard you can use anywhere. Oh, wait that's money. Who really likes getting money over a well thought out gift?

A question to you, then. What is the best gift you've received from someone else? You can do a ranking of sorts if you'd like. I've put away my distrust of numbers for the time being.

in the space of won: fading star: light: a color change

supposedly when the tonnage of hydrogen, or some other gashat that is light and combusted by the machine that is the sun, runs down - there will be an expansion. not like something in baseball or football where a city gains revenue and disinterest, but something grand and luminous and colorful that will engulf this planet and then over millions of years, recede. what was once our small source of pride and pull grows giant and glowing like a bulbous ember and then returns into the echo and fade of itself: a small pale knob slid down the motherboard almost to the off position.

some days are rained out. like this. we wash better when there's reason for it, or because the water's warmer. i have a hard time figuring.

the figures are simple, but difficult because. it will require sound and the wires to accompany. some news. a bit of older. the mirror full of different faces and light. the sky full of things like this.

send word when.
send all the words.

pre-turkeying a true event: what's been done to prepare you to be thankful?

ready to be large mammal this later week.

I will wear pants that stretch. I will drink lots of water. I will swear the sleeping that happens is necessary and deserved.

Pretty soon this blog will contain a list of things that I want to get recorded.

1. the post-wedding chaos of this past weekend composed with sketches and arrows and a brief synopsis outlining the course of events.
2. composite of the emotional response caused by listening to Jim James sing "goin' to alcapulco" while a dead girl in a coffin gets displayed in front of the town of Riddle, Missouri--her throat cut by her own hand.
3. a manner of dividing time in a fruitful manner--to best utilize it and not feel sluggish and disoriented.
4. the sound of one person waking in the morning and looking at another person who is still next to the original waking person and asleep.

There are many people that I'm lucky to know. Seriously. Thanking them. If you're one, thank you.

learning the music

Like, anybody who plays the piano would thrill at seeing and hearing one thrown off a 12-story building, watching it hit the sidewalk and being there to hear that thump. It's like school. You want to watch it burn.--Tom Waits

I'm not there, he said
his hands thin and fidgety
the treeline quivered.

intended to rain and the sum of another season. here's where it gets:

A cold front meets a warm front on the Atlantic seaboard. There are diagrams, too, to go with it. Watch your televisions. I intended to write some kind of response to a movie I'd seen over the weekend, but sleep is better.

This Friday contains

Traintrip, winehangover, MaddogsnEnglishmen, waterinajug, correlationplugging paperweight, missinreadings, carmovement, planthunger, bagoclothing, coffeecomedown, and thisman'sstare:

Bear or other? The wilds of Western PA

Which if you have ever seen Deerhunter, look nothing like that movie.

And here's a baby bear:

And here's something else:

Take your pick...Sasquatch or bear or Olson twin?

Thrush culled, not the whisper of

You have gone on
again into Casa Video
in your pajamas

& forgotten the name
for whatever cassette tape
could have been brought

home. A handful
of popcorn in your teeth
& the desert

screaming its summer
through the streets, lined
white with orange

blossoms. Your
hesitant steps. A hand
full of popcorn

in the breeze & good
titles for what happens
when we all go off

into the sepia-toned
mountains. Our notion
of silence & what

sayings belong to
the self. A lone wire
hanger in a closet

holding a pair of pants
that can't be thrown out
or given away or worn

again. What can you
say to that door hiding it?
Or what can you quit

saying--pass through
me, too? The moon hung
in the day looks just

out of place, high
& blank in the sky. You know
nothing could suffice.

r.i.p. JA