2003-02-27 - 8:58 p.m.: dishwater delight

hello diary.

this is where i get personal. this is where you start acting like a real diary. why? because DAMN.

blind blind blind.

i close my eyes to everything i don't want to see. and it's time to be open.

so.. here are some things that have been running in and out of my head. take note.

1. seasick me

i waver. i am a wave. my interest swells at predictable points then diminishes as though it never existed. but then... other times i cling. yes, cling. like a vine. i cling to bad ideas....broken ideals...things that i should (and know i should) let go of but which silently dare me to say why. ratpacker me. i save everything for years then shed it all at once like a crusty skin. i leave it behind and make myself forget to prevent future regrets. amnesiac me. no, i couldn't remember the regionals tournament in purdue. i thought about it for hours afterward, trying to sort it out from my storage bank of memories. i couldn't remember it at all. i couldn't remember a lot of things. there were spaces overlapping spaces and i think... yes i think... that i have a spiderweb in my mind that links things together until they're inseparable. a glob. hence those analogies that make you laugh. and.. i couldn't link that particular memory to anything so i let it go. disconnected it. or replaced it with the next tournament, and the next, then the next... overlapping similar events and faces and sensations to save space. i don't know. i feel as though i've lost an entire lifetime to efficiency. empty me. it makes me feel... as though i'll have nothing left to flash before my eyes when i die. everyone else will have a lifetime. i will have a web. one sticky web that will wrap itself around me and ask, "was it worth it?" i can't answer that. i'm not the one making these decisions.

all this to say... i can't make up my mind because i'm lacking the necessary details. i don't have foresight because my hindsight's all screwed up. i live in the moment because i have to.

2. the room

there is a room that i can't bring my whole self into. i thought this two weeks ago.. then i tested it the night before last and... this evening i am certain. my self pauses outside the door... all sides of me... and we balk. "you're not going to make us go in there..." most of me says. their faces are grey. they've been there before. well... no...i can't. so i ask for volunteers. i pick on the sleepy one in the back row. "ready?" i ask. "oh..suuure," she yawns. SCORE. so she heads in there, unarmed, unaware.... into the room where the same things happen again and again... where there's no denying it... where her presence is so small and the silence is so great that she might as well be rolled into a tiny ball shape between a giant thumb and forefinger and flicked into the corner of a stall in a desolate gray public bathroom. the room where dreams are tested and marked-down in angry red ink. the room where she is not. where she is insignificant. where she can do nothing but sit and sigh and pet the cat and glance every-where-and-which-way but AT. the rest of us look on in morbid fascination as this dangling thread pretends to be a rope. pretends to be strong. pretends to be useful. we hope it works. "don't fool yourselves, please," i tell us, "this is not going to help at all. not at all."

3. thirsty me

i need to drink more water. i don't drink nearly enough water.

4. the pianist upstairs

i am a coward. in an entry several weeks back i talked about meeting my ghosts face to face. i have met my next-door neighbor.. but the ghost upstairs? guess what... it hasn't happened yet. partly because i'm busy. partly because i figured out that the beautiful music coming from upstairs is NOT coming from a cd player. it is coming from a piano and a guitar. there is a person--a boy--associated with the piano and the guitar who probably has beautiful long fingers and solemn ears. he is probably pale and sensitive and a poor cook. he probably likes to look at the stars. he probably falls in love too easily, and he probably looks funny when he blushes. my ghost is beautiful. now...hmmm. this in itself is not enough to discourage me from sucking it up and knocking on a door. but this coupled with my overactive imagination IS. i have created a boy who probably doesn't match his ghost. and... i don't want to kill him. so... i wait.

for what? i don't know. that is another issue. that is....

5. the color of purpose

what is purpose to you? to me... it matches a whim. it strikes like a pro-bowler and leaves me single-minded and heady. it makes me do things like... (wow. ok. real confession here)... it makes me do things like wrestle in baby oil with strippers to win $500 i don't really need. it makes me tell lies. it makes me march in parades. it makes me tell truths. it makes me stuff a hundred dollar bill into a pair of mittens under st. johns' giving tree. it makes me dig a hole in 4 feet of snow and sit there for 3 hours listening to coyotes sing to get a sense of what it would be like to live in an igloo. it makes me give away all of my cds and books to become less material. it makes me paint my bedroom purple and my door rain gray. it makes me spend a shitload of money on useless crap. it makes me run outward till i'm too tired to run back in. it makes me run back in. it makes me start.

the problem is that it touches down like a tornado then disappears leaving an aftermath of wreckage and wonder. "why the hell did i do that?" but then... to be fair.. i have no regrets. none. but that's only because i'm still young. i would like a sense of purpose that lasts. that sticks around. that inspires me to do something more... something better. until then.. i wait.

yes... i do a lot of waiting. maybe that is why "maybe" is such an attractive concept.

6. tricks

my mind is an existentialist, my soul is a nun, my heart is a romantic and my body is a slut. i think too much to be blissful... but i'm too pleased by sweetness to be cynical. i put too much weight on "love" to sleep around but i'm tooooooooo sensual (okay sexually combustible) to wait peacefully. i jump when he stirs. touch is so powerful. i DON'T touch enough. i don't touch anyone. is that normal? i mean.... i can't think of a situation in which people would start groping each other out of the blue but... i don't know. i can't help but think that it's odd, not to touch. if not... well.. that's sad. we're like little bumper cars trying not to hit each other. we're not playing the game right. i need to learn how to love freely. i need to install a swinging door in my heart. i used to think that it was best to let people in... then just keep them there forever. i used to think that my heart would expand to fit the entire universe, one person at a time. but that's my mind. my heart is small and cramped and airtight. nothing grows in it. nothing changes. it is greedy and old-fashioned and it's going to kill me someday.

hmm. that's all for now. i was getting to sound pretty high and mighty.. pushing my sentences to be more clever than honest and... well.... here you go. this is me. i'm so imperfect it makes me smile.

inward...outward