2003-05-16 - 9:42 a.m.: lactic acid

volunteered at a middle school spelling bee last night...basically my job was to sit at a table outside the auditorium and ask these kids, as they came in, whether or not their names were spelled correctly on the registration list. we of course were doing it so no mistakes would be made in printing the award certificates, but this wasn't immediately obvious to the kids. most of them thought i was joking. i'd point to each kid's name on my sheet and ask: "would you mind telling me if this is spelled correctly?" she/he would stare at me for a moment, with a lopsided grin and eyebrows that asked, "what kind of lame-ass spelling bee is this?" then shrug and look it over. only the older ones, though... the younger kids really got into it and felt proud when they nodded or pointed out an error. very businesslike. it was fun.

there were also some pretty touching moments... this is NOT a wealthy school district, un-wealthy families... and the bee cost $10 per kid. lots of pitching in, lots of sharing... one principal paid for the almost-twenty kids from her school out of her own pocket. nice.

while it was going on, the younger siblings of the competitors would be dragged out to the lobby (where i was) and let loose, to run in crooked circles around pillars and weave in and out of doorways and halls playing tag. SO fun to watch... i really couldn't stop laughing. i don't know how parents get that dulllllled look that you can see in their eyes when they stare at their shoes, or vaguely peer at their children from behind folded hands. i imagine it has nothing to do with them. i imagine it has to do with worrying about bills, workloads, broken telephones, affairs, morning arguments, poor sex... because when you look at the energy of these kids *clearly*... with nothing in the way� you have to smile. really. that's just the way it is.

after that... tried to celebrate d's b-day... i was definitely WAY too tired to do anything...(tried suggesting that we wait for a sunnier day to hang out, etc)... but i think he was pretty geared up for it, so we went to mac's... ate too-salty popcorn, drank beer and listened to an amateur hard-metal band (not as bad as you might think). i think i had fun. after that... ate too much ice cream in the kitchen of the house that will always feel a little bit like home, and a little bit like purgatory.

hanging out with des and lush was...i don't know. the tricks that always used to fool me are becoming increasingly transparent, clumsy. i don't know if i'm getting smarter or the magician's slipping...but either way, it's a sad feeling. i don't want to make fun of the little girl who gets excited at every handkerchief-dove, even though she's a little dumb.

some things you just like to believe in. and THAT, my friend, is the tragic part.

i'm not trying to be poetic, here. i'm trying to be vague.

i want honesty. i want real connections. i don't know if i've ever had that, though i thought that i did. i think i did. i thunk i did. it may be that i... fall too easily for cleverness. pretty words. that's the only thing that saves me, now... acting so tough, everything's fodder for a joke or wisecrack. but it gives me that feeling that you get (or maybe you don't) when you start telling a funny story but in the middle realize that you're telling it just a little bit wrong, a little off, but that you can't backtrack without feeling like an ass, so you go with it, knowing that it won't be funny... knowing that you shouldn't have said anything at all, but also knowing that giving up on it now will make you look like a chump who can't tell a funny story. you laugh at yourself, but you want to cry.

this afternoon, playing ultimate frisbee for charity.

this is one fucked-up world.

you have to love it.

(speaking of fucked-up, i was thinking about capitalism again... this always happens, now, when i ingest any kind of toxic substance, wonder why...and i thought of relativity and parallel universes and i began to think of the implications... there exists for every possible human life a world in which he or she or zee or it is ON THE TOP of it all and ON THE BOTTOM of it all... a "meek shall in inherit the earth" sorta deal, except it's not *this* earth that they'll inherit...and then i thought about choice, free will...and how if every possible situation is already set up, has already gone through all possible motions, there really isn't any.... so i thought about the universe as being like a multi-dimensional *screen*... with *pixels* capable of being any color, shape, size, smell, wavelength, etc., etc., etc. pixels that contain an INFINITE number of possibilities...now this "screen" is powered by--made meaningful by--interpreted by--minds...souls... whatever you want to call them...as we make choices, we're basically navigating through realities that already exist--no no... are *waiting to be existed*--linking them together by choices, creating a path through a maze with no right answer. and that's how we can call ourselves free. i think. i haven't said that right, at all... but i hope i've put enough down to remind me, later, of how to get back there and think about it more thoroughly...)

AND chemistry. gotta think about chemicals as codes... messages. not binary but something very else. other. i am so ixequrtled.

inward...outward