I liked writing on this thing better before people actually read it. Now I’m self-conscious about my posts (which is why there haven’t been any). Will I be held responsible for what I say?
I’m feeling inspecific lately, like a balloon in space. I think the best thing to do in that case is to write (using a pen with a thick, inky line) lists of very specific things, that exist in a certain place, at a certain time, in a certain way. And then orient the self, according to those points of reference, in the particular.
As I am typing, I am observing the veins in my hands, which are almost transparent in this light. I like seeing my veins, I always appreciate evidence of my circulatory system. It’s reassuring to know that I am full of wires and tunnels, it makes me feel less vague about things.
When I was eleven, a year before I became vegetarian, I was eating a piece of chicken and a vein slipped out of it. It had lost its color and was like a piece of rubber tubing. It was stretchy.
As blood is supplied to every cell in the body—especially the muscles, I wonder how many capillaries and vessels the average meat-eater consumes…laid end to end, how far would they go?
Archive
A recurring theme in a lot of my dreams is counterfeit money. I’ll come into a large sum of cash and will buy something, but when I attempt to pay, the money I pull out is always in nonexistent denominations (three-, 15-, or four-dollar bills), the wrong color (pink, blue, tie-dyed), the wrong size, or has the wrong portraits. Sometimes it doesn’t look like money at all, sometimes it’s clearly Monopoly money, and sometimes it has obscure political tracts printed on one side.
The obvious interpretation of this is that I am skeptical of gifts, don’t believe that I will ever be rich, or just wouldn’t know what to do with any sort of money. Or maybe, you know, my subconscious is trying to tell me something about the ephemeral nature of the Benjamins.
Sometimes I like to look around a classroom and try to guess how many of us are heavily drugged. I like the idea of a great mass of artificially normalised people, who can only function when they are in perfect chemical balance. It makes me feel like a scientific creation, with wires for brains and a petri dish instead of a heart. I really do not think I can write this final. If I was a robot, I wonder if I would run on batteries or be solar-powered.
Been too busy to think about writing lately, other than the 60-some pages I’ve had to write for finals. I’ll be entertaining soon; in the meantime, Naomi, don’t stop posting whatever you want. I didn’t mean to censor yourself. This is your site too; if you have something to write, write it.
So Nathan remarked that my recent posts have been a little emo. And he is right. I apologize.
I guess if you don’t have anything uplifting to say, you should keep your thoughts to yourself and not drag other people down into your sad and bitter world. I’ve been low on creativity lately, but I don’t believe in not working just because you’re out of ideas. Even though I’m busy with finals, I’m forcing myself to write for about an hour each day. I think if you don’t maintain your practice daily, your work loses its focus and becomes dull and weak. You lose confidence and it shows. So anyway, if I come up with anything interesting I’ll post it here, otherwise I’ll try to keep quiet until I have something nice to say.
Our ‘pedia who art in wiki,
Hallowed be thy search.
Thy pov be neut,
Thy edits bear fruit,
In en. as they do in fr.
Give us this day our featured art,
And protect us from vandals,
At least in our favorite articles,
Though we vandalize others.
For thine is the reference and
The hype for ever and ever.
Amen.
If I had the choice to be beautiful, I think I’d rather be invisible. There’s something really horrible about being looked at. I think beautiful people must suffer tremendously all the time. Beautiful people are constantly being corroded by other people’s eyes, the skin probably prickles and burns from the toxicity of the gaze. I’m sure it’s like being a fossil scraped out of dirt with a tiny polished pick. I think if I were a fossil I’d rather not be exposed to light and air. I’d rather keep my secrets hardened to myself.
Everyone always tries to be more beautiful. I think this is a very serious mistake. It would be better if people tried to be more invisible. Everyone would be safer from each other, and there would be fewer accidental deaths.
In a world that usually lets me down, the certainty that I will always fail is something I’ve come to depend on. I’ve developed a tremendous faith in my inabilities. When all of life’s questions overwhelm me in the dead of night, I don’t need to wonder what the future holds for me. I have the peace that comes with the knowledge that no matter what happens, I will probably get it wrong anyway. And it’s a really good feeling. I highly recommend it, actually, as a lifestyle choice. Once you decide to be a failure, it’s amazing how everything crystallizes. It’s easier to make decisions, too, when you can be sure of the outcome.
If anyone actually reads this, let me know.
Note from Nathan: Comments might be broken. Email west(at)invisiblebirds(dot)com if you tried to post but can’t.
I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve just been broken up with and haven’t had the courage to write much these days, or do much at all. I sit in my chair by the window. I’m turning into Eli, which is disheartening. That’s what happens when you work on the same material for 2 years. Your process becomes more and more insular and circular until you realise that you are not writing a character, you are writing your own existence on a parallel plane, and you and your character exist as empty mirrors for each other. When one of you suffers the other one laughs, nervously, and then goes back to thinking about blood in lungs or old banisters or whatever it is that old men think about when they are trying not to be a twenty year old woman who is in denial of the fact that she is secretly a dying old man.
Latest Comments