there isn’t a right time, but there’s time

I just choose the best time for this, late at night when I can barely hold my head up, or think clearly enough to write a word, when not alone, but with casey in the room with the cat complaining because she can’t get her reading in – he thinks the edge of her book feels the best to ram his head against. so I work against the solution and a mighty hunger in the stomach. the odds are against me, so I fight against time. we have that common bond. time is going to take away our very breath. it is just a matter of how much life we have left, how much awake time we have left (though I’m awake in a different way while asleep). eyes water and the heat kicks in through the vent from time to time because it is getting colder and nothing like August. this is something new for the year, that what follows is something cooler, something tragic, and the returning anticipation of October and everything related to Halloween.

I half watched Saturday Night Live this evening. they are having a hard time getting back on their feet, and it shows. at the end of Weekend Update you could tell Tina Fey started to cry. they were flashing a relief number on the screen for the Twin Towers. it is interesting how comedy is mashed down because reality hits you in the face and there’s nothing to laugh about. much of their living is made making fun of people, and this just doesn’t seem like this is the time to do it. so it seemed kind of pathetic tonight, as do most premieres for this show. will it have to alter its format? or is it a temporary setback? will I have to get serious, get more serious, stop my joking, increase my joking, or… I think there is a reality and we’re off doing our own thing. can people talk with one another now, after all this?

I tried to explain to my wife how walking down the street, while something dangerous might occur, it is not the same as going to a protest and getting beaten down by the police. a friend says he carries weapons so to protect his hands. hands are the livelihood.

I pray from the pocket, think from the mind, step careful on the street where killer cars are all about. even at night I jump up sometimes startled at a noise. you’ve gotta be willing to fight if the moment is pressing you for it. you’ve gotta balance and not want a fight in normal circumstances though. warmongers all about. MP on the corners downtown. mysterious citizens among us planning some dread on our flags, getting truck licenses, plotting chemical warfare, half religious, half partying it up in bars on last nights. they are prepared to die. I am prepared to live through this.

Friday night notes

tired laying back in bed to write this – not the best thing. hoping for the best of all of it, that writing will flow naturally like a day where talk might come out of my mouth eloquently, where it makes sense, where talking out loud is like praying and just to get everything off the mind liberates the soul for the afternoon. I’m not sure what that heavy feeling in my stomach was this morning. something horrible was about to happen, or has already happened, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I probably made a fool out of myself to someone and though I was unable to remember the exact event, the effects lingered with me.

so I have a dark contrast for my desktop and I’m half asleep, about to turn on the radio, hoping there’s no where I’ll have to go this weekend. all obligations turned down low. relax and don’t think about work.

perhaps a day of retreat like Matthew mentions in his journals, a day without talking. reading, praying, writing, eating little… looking over at the cat.

happy ox at dinner table

we went out to eat tonight, and thanks to my wife I feel really silly and all the rest of the day and the news and all that is pushed off. tons of silly phrases come to mind that I keep screaming out and Casey isn’t even annoyed. in the grocery store I took cereal boxes and bowled them down the aisle at her. I took a can of tomato paste and bowled it a long glorious distance. in a good mood for the first time all week. such things as good moods are very important for the economy. the economy is very good for good people. let the evil people burn in hell. hell has a bad economy. they all eat white bread and drink prune juice. I spend a half hour on one single sentence and hate myself for it. all writing is not done set to a stop watch. I’m out without a driver’s license, I sing, driving down the road . . . just because it sounds funny. I park a mean parallel car. my cat is the victor of all cute and soft grey people. he does not have much to say this time around but is still more literate and intellectually well equipped than some of the people on the War on Illusion message board.

I’ve never seen so many flags in all my life. I think if you wanna go around saying how much you love your country, you should go around loving actual people. employers, stop trying to kill your staff – then bleed tri-colored on prayer day in a moment of silence. ponder that. I will go around loving people and animals and being decent at least in attempts.

just because your own mother tells you something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true. this is just a side note. inform the rest. in fact, be suspicious. the television is lacking actual television shows. it is a 24 hour mainstream media newsfest. get your mind off work, off of their dirty work. I’m speaking of all Chinese dragons here, those things are awesome. have you no respect for your town’s Chinese dragon? according to the place mat, I am the Ox. which sits okay with me. better than some things. understand your heritage means something like . . . I understand this, but I want the new things as well, to learn piano, to sculpt manuscripts voluminous like Henry Miller, nurse baby kittens, and such. these adults turn their brains off and in staff meetings have the nerve to tell me that I should go and ponder something. I have more ponderance in my insomniac baby pinky, of course which this radiates an arrogance to them when they’re paying some kind of attention and upsets their business chi.

be in a good mood if you can
don’t sink through the floor
wake up at a decent hour

I don’t know what to say to those who suffered the catastrophies first hand. I think I would be with them and cry a bit. I lost a few days of writing, due to depression, but they lost more than that. and to talk about it like I know, when I don’t . . . well there are things I won’t talk about that I do know. perhaps. where am I going? perhaps out of state with this. the entire menu is a finger pointing you out of here. it’s time to get under the foot of a different city I’m afraid. it’s time to buy up all the merchandise. it’s good for the economy. yes, a moment of silence and the phones are ringing off the hook. let the machines answer. I mean, take a message, I’m posing for my subordinates now.

unafraid?

what a sense of
accomplishment
that I replaced my
hard drive all
by myself
and what’s more
I got my mind
off things
for just a bit

for dinner we walked
up the hill
and sat quietly eating

the city was all quiet today
with military police almost on
every corner
a friend walked around the shop
saying how he wasn’t scared

yes, of course I expected all of this
in some shape or form
but I admit I’m scared for what
it could bring and it’s true
that I’m scared of death
and I’m attached to my computer
my family, friends, to my cat,
to my music collection
this was all shook yesterday
and more dreadful news unravels
from shoveling through the debris
hearing a plane in the sky now
causes paranoia
I don’t know if it’s all talk
probably when I was younger
I’d say something like that
how we’re not solely physical bodies
and you know . . . the rhetoric
it’s not that it’s unsound philosophy
but it’s just that, philosophy
until a man
becomes mature
I carry with me
these ideals
from station to station
and perhaps gradually
even detach
without telling the world
a single thing about it
without needing to

911

I don’t know why I’ve let myself get stuck in front of the television for so long, but I have, and I’ve just now managed to turn it off. my own problems seemed important to me until one plane crash turned to two, so that it turned deliberate. then the collapse of both buildings. next my own neighborhood felt the shock wave from the Pentagon. I began to cry.

on the road to pick up my wife from work, I was caught in the grid lock and the feed came through the radio, the same, but something new opening up every hour or so. finally abandoning the car in front of a restaurant, I got out and ran for about two miles and met up with her. she was calmly sitting in a ball on the sidewalk reading a book. I was so glad to find her there.

so the burden of the TV is off. I feel so informed! I’ve done much reading on message boards also. no reading of literature, nothing else. I’ve had a burritto, some salad. this grand scale sadness seems to be just the beginning. that is all I’ll say for now. I’m at least glad to be alive, and that everyone I know is okay too.