the great Hollowness
��������� �����woke up this morning at about 5:30 to one of the most refreshing sights i've ever seen - i must've fallen asleep around 9, or .. something, and woke up first at 3, and then at 5. the blinds were still open, and the computer was dull-screen. through the blinds came an orange wash, as if the sky outside had suddenly turned french vanilla, and poured in - yankee-candle esque. i felt like i was in the middle of a waking-up commercial, blinking and relaxed, and smelling the Folgers -which of course, i don't drink. (although if i did drink coffee i'm sure my image might relax a little bit more into the whole bohemian blackturtleneck coffeeshop guy...but then, i'm thinking of -- no, forget it.) and it was partly cloudy, and the shadows of the trees stretched, like thin black canyons parting the grass-blades. no heartburn, no cramp in the neck. just lever a soleil. it was a good morning. and it progresses, two hours later. ... although the milk does taste kind of funny, despite ..
jesus h CHRIST i need a job.
i dreamed last night that jill shapleigh had died. i don't know how. but we were in a car, in .. some foreign country where it rained all the time. and no one spoke, because we were all so immensely, darkly sad. josie was my navigator. i was driving. we were all supposed to get on a plane, though, and i had my car, which wasn't my car, and i needed to get it back to wherever ... so we didn't take the plane, we drove back. there was something about the car getting stuck in the ditch. and people randomly breaking out in tears about jill. one of those it'felt'so'real dreams.
watched the salton sea yesterday. a beautiful, jazz-dirty movie with speed, and trumpets, and identity crises. needles and tattoos, pills and -- in the middle of it, kaylen IMed me. 'if you could define me in one object, image, or scene, what would it be?'
and i couldn't answer. so i asked her about me. and she told me that she saw me as an off-black umbrella. 'i dunno. maybe you always need someone under you. the umbrella's kind of a dependent object of independence.'
'an image of melancholy. how timely. too bad a strong wind can turn an umbrella inside out.'
'eh. a strong wind can turn anything inside out.'
today feels like the end of a marc chagall painting. i think i need more art in my life. i fell back to sleep rolling around after 3am, staring at the bookshelf, wondering why i don't read anymore. i chalked it up to my dependence on the internet, since about five or six years ago now, and the lack of money to buy books because they're ridiculously expensive. and i hate libraries with their 'time-limit' on borrowing. plus i have that whole buying-dvd obsession. which may hopefully be replaced by this new downloading-dvd phenomenon. although i do enjoy the whole spending thing .. maybe it'll stop.
kristin told me the other day too that i'm always running after my brain. that conversation ... makes me think of how i want things to be always. not constant attention, you know, but .. something. some sort of sign of verification. i think i'm going to start working on keeping my mouth shut more often, but then again, i'll end up standing in doorways more often than not, silent and waiting for the 'right time' to speak, to 'inject' a joke into the conversation. and then i'll maybe get weird looks, if people care enough, and maybe if i'm lucky they'll ask if anything's wrong.
although i wonder now if people don't ask because there's always something wrong, because i am an object of melancholy, because i am an umbrella that's only useful when it rains.
'you know, i found this. yesterday. in my head. i think i'm unhappy so much because my role in life is meant to be the romantic lead, the hero, but i'm not attractive enough to play the part.' how vain.
then kaylen and i talked about names. what i wish my name was, what i wish i could name my sons if i ever have them. daughters. 'quelle qu'un male-centric world!' josie once wrote on the comments sheet about my play. names. tenoch, bruno, colin, thierry, nicholas, sebastian ...
everyone here, that i've met, always seems to fit their name, somehow. jason, casey, kristin -- mark. nate, erin. for some reason i've always felt uncomfortable in my name. in second grade, i learned a song 'i hate my name / i hate my name / i wish i could throw it in the atlantic ocean -'
i remember singing it randomly in the hallways past where my mother was blow-drying her hair, and she looked at me and started to cry. and i felt bad, and told her i didn't hate it, and she told me the reason i was Christopher John was because my dad wanted to call me CJ. and she'd always loved the name christopher. i remember once in highschool i told all my friends my real name was christian, and they believed me until maggie asked my mom in the car one night. so i got found out. i used to name my alter egos. and try to be them.
and so i feel like a ball of yarn unravelling slowly across a floor of linoleum - like the one that i used to have in my kitchen, at home. a peculiar feeling of hollowness that only a tums or heartburn can replace, and then it's just that dull, dull burning like sour frustration, like eating rotten food, or sour milk.
take a mint toothpick. be on your way.