Reading and Writing (but no arithmetic)

Today I finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and I'm embarrassed to admit it's the first book I've read this year, and only the second book I've read in the past twelve months. It had gotten fantastic reviews and is of a subject matter that I'm consistently drawn to, that of apocalypse or post-apocalypse, so I decided to give it a go and I'm very glad I did. It's interesting, as a writer, to read someone whose style is the antithesis of mine, and when reading something this brilliant, both in its overarching themes and in the fantastic and challenging use of language, it's hard not to compare myself to that, to judge myself and deem myself unworthy. I struggle to remember what my strengths are, but am also inspired to work a bit more at my weaknesses, or to rediscover what abilities I might have had in the past that I've since misplaced. Remind me to read more. It's not a book I could recommend in a blanket sense, because of the truly disturbing themes, and there's no better evidence for that than the face that both my brother and my mother, two of the most voracious readers on the planet, turned it away as too dark. But for those who derive the same pleasure that I do from such a challenging and potentially unpleasant experience, I can't praise this book enough.

Tangentially, I've decided to do something I've never done before, which is to release a fragment of an in-progress story before the entire thing is completed. I've finsihed writing it in my notebook and am in the process of typing it up, but the typing is usually the opportunity for a sometimes dramatic revision. But for some reason, since the day I wrote this segment, I've wanted to put it out there. This is just one section in a larger story and that story is part of a larger project I'm working on, a series of interconnected stories that may or may not lead somewhere.

Anyway, here it is:

We were on your bed, and silent: you didn’t speak and I couldn’t. I said everything I needed to say, what I thought I needed to say for a long time. I said it and you didn’t answer, or wouldn’t, and walked away from me, so I followed you, into the bedroom, and joined you on the bed, and waited for your response. I knew it would come eventually. The television was on, and had been the whole time, but suddenly the laugh track from the show we’d been watching was incongruous, voices echoing out of another life, mocking us. I lit a cigarette and for once you had no comment and my smoke seemed to have an uncommon weight, wafting slowly through the even heavier air, hanging languidly around us while we lay in that impenetrable air, in pregnant, impenetrable silence. That show ended and another began, one we’d never liked but neither of us moved to change it or turn it of, and eventually Harvey came to join us on in the bed, possibly aware of what was happening in the way that animals can be hyper-aware, but probably not. Probably not because he’d spent all of his life with us trying to get past the neglect he’d experienced before we found him, that night we’d found him underneath a car outside your house, just a few weeks after I’d started coming around, when I’d been around so often that your neighbors thought that I was your brother visiting from out of state. You named him Harvey after we brought him in, when he was still vaguely petrified of us, scared and defensive but also curious enough to follow us inside, and I never asked you why you picked that name, or how you chose it so decisively. Harvey padded into the room, into that quiet, and curled up on my stomach, as he’d learned to love to do, and began to purr while I stroked his neck, and then, finally, you spoke.

“Well, baby,” you said, reaching across the space between us to put your hand on Harvey’s underside, too rough, as always, or rougher than Harvey liked, though he’d learned to accept it and did not even react, still purring, oblivious, still purring. “Luke thinks he can find someone to love him more than you or me.”

Feel free to comment. You can be honest, I can take it.

Your Heart Is An Empty Room

Yesterday I saw your car, twice, for the first time in months. Today I saw it twice, but today was different: you were in it, both times. You probably saw me too. The second time, as you passed, I was listening to a song from an album you'd given me over a year ago that I had never really listened to before. I wonder how you'd react if you knew what was really going on with me. I wonder, and leave it at that.

LGB

The airport has plenty of people but everyone seems subdued, despite a military presence I've never seen here before. Maybe it's because of the date, impossible to rule out, but maybe it's the sky grey and thick with impending gloom, or maybe, just maybe, it's me.

Single Wing

7:45 a.m., I walk back from the bus stop. Marcio is off to work. I watched him climb onto the bus and I watched him move through it and I watched it drive away from me. I realize that I always have to watch him leave, whether he's visiting me or I'm visiting him, I always have to watch him leave and he never has to watch me leave, just once, that first time, I think, he took me to the airport.

I'm a bit sad, as I have been trying to ignore for the last twelve hours, that it's time for me to go home and that my visit didn't turn out at all as I'd planned, but well aware that I'd have an equally potent sadness now if things had, in fact, turned out as wonderful and romantic as I'd hoped. They successfully cancel each other out, my real sadness versus the imagined one, and I walk home. At the base of the stairs to Marcio's apartment, I find a single butterfly wing, large and yellow, and I hold it in my palm for a moment, and wonder where the butterfly with one wing has gone, and hold it, fragile, in my palm, aware that it's a thing that I'll never understand. I let the wing flutter back to the ground and go upstairs. In three hours I'll be flying home.

And on the subject of Facebook ...

...which has already consumed more of my time than I care to admit: How am I supposed to feel about finding out that my mother has beat me to the punch on this one? And... am I morally obligated to add her as a friend? (Hi Mom!)

Saying Nothing

I just haven't got all that much to say, but I suspect once I start typing, this post will write itself.

I've been having a lot of intense dreams lately, and mostly I don't remember them well past my waking moments, even when I try to cling to them. I do remember one last week where someone asked Marcio if he still was in love with me and he said, in the voice that we use to talk to each other, "Hmmm... not in love." Maybe I'm feeling needy. I didn't tell him about it. This morning I had a dream or something like one in which it came to me that maybe I should go back to school and pursue a career in a medical field, maybe follow Peter into the fast-paced world of nursing. It's worth investigating, and I will, as my life up to this point has been one meander after another.

I got a bit of writing done today on a story I've been working on for a few weeks. I expect it'll be done in a few days, and it's always pretty exciting to near the end of a story even if I know no one's gonna read it. This is the fourth in a series of short stories, a project I've been working on since February, and the first large writing project I've undertaken since ... oh ... 1995? More on this: yeah, it's been pretty fantastic to be writing again, like connecting with an old friend who is actually a bitchy taskmaster, but one that I love dearly. Nothing in this world gives me the satisfaction I get from getting a story out and now that I'm doing it again, I wonder how I survived all those years that I wasn't. This particular story has a thread to it that is nakedly autobiographical, but I always include at least a bit of myself. Write what you know. Yeah. Once I get this project finished I might try to branch into something different, since I've tamped down the dirt of the well-worn path of my own aimless history in fiction more than enough times and maybe it's time to figure out if I've got anything else in my bag of tricks, more than just a lot of unnecessary commas and the occasional mixed metaphor.

I joined Facebook while writing this post. Gulp. I have to confess, it frightens me, but social networking always scares me in the same way that I always have to hesitate before walking into a new place, and prefer to follow someone else in. It may turn out like the other sites I've joined where I basically ignore it, but it could become a new way to waste a lot of time and earn the ire of everyone who knows me. Exciting!

See? Pretty long for having nothing to say, and especially long for saying nothing.

Rare Stand

Until recently, I've avoided taking public political stances. This is in keeping with my personality, generally, since I have a hell of a time ever making up my mind, as anyone who has ever had the unfortunate experience of asking me "So where do you want to go for dinner?" can attest to. I lack the courage of conviction because I, having lived in this body for thirty-six some years, know full well those convictions will probably weaken and sway and shift in possibly the opposite direction. Then I look like an idiot for publicly announcing that the show "Survivor" is signaling the end of western civilization when it it discovered that I have gone way out of my way, and spent quite a bit of money, to watch EVERY SINGLE EPISODE of the seminal reality series. Yes, even the reunion episodes. (More on this later, probably.) So anyway, this post is not about the weakness of my character, but rather about a rare moment of strength.

So here it is:

I strongly doubt I will change my mind about Sarah Palin. I imagine she's a nice lady even if the nickname "Barracuda" is a bit troubling. I'm sure she's a good, loving wife and mother, although I'm reasonably certain I'm glad she's not MY mother. I think her husband is kinda hot. I don't necessarily believe that she's an alien-baby-carrying, pork-chewing, secessionist, flat-earth book-burner on a mission to restore three thousand year old values to the other forty-nine states, just because some trigger-fingered journalist said so. Nope, I'll form an opinion about her policies when she actually tells us what they are, but I can say without equivocation, that her selection for potential Vice President was a shameless and cynical move by the McCain campaign. Yes, I'm certain she was chosen for her executive experience, and not for the fact that she is young (balancing the ticket against her grandfather, um, I mean Mr. McCain), female, (possibly capturing angry Hillary supporters, disgruntled that the democratic process actually might have WORKED), and much more right-wing than her running mate, who either has no firm opinion on anything or just can't remember what that what opinion is. The funniest explanation of her selection can be found here. I definitely could not have said it better, and given my personality, probably wouldn't have even tried.

Oh, and whle I'm off the topic, here's an interesting post by my brother that makes this entire seem thing seem irrelevant.