weary as water

every time i blink i have a tiny dream

Monthly Archives: February 2006

choose your own adventure

it is one of the coldest nights of the year – about 25F. your significant other is coming over to visit. you hear the car pull up, hear the door lock beep. you wait. a few minutes later, she comes in the door, apologizing. apparently there is an old guy passed out in the middle of the street.do you:
a. leave him there.
b. call the cops.
c. call an ambulance.
d. go out and talk to him.

if you’re me, you choose (d). it’s too cold for anybody to be out, and he can’t stand up enough to get out of the middle of the street. plus, cops in the neighborhood like to rough people up.

so, we tried to talk to him, tried to get him home. ended up riding in the back of a frat boy truck, holding him up and on, feet dangling. he couldn’t tell us where to go, and we tried to drop him off but he just drug himself into the street and collapsed again, so we took him to the e.r. at least it was warm there, and emily knew the lady behind the counter, and maybe they just let him sober up there.

i feel terribly bad about the whole thing.

we shot the world

day off today. one of the most brilliant parts about my job is the fact that i work 7:30 to 5:30 for nine days, and i get the tenth day off. i don’t really do anything fantastic on these days off – just putter around reading, drinking coffee, walking, taking pictures. i’ve become dreadfully boring, actually.

i just finished up a very enjoyable read – kafka on the shore by haruki murakami. it’s just the sort of book i want to write – blending the lines between fiction and history and philosophy and science fiction in less than 400 pages. you should read it.

another book you should read: kurt vonnegut’s a man without a country. this book had me in stiches last saturday night when emily and i went to the laundromat to wash every last bit of trey’s washables. emily was trying to study, and i kept saying “ok, i promise this is the last time i’ll distract you, but you have got to listen to this!”

i’m not very good at keeping promises, i guess. unless i really mean them.

my dream? to take over an abandoned building with a couple of friends in a place with squatter’s rights. an infoshop/bike collective on the bottom floor, a few floors of living space (turned livable one room at a time), and an organic roof garden. maybe a darkroom in the basement. a reading room where sunlight streams in through the window in the morning.

there it is, universe. let this be the beginning of speaking dreams into truth.

for the rest of today, well, i’m taking trey out to eat indian food, and then we’re going to see “rent” at the dollar theater. in between, errands and good conversation.

Discrimination…

“I’ve experienced all kinds of discrimination,” Ohsima says. “Only people who’ve been discriminated against can really know how much it hurts. Each person feels the pain in his own way, each has his own scars. So I think I’m as concerned about fairness and justice as anybody. But what disgusts me even more are people who have no imagination. The kind T.S. Eliot calls hollow men. People who fill up that lack of imagination with heartless bits of straw, not even aware of what they’re doing. Callous people who throw a lot of empty words at you, trying to force you to do what you don’t want to…Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas – none of them bother me. I don’t care what banner they raise. but what I can’t stand are hollow people. When I’m with them I just can’t bear it, and wind up saying things I shouldn’t.
”Haruki Murakami, via the book Kafka on the Shore

i know it won’t be the same tomorrow

this week, i have found out what it means to be helpless.

let me preface all of this by saying that there are a handful of people that i would die for. i know that sounds like some exaggerated bullshit, but i really mean it.

one of those people had a crazy ex shoot herself in the head *while being restrained by my friend*. and then, the crazy ex (after shooting herself) tried to shoot my friend’s current girlfriend. no, you’re right, i *couldn’t* make this up. you know what i am? helpless to have done anything about it, helpless to do anything about it now, beyond just letting both of them know i care about them deeply and that i am here.

then, another one of those people i would die for calls me in a panic, because he is sick. sick, as in can’t walk from one end of his shotgun apartment to the other, can’t talk to me on the phone without taking a breath every few words. he’s living below hand to mouth, no insurance, has a job waiting for him if he gets better in time. i tried to help but it didn’t work out. his lack of insurance combined with his complete distrust of the medical profession is resulting in a very difficult situation. i am reminded again how helpless i am in his situation, helpless in how fucking much i care for him, helpless to do anything that would really truly help. if he’s not better by tuesday i’m dragging his sparkly little ass to the free clinic.

i only slept about an hour last night, and i’ve been clandestinely crying all day. i am so tired.