I drank
21 May 2006 | Life | 1 Comment
I drank more sake than I should have last night. To be honest, I’ve been on a bit of a binge the past few days, consuming massive quantities of things I shouldn’t. Sugary sweets (two bags of Uncle Eddie’s Vegan Cookies, nearly a pound of dark chocolate covered espresso beans, chocolate covered ginger, vegan marshmellow fluff, etc), alcohol (the aforementioned sake, Johnnie Walker Red, the last of my Maker’s Mark, a Pabst Blue Ribbon), nicotine (a hookah last night at Samah). I feel used up, wasted, damaged today. I’ve got to stop doing this. Tomorrow I must eat well and be productive. I must cease wasting my time with nothing. I will clean, I will write, I will record some vocals. I realize my largest problem (and likely the cause of all my distraction and procrastination) is that I am a sensualist, an aesthete, a hedonist. I am too much in love with experience, with sensation and pleasure, with taste and smell and touch and sound.
That realization comes with the harsh doubt of its correctibility. I this something I can fix so that I may be able to focus easier and accomplish things? It is seeming less likely, but there is a great chance I am incorrect in that.
I am
17 May 2006 | Life | No Comments
…sticky. My face, my hands, covered in sweet and sticky juices, and I’m doing my best to lick myself clean.
I’ve been cutting mangos for most of the morning. I am improvising a mango chipotle stew (I love improvised cooking – though I own more vegan cookbooks than you could shake a carrot stick at – I get a great deal of joy from making a dish up on the spot), and, as I love mangos more than any other fruit, more than nearly any other food, I am taking to opportunity to suck, lick, bite, and chew every last bit of mango flesh left on the pits and the skins as I prep my fleshy fruit. I’m going to have to wash my face thoroughly after cooking, as these sticky sweet drippings are making ‘flavor savor’ quite the aptronym today.
I love food. I doubt you could find me a vegan, though, who does not love food, who does not take a great deal of joy and ecstasy from the act of eating or even making food. The vegans I know all talk more about food than other people, cook more often than other people, and eat even a great deal more than other people (fat and skinny vegans alike).
I must go dice the onions now, and chop the chipotles, cut the corn kernels from the cob, give the cilantro a rinse…
Hatin’ christians.
12 May 2006 | Life | No Comments
Why? We’re opinionated, but harmless. And, not to mention, we actually think.
James Jean
12 May 2006 | Art | No Comments
I came across James Jean’s work yesterday while I was wasting time. Dark, yet not grotesque or obscene, and sad, and beautiful. I particularly like this piece.
First words.
1 May 2006 | Life | No Comments
I woke around nine this morning. As usual, I had some very odd dreams, so I laid around in the bed a bit and thought about them, tried to keep them fresh in my memory. I feel I’ll have to start writing them down when I can – they would be excellent creative fodder for my fiction. Anywho. Got up, showered, dressed, cleaned somewhat (I still have a great deal of organizing/un-messing of this apartment to attend to), did some necessary browsing of certain music websites (disquiet.com is my new love), and then headed off to work. Walked to the train. Took the red line down to North & Clybourn. Stopped at Starbucks before heading in to work.
“Hello. I’ll have an iced venti soy latte.” Sad to say, those were the first words I spoke all day.
When I was a child I remember a superstitious sort of thing my brother encouraged us to do. I don’t recall why, or even if I particularly cared about it. On the first day of some month (April, May, March for all I know – maybe it was even every month?) it was supposed to be good luck to say “rabbit” first thing in the morning when you woke up, before speaking any other word. I had all morning to say rabbit, but instead I asked for an iced soy latte.
For most of the workday, I had the word “focus!” scrawled on my left forearm. I tried to think of an easy way to repeatedly remind myself to not get distracted, to stay focussed on the task at hand, to be more observant of things. I don’t develop habits very easily, so it is somewhat out of the question to just remind myself to stay focussed constantly, or try to train myself to think of the word repeatedly throughout the day. So I wrote it on my arm, figuring I’d just see it and it would help. Which is sort of silly, as I need to focus more when not at work – it’s my personal goals and creativity that need me to devote clear attention to them without letting my mind wander off to other things. At work I tend to keep to the job quite easily, at home I find other things to draw me away from work I should be doing – music, the internet, random articles in newspapers or even outdated magazines I have lying around.
So I’m thinking the first tattoo I’ll get will be of a very utilitarian sort. I’m going to get “focus!” tattooed on the side of my left arm.
Narrative, Interrogative
18 April 2006 | Life | No Comments
This is a first draft of a short experimental piece I am working on. Feedback is appreciated.
3rd bed.
5 April 2006 | Life | No Comments
Yesterday marked the arrival of my package in the mail, my package wrapping tightly within its confines 3rd Bed issues 1 through 10, Stories in the Worst Way by Gary Lutz, The False Sun Recordings by James Wagner, and (strangely) another copy of Motorman by David Ohle. This occasion (the books’ arrival) was celebrated by a thorough experiencing of ecstasy by this young man Anthony. He has read a great deal of Stories in the Worst Way already, and its beauty, though itself of words, is beyond words. A great experience also was voraciously reading through the thin volume that is 3rd Bed #1. Outstanding, though I am glad to see the issues have since nearly tripled in thickness and, somehow beyond my comprehension, the quality raised by a power of infinity. It had quite a significant quality to begin with (Charles Baudelaire being among those included in its pages).
Today marked the arrival of another package – Morrissey’s new album, Ringleader of the Tormentors. I am not worthy of describing its greatness with mere words.
Moleskine.
2 April 2006 | Life | No Comments
I was working the customer service desk today (closing shift), when I noticed a notebook in the trash. Not just any notebook, but a Moleskine to be precise. CJ (who was working customer service desk midshift) had decided to clean out the Lost & Found box and threw it out, as it had been there quite a few months.
“Dude, why are you throwing that out?”
“Cause it’s been in there like forever.”
Anthony flips through it, sees only the first three pages are written on.
“I’ll take it, then, if you’re gonna toss it.”
“Take it, take it home then.”
I put it in my apron and leave it there the rest of the day.
As I was waiting at the North & Clybourn Red Line stop, I give it a look through, see what’s in it. Just some random notes of this and that. “Co-op meeting.” “Clean out juicer and use it.” Random quotes of what looks like are conversations overheard.
Anyone who has ever used a moleskine would know of the little pocket in the back that proves very, very useful. I have a look into that and find a scrap piece of paper with an address and lotto numbers, and $10.
Woohoo. Ant is $10 richer, and has a moleskine. CJ, you really should watch what it is you’re throwing away so hastily.
Outsider art.
31 March 2006 | Art | No Comments
Is it crazy to want to read a 15,000 page manuscript?
Or a 25,000 page manuscript?
I just read about these, and I really, really, really want to read them, front to back, in their entirety. With the speed of my reading, let’s see… about 1000 pages a month, so a little over three years for both combined.
Getting hold of a readable copy, though, is the very big problem.
Iraq.
30 March 2006 | Politics | No Comments