Interior Polemic

where are the people in the machines?

2008-07-06T16:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes when I am driving and I see the other cars, I don't think anything about the people inside them. I forget that the cars are not self-propelled machines, but that there are people controlling them. When I actually do examine the people inside them, I find myself overwhelmed by questions surrounding their lives. Where are they going? What are they thinking about? What is most important in their lives?

But Not Forgotten

2008-06-10T12:02:00.000-07:00

I think, no matter where you stray,
That I shall go with you a way.
Though you may wander sweeter lands,
You will not soon forget my hands,
Nor yet the way I held my head,
Nor all the tremulous things I said.
You still will see me, small and white
And smiling, in the secret night,
And feel my arms about you when
The day comes fluttering back again.
I think, no matter where you be,
You'll hold me in your memory
And keep my image, there without me,
By telling later loves about me.

asphyxiation won't come...

2008-06-06T09:15:00.000-07:00

it's like i'm stuck in an elevator with unlimited oxygen and no hope of escape. i've watched enough james bond movies to know to try to climb out of the top of the box, but my weak arms are useless in trying to get to the next floor.

more importantly, as this is a metaphorical elevator, i don't know where the next floor is or if i want to get off there.

i don't know why i'm not done with all this. i don't know why i can't close this metaphorical chapter.

it's going to close whether i want it to or not.

2008-03-08T16:26:00.000-08:00

je ferais n'importe quoi de m'en ficher.

2008-02-14T05:48:00.001-08:00

I never thought you would actually make me hate you. I want to hate you so much...

...and I can't bring myself to hate you...

Eraser

2008-02-01T17:26:00.000-08:00

Please excuse me but I got to ask
Are you only being nice
Because you want something
My fairy tale arrow pierces
Be careful how you respond
'Cause you'd not end up in this song
I never gave you an encouragement
And it's doing me in

The more you try to erase me
The more that I appear
Oh the more, the more
The more you try the eraser
The more that you appear

You know the answer so why do you ask
I am only being nice
Because I want someone, something
You're like a kitten with a ball of yarn
And it's doing me in

The more you try to erase me
The more that I appear
The more I try to erase you
The more that you appear
No, you're wrong, you're wrong
You're wrong, you're wrong
You're wrong, you're wrong
You're wrong

Coincidences

2008-01-30T15:33:00.000-08:00

Motherfucking cocksucker motherfucking shit fucker what am I doing? What am I doing? I don't know what I'm doing. I'm doing the best that I can. I know that's all I can ask of myself. Is that good enough? Is my work doing any good? Is anybody paying attention? Is it hopeless to try and change things? I'm fucked! Maybe I should quit. Don't quit! Maybe I should just fucking quit. Don't fucking quit! I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to fucking do anymore! Fucker! Fuck shit!

Thanks, Albert.

recent dreams

2008-01-19T04:39:00.000-08:00

i'm not normally prone to remembering my dreams. i attribute this to four solid years of smoking pot, two of those years, every day. but it seems like my system has cleaned itself out, and the dusty corners of my brain that i clouded with smoke have cleared to let me take a good look at them. i've dreamt pretty solid for the past week...some old favorites, some completely new ones...

Dream #1 "Vanity" or "Starting New"
i dream that my teeth are loose. particularly my front teeth. i know that i shouldn't wiggle them with my tongue, but i can't help myself. lo and behold, two or three of my front teeth fall out. in my panic, i attain a level of clarity and realize that if i want to save the teeth, i must put them in cold milk. i do so, and beg anyone and everyone around me to take me to the dentist to have them put back in. the tragic irony of the dream is that no one will.

Dream #2 "Recent Memory"
london.

Dream #3 "Ancient Memory"
i'm in black dog coffee house, my old hangout from high school. it's where all the struggling-to-be-understood-high-school-intellectuals hung out after school and on weekend nights. one of the first places in lenexa to sell fair trade...anyways, i'm myself...my age; i look like me...but all the people that i know there from the past are still stuck at that age. i recognize them but can't bring myself to talk to them because they are just so ridiculous. and i wake up and realize all those people that i thought would be friends with...including my boyfriend, are all people that i never talk to and have no desire to ever have any relationship with again.

which i guess is why, when i'm at home, i never go to black dog.

Dream #4 "New Experience"
*shivers in a dark corner on meth or something*

fake plastic trees

2008-01-12T18:03:00.001-08:00

She lives with a broken man
A cracked polystyrene man
Who just crumbles and burns.

She looks like the real thing
She tastes like the real thing
My fake plastic love.
But I can't help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turn and run.
And it wears me out, it wears me out.
It wears me out, it wears me out.

And if I could be who you wanted
If I could be who you wanted
All the time....

now that you're big enough to run your own show, you're just somebody that i used to know...

2007-12-04T11:48:00.001-08:00

what the FUCK do i want out of this life?
i feel like the one thing i want i can never have. the timing was and is all wrong. it was all wrong from the start and i fucking knew it. i even tried to fight it. the question i have to ask myself is: is what i got out of it better than never having had it at all?

and i hate myself for wanting it more than anything else. i am not that person. i faked myself into believe that i was a person that didn't care about such sentimentalities.

yes but thinking about never having it again...
this is why you never, never, never fall in love.

irritibility

2007-11-18T11:23:00.000-08:00

i'm so fucking irritable these days. i don't know what it is, but i get pissed at the slightest thing. it's like i am permanently pmsing. i am lonely, but i don't want to see anyone. i want to talk to people, but i want to be left alone. example: astrid was eating an apple and i just about lost it. seriously, almost punched a hole through the wall. i think it's just that when i am at home, i do get pissed at people. i get into verbal arguments with family or friends, we yell, we patch it up...it's a release. here i can't yell. i can't stomp up the stairs and say "fuck off"...

of course, getting out on my bike makes me feel better. listening to tunes that are fucking depressing makes me feel better too. sigur ros's ( ), an album i can listen to only when i want to slit my wrists, is high on my list right now. so is radiohead's "amnesiac" which has so many memories attached that i can usually only handle one or two songs before spiraling into a 24 hr. depression.

therapeutic photography has helped too. here are some images of what could be considered a therapy session: my bike, my music, my camera...

Vacation and more bad news from home

2007-11-04T16:32:00.000-08:00

This past week commenced the French work schedule for me--work five weeks, get one and a half weeks off. I spent the former part of this vacation in Rennes, the latter part in Paris. Exploring France and reconnecting with places I remember from my past has been informative and stimulating.

Rennes was filled with much silliness: drinking cidre in the Jardins de Thabor, playing ___________ Catch Phrase, and eating various international cuisine.

Paris thus far has consisted of visiting the usual tourist traps with a few sidetrips. Rue de Mouffetards was enjoyable, and I think most will agree that a ten euro pitcher of beer in Paris ain't too shabby. Tomorrow will be the highlight when I get to see the Shins at La Cigale, a venue very close to Montmartre (possibly near la Pigalle?). Other than that I have seen l'Arc de Triomphe, les Champs Elysées, la Défense, Montmartre, Place de la Concorde...the usual haunts.
In other news, my grandma is dying. I got this news via email, as that is the most effective means of communication...but as I am already so far removed from the situation, reading it in an email makes me even more disengaged. She had a stroke this afternoon and tore her aorta. She has been sick all year, and I feel like this is it, as much as that is a negative spirit to have. She is in emergency surgery now. This is her second heart surgery in three months. She is eighty years old.

How does one cope from an ocean away? Even my uncle in Iceland will be able to go to the United States...I cannot afford the ticket, and I also have to stay for work.

Putain de vie...

Guingampian adventure

2007-10-24T02:15:00.000-07:00

On Monday I had to go to Rennes for my medical checkup for the titre de séjour. It was a little more than an adventure...

I awoke Monday morning to the sun...I jolted up in bed, knowing that it was well past 8am, and as my train left at 8h35, I was royally fucked. I raced to the bathroom, and midpiss I realized that even if I ran, there would be no way to make it. I started to panic, but I remembered that there was another train that left at 11h38 and arrived in Rennes 30 minutes before my appointment. I knew I would probably be late to the appointment, but it was better than missing it altogether.

Turns out I ran into another American doing the same thing and we actually made it to the office on time. I got a chest x ray, and I don't have tuberculosis. Huzzah! Everything checked out OK...hung out with Alexa for an hour or so drinking beer (it is cheaper than soda) and talking about our respective problems with men. It was great to talk to a girl who isn't very high-strung, like my roommate (that I really like, but can sometimes be....difficult) and the Irish assistant Krissy who is...an adolescent.

We get on the train in Rennes and everything is cool. I talk to Alexa about books; we decide to do an exchange when we can. She is in a tiny town too, and we plan on doing fun stuff together.

Adolfo and I arrive in Guingamp, and we have 40 minutes before our train to Carhaix. We decide to promenade a bit...aaaand he gets us lost. I thought the train station was one direction; he insisted it was another. As I sometimes am way off with directions and realize that sometimes men are just better at those things, I let him lead the way. I know we are in deep shit when we turn into a residential area...there is no semblance of downtown, the police station we had passed earlier, or the train station. Our train leaves in 10 minutes. We are royally fucked-me for the second time that day.

Adolfo sees two men walking and asks them for directions to the train station. They laugh and say "You're 3 km from there....When is your train?....oh merde, you have no chance in hell of making it...let me drive you there." So this amazingly nice old man takes us to the train station, all the while in the car yelling "bouge! bouge!" to the cars that are going too slow. We get to the station one minute too late...there are no more trains to Carhaix for the night.

We are royally, completely, 100 percent fucked. (Redundancy for emphasis is not encouraged...)

This old man proposes to us:
I am hungry. Let me go home and have a bite. I will then take you in my car to Carhaix.

We insist that it is too much. Too nice.

I want to do it. I am a Muslim and we help our neighbors whenever we can. Let me go inside and tell my family what has happened and that we have guests for dinner.

We insist that we do not need to eat. That feeding us is too much.

You will eat some of my wife's delicious Moroccan soup. I insist.

So we ate Moroccan cuisine, met his family, and talked about how much we want peace in the world. It was beautiful. He and his son then took us back to Carhaix and refused payment. I have never encountered such generosity. In the United States, I don't know of any perfect stranger that would offer to drive an hour and feed two foreigners who missed a train or a flight. Never.

France is alright, I suppose.