air plane ride #349

i was waking up from a nap. i was looking out the air plane win dow. i saw particles and they spar kled.

i thought that i might be hall ucinating or going lim p. like when you feel sick and see spo ts. small water drop lets that were twirling so fast and spar kling so much. i tried to fol low them with my eyes but i could not.

some things are differ ent right now " , i thought to my self.

i had been reading about an art icle where some people are more apt to feel spir itual than oth ers because of how their big brains wor ked. it wrote it self about how peo ple are the only ones ever that know about how they will die, some day, and so how do they pos sibly cope?

andso, either some envi able force is try ing to com municate with me thru spar kles or else it is the sun light refracting a billion times thru these clo uds, as this plane has velo city and opa city and i am an obs erver in des perate ways. swirl ing spar kles and i would squint and blin k and try to refocus my eyes beca use i did not beli eve that they were really there, i thi nk.

and then we came out of the clouds and star ted to land, and all of the spark les were gone, and so i knew.

ex cuse me whi le i kiss the sk y?

how soon, will i change my tune ?

dee-compress, or i dunno

"
taste what has made you grow
at once with your oddness, you enlighten
my slow unnurtured brain -
be mine for a day
"

i watched by the innards of fast food signs: just framed, just rows or columns of fluorescent bulbs. ugly bright lines.

, for self-analysis.



someday, i will tape myself into a cardboard box, and FedEx myself to Ulaanbaatar.

but for now...

i was suddenly aware of the washes and washes of self-analysis, for just a little moment, when i was feeling mystical, and listening to "post rock", and staring at faraway birds and clouds and the sun rising, when maybe i should have been watching the road;

and that's when i noticed the rut in my thought process, and so i unleashed my conscious forces against this subconscious foe, screaming "NO!", but still i fell into the rut, and then i screamed "NO!", and back and forth and soon enough i was too crumbled to bite my fingernails in two, and i stared blankly into a corner, a corner on a cinderblock, a cinderblock in a pile of cinderblocks, a pile of cinderblocks on a flatbed truck, a flatbed truck at the traffic light, a traffic light on the way, on the way to being cornered.

you know: like a mental patient, except maneuvering through traffic, instead of strapped to a bed.



how shameful it is to be too bored. too into endings, already. all reddy in the face. wierding emotional quality. stare. trying to keep the mind from thinking of anything at all, and just staring instead. and clasping my hands behind my back, maybe like a formalized nazi might.

all of the washes of self-analysis. the smallish obsessing. the trainwreck details.

jesus, i was so fucking tired today. i carved into my cuticles with my pocketknife, biding my time, and i fidgeted, and thought about just going back to bed and sleeping for fourteen hours. twelve hours.

yes, i was so tired today. i felt like collapsing. i felt like doing lots of heroin, or however that works. i asked myself if i was sure, and i was. weird.



i am always thinking about what i should write about what i am thinking.

what a ridiculous piece of shit i can be.

Yes! i am a man who is out of ideas! but i am not down for the count!

perhaps i should join the peace corps. perhaps i should join the navy. perhaps i should find god. perhaps i should find buddha. perhaps i should concentrate on not speculating. perhaps

i should be making phonecalls. returning phonecalls and making them. i should be in communication with the population, and especially the parts of the population that i like. but i have chosen exile (?).

i am sleep deprivation, or: to always be continued.

Day #1, Auburndale & Lakeland

Seraphim.

Seretonin.

It gets a little humid when I'm already hating Florida at 8AM. The traffic is just impatient enough to deserve all of the hurricanes. But then I realize that it's just my bad mood, causing such a harsh opinion.

I arrive at my destination. I was here for working last Fall, also. It was a legendary assignment. I had given my all. And then they inadvertently dumped gallons and gallons of diesel fuel into their hot, not-spinning turbine, and ruined the heart and lungs of it. And I had to give my all again. Often, I would give my all from 6AM until 2AM the following day. I was the captain going down with the ships. Giving my all and my everything was too much for my poor psyche. Lack of sleep and water will surely make me paranoid and anxious.

In general, I have hated the human race ever since that last 6AM to 2AM shift.

But, so, I arrived at this place again this morning, one year removed from that drama. For pre-planning. I try to be optimistic.

I am not in the control room 20 minutes, and the little ego-bashes begin, from the direction of some braindead operator guy:

"... yeah.. those (my company) engineers, they're sharp as marbles..."
and
"(variation on 'your turbines suck')"

Sort of a sad attempt at igniting a duel of pride. Nobody seems to know that I have no pride, because I keep forgetting to wear the t-shirt.

But more than that, I don't feel as if I owe my employer too much pride in their stuff. I mean, we just have a gentlemanly agreement, where I plan, direct and execute to the best of my abilities, and then they pay me for it. Pom-poms and toothy smiles are not a part of that bargain.

But man, I Hate dueling. Whether its with swords, wits, penises, or passiveaggression. Or whatever. Duels can suck it.

I am not a believer in confrontations, usually. Unless it involves plenty of sarcasm and loathesome malice.

Yes, he meant it in a jokeful, prodding way, but I saw through all of that. My vision pierced his constitution, and I beheld something uglier than ought to be talking to someone as me. In that tone. (?)

Anyway.

So. And I made the three or four phone calls that I needed to make to ensure that everything would begin smoothly on Monday, and then it was 9 or 10 o'clock. And I was bored. And I wondered why in the fuck I needed to be here four days ahead of schedule.

Us moguls of pacing.

I should talk about the plane ride last night. It was interesting in that I hardly noticed it. It's getting to the point where I can almost sleepwalk through airtrips.

It's like, I am walking through the Orlando airport and suddenly I wonder "hey, how did I get here?".

Fortunately, I found my hotel room (the only one available in Central Florida) to be pleasantly pleasant. It's cozy, as hotel rooms go.

I relaxed in my kingsizedbed and flipped through the channels. 'Field of Dreams' was on. So I watched it a bit. I loved it when I was a kid. It bolstered a faith in believing. Faith in having faith. Or something like that. But now that I'm older, it's just melodramatic and sort of daft. And awkward.

Very little can make a poignant statement in "Believing" without seeming awkward, anymore. Or so it seems.

So I wonder if I was wrong when I was a kid, or if I am wrong now. From where doth true vision cometh? Time and experience, or freshly fresh affects?

So I turned the channel. And the fucking Yankees beat the Twins in the 12th. Boo to the Yankees.

Back to today, though.

So I got bored, and I went shopping. For ink cartridges, for a fridge and microwave for the crew, for telephone wire and couplings and battery chargers and stuff like that. And eventually, amidst all of the shopping, I found myself eyeing innocent and luscious Staples or Home Depot employees. Oh, what a poor boy I am. So after I laughed at myself for alittle, I wondered how one goes about seducing, especially whilst overcoming the obstacles of my glasses, acne and haircut. Oh, how do you arrive, gammamale? And do you meet yourself leaving?

But then it was 3PM, and I felt like taking a nap.

I wondered if I could collect plastic bags, and melt them down and turn them into healthy sterile blood. WalMart bluebags bags for B-negative. BestBuy yellowbags for O.

Directly, I decided that I wasnt making any god damned sense.

The soundtrack today was Mirah. "C'mon, Miracle". The CD has a picture of a horse. A racehorse. Maybe the racehorse is named Miracle, and Mirah bet on it. I dunno.

Oh, what else?

Page fifteen, and Oed has already been unfaithful. What shall I be taught?

Tonight, I am going to rent and watch "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", because I'd wanted to see it, but never got the chance.

And so...

songs of silent lands

my name is tim, and i am a citizen of the united states of america.

this morning, i voted for the first time in my life, except for that one time i voted at oak orchard elementary to protect school sports from the tightwadded old people. i was fresh eighteen.

but this morning, i voted for the first time for a president. i wielded my absentee ballot application and walked into city hall and i proclaimed "i would like to complete the ballot that i am entitled to!", and with fervor and fiery fingers, i completed the broken arrow that pointed to mr. kerry's name.

i also voted for some other people and things that i knew nothing about. wilder for richmond mayor, the dude who is not eric cantor for house of representatives. and "yes" to some virginia legislation, and "yes" to another. and a guy named dave ballard for school board, because i knew a dave ballard growing up, and he liked to talk like a cowboy while ordering at the mcdonald's drive-thru. and he was also my brother's friend's dad. although, undoubtedly, the dave ballard that i voted for is almost certainly not the dave ballard that i knew.

my trip to city hall showed me how richmond is very much like a real city at 8 o'clock in the morning. more like a city than how i usually see it. it was bustling around city hall. garbage trucks and traffic and the squealing of brakes and rushes of people along the sidewalk, with suits or hot feminine business attire, black or white, crowds at bus stops, the physically handicapped making their way, the lack of parking spaces, the chilly morning airs. it reminded me of toronto, somehow. all of the bustling.

i was wearing a jacket for the first time this season. it was my faded old green one, with the flannel lining. it is chilled today, and so i opened my windows, and i am using long sleeves to do my packing and things.

i will not take my long sleeves with me later, when i go to florida. florida is probably still hot, like it always is.

i will be in florida starting tonight, and for i hope no more than the next week and a half. and after that, i think i have to go to illinois for an as-yet undisclosed amount of time.

the Work is All. i have been criticized and lauded both, by co-workers and whoever. and i am impressed with my growing ability to be apathetic about all of it. i believe that i am as temporary as i want to be, and i want to be oh-so-temporary.

my resumes are still out and around. still no nibbles or awkward stares, or anything. but some day, there will be some thing.

--

i am trying to make an effort to be better at email. to communicate more with the people i should be communicating with. in college, i would email incessantly, to a fault. nowadays, i collect it, but don't seem to pay any attention to it. so i finally caved in, and upgraded to yahoo mail plus, and all of my accounts are connected to it, and all of my messages will be archived on the web instead of my lonely bedroom, and all of my anti-spam is cranked to high, and hopefully i will take better care, and pay more attention. try me?

--

i did finally see "garden state" a few days ago. i loved it a lot. it's refreshing to see a movie like that after suffering long long bouts of monotony.

i related to the talking in the pool scene, the subconscious feeling of what "home" is, how where you grew up is embedded in your definitions, how nothing really feels like home anymore. how there's that need to feel safe and quiet. how there's that need to have somebody renew you and save you.

sometimes i catch myself wondering if i will be renewed and saved. and wondering if those things last. and wondering if i'll be that lucky.

until then, i am just another undeserving sap.

--

you should be lucky enough to find a pressing of the "Around" LP by Grapefruit, and toss it onto your turntable, and light candles and incenses into a dark room, and listen and stare into space for awhile.

chalk it up to lisa for the great find.

--

also, on friday night i am going to see pearl jam and death cab for cutie. it will be like i am eighteen and twenty-three again. it's going to be in an arena. which seems simultaneously so impersonal and so exciting. it's good to see a big overblown rocknroll show every once in awhile. it's very good, as a matter of fact. i never thought death cab would be involved, but that's got to be a plusser.

and pearl jam? that's got to be like old comfortable shoes. maybe with ugly new shoelaces, but still..

--

everyday at 3:00, i could use a nap.

i would, but i have to be on a plane in two hours.

it's too risky.

so here's to second winds, readers.