in arms... the trial run

"Perhaps, as we say in America, I wanted to find myself. This is an interesting phrase, not current as far as I know in the language of any other people, which certainly does not mean what it says but betrays a nagging suspicion that something has been misplaced. I think now that if I had had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed at home. But again, I think I knew, at the very bottom of my heart, exactly what I was doing..." James Baldwin

try, try again

"When you stop to examine the way in which words are formed and uttered, our sentences are hard put to it to survive the disaster of their slobbery origins. The mechanical effort of conversation is nastier and more complicated than defecation. That corolla of bloated flesh, the mouth, which screws itself up to whistle, which sucks in breath, contorts itself, discharges all manner of viscous sounds across a fetid barrier of decaying teeth - how revolting! Yes that is what we are adjured to sublimate into an ideal. It's not easy. Since we are nothing but packages of tepid, half-rotted viscera, we shall always have trouble with sentiment." Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Of weeks past

and those to come.

Currently.

An equilibrium to regain. Writing to resume gradually.

she with nothing, bares all

i've locked myself in the bathroom. i sit here on the floor somewhere between tears, ready to break, ready to let go. i don't know where to go. i don't trust anyone. i want intimacy but deem everyone and everything inadequate. i am inadequate. i project my shortcomings onto the world. i want the world to go away, but it cannot. i still cannot pacify the urge to end my life. it seems the only way. i am alone. i can't stand being alone. i want them to go away. i can't stand their constant presence. everything aggitates me - all ends the same. i want to rest. i need to rest. i can hear her outside the door - the pages flipping. i can hear the other one through the wall - the television regurgitating. the hostility across the hall lingers in my mind. the outburst so slight but the preceeding build-up required little instigation. i need space, air, but i am still here.

i never call anyone. i never IM anyone. i haven't returned or written an e-mail in months. i lock myself away, embarrassed, only socializing with those who haven't seen through the facade. she called me hypocritical and condescending. i can't satisfy the expectations. i can't help but want to finalize our separation. i can't make myself understood. is it worth the frustration? should i have to justify myself to her? to them? i have enough. i have enough to disappear on. what holds me still here? my creative efforts are frustrated, impotent, not enough to survive upon. i am prepared to give up the crippling securities that bound me to this repetition, but i've yet to decide upon any direction. i will carry on without.

* * *

i don't want to delude myself into thinking he could be my out. am i stalled or am i learning? he is a messenger, not a means. but can i trust him enough, let go enough to be so candid? my clumsy journey, i don't ask enough.

i have nothing; i am prepared

“I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another
or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid
to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake,
and perhaps as long as eternity too.”

Vinni Puh and more views

I grew up as a latchkey kid, where my mother expected me to come home immediately after school and (as a hermit herself) didn't like me leaving the house in general. Left predominantly on my own, I became a cartoon junkie, and even today if I have to spend time "socializing" with family in front of a television, I'd rather be watching cartoons with the kids than whatever sitcom, melodrama, or sports game the adults select.

Of course the below aren't the cartoons I grew up on, as they're all in Russian, but they are new-to-me discoveries I was recently shown. With very few exceptions, most popular cartoons today are horrid, trying to be way too trendy and relying excessively on pop culture references to lure in so-called adult audiences ($). They have such an enormous lack imagination in both narrative and style and very few people seem to be the least bit concerned, if they even notice the loss - just look at the animation of Junior and Karlson (the second one below) to see what kids are missing today with the advent of CGI and computer programmers taking the role of animation artists.

Vinni Puh Part 1 of 2
Eeyore is even more wondrously morose in Russian!




Junior and Karlson Part 1 of 2
a Swedish children's book series but a Russian cartoon




There Once Was a Dog

distracted

"They are lonely; the spirit of their writing and conversation is lonely; they repel influences; they shun general society; they incline to shut themselves in their chamber in the house, to live in the country rather than in the town, and to find their tasks and amusements in solitude. Society, to be sure, does not like this very well; it saith, Whoso goes to walk alone, accuses the whole world; he declareth all to be unfit to be his companions; it is very uncivil, nay, insulting; Society will retaliate. Meantime, this retirement does not proceed from any whim on the part of these separators; but if any one will take pains to talk with them, he will find that this part is chosen both from temperament and from principle; with some unwillingness, too, and as a choice of the less of two evils; for these persons are not by nature melancholy, sour, and unsocial, — they are not stockish or brute, — but joyous; susceptible, affectionate; they have even more than others a great wish to be loved." Emerson

A sort of friend of mine remarked how good it was that I prioritized a boy this past Sunday over my studies, as if to say that this is progress, that this is me returning to life via triviality. But alas, I cannot amalgamate the two: I know not how to seek in everyday life that which is most important to me. No, this opportunity reeks of self-destruction, yet only in reflection. Why hesitate? My moods are no less volatile, only subdued in their restored secrecy.

I cannot make myself known.

[Incoherence will continue until I can restore my habit. Soon.]

slice

"I wanted only to try to live in accord with
the promptings which came from my true self.
Why was that so very difficult?"

the charlatan buried or i remember now

One year Sunday.Omnipresent urge; volition wained.Perhaps I blew my chance.Monday, not enough.Two hour flood/no result.Returns.A new self, constraints!, but a new old self, a release.Hummus.The urge subsides.I remember.Ten years ago.

Lucidity will return with next entry. Stop.



Doodling.


Scratching.

some neat lithographs of Ulysses from the James Joyce Museum in Sandycove

(click images for detail)