Green Tea and Vitamin I

Waiting for the ibuprofen and green tea to kick in this morning. That's right, when things get rough, I go for the hard drugs...

a little merwin

The Unwritten

Inside this pencil
crouch words that have never been written
never been spoken
never been taught

they’re hiding

they’re awake in there
dark in the dark
hearing us
but they won’t come out
not for love not for time not for fire

even when the dark has worn away
they’ll still be there
hiding in the air
multitudes in days to come may walk through them
breathe them
be none the wiser

what script can it be
that they won’t unroll
in what language
would I recognize it
would I be able to follow it
to make out the real names
of everything

maybe there aren’t
many
it could be that there’s only one word
and it’s all we need
it’s here in this pencil

every pencil in the world
is like this

Wicked Cool

this may be the coolest bit of flash animation i've seen.

that's all.

Down Here at the Pawn Shop...

Yes, it's true. With the help of the stalwart Vinny, I picked out a kick ass black guitar at the pawn shop last night. Not that I know how to play it of course, but that's just details. The important thing is that I will look cool trying. Hell, it even looks cool leaning up against the wall in the corner of the room. Last I night I got it home, relatively tuned, and leaned it up against the wall. I turned on my laptop and opened the assignment that is due at 8 am this morning. I looked from one to the other: guitar....paper....guitar....paper....
In the end, I picked guitar (typical). I convinced myself that I could think about my paper while I plinked, thereby accomplishing everything at once (I rule at this kind of rationalization). Papers come and go, and get handed in regardless. As this one will be, in about 15 minutes.
Speaking of Johnny Cash, a little wisdom from the man in black: "You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget your mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space."

Thank god for Spring Break. My energy is just petering out, dribbling away throughout the semester. I could actually use spring break this week, but it's kind of nice that i will actually be as far at the end of my rope as I can be, and then will be rescued by some serious time off. I have to admit it, I'm a wimp: the commuting thing is starting to get me down. You'd think it'd be harder during the dead of winter, when I'm leaving in the dark and such. But no, it's right about now, halfway through the semester, when my shoulders begin to protest ill-usages. I have to admit, they have a point: books and laptops and duffle bags and skis and extra boots, etc. etc. My car has reverted back to my second home (more than it was already): extra clothes live there, music, overdue books, empty coke bottles and coffee cups. I've never understood people whose cars aren't full of stuff like that. Who are these people, and how do they keep their cars so clean? More to the point, what does that say about them (or me)?

Inspiration

I have discovered something important: inspiration comes in small doses fairly frequently. I always thought inspiration was big, was always waiting for that lightning bolt to smack me on the head. But inspiration is little, mundane, and if you’re not watching for it, it can slip by you. Unfortunately, recognizing it is only part of it; then you have to record it.

Every time inspiration strikes you will tell yourself – That’s so cool. There’s no way I’ll forget something like that. But you will. You will. You will. You have to get it down somehow. This is the hardest part for me, because I am unforgivably, unapologetically lazy. My best ideas come in three places: cozy in bed on the edge of sleep, in the shower, and while driving. In each of these situations it is so easy to just brush the ideas off. I am not one to relinquish a cozy bed in the middle of the night (I would use a chamber pot if I could bring myself to). Nor am I the type to jump out mid-shower when the phone rings, much less when inspiration calls. Usually I have something in the proximity of the bed that I can use to take notes, because I know this about myself. If I am in the shower, I holler for Jason, and he (if I ask nicely) will bring pen and paper, and has even, on occasion, taken dictation while sitting on the toilet lid (God, I love that man. He gets me, he really does). If I am driving I have this little notebook that floats around my car, and if it’s a short thought, I will write it while I’m driving (with a pencil so there are no ink/gravity issues as I brace the notebook against the steering wheel). If its more than a few words, I will probably pull over.

Paradoxically, you only realize the importance of doing stuff like this after you do it for a while. Because these scraps are probably some of the coolest shit you will ever think up. If you don’t capture it, if you only write stuff that you’ve carefully constructed, you will miss all those brilliant flashes your mind is capable of. You will be recording your second-rate thoughts, the silver medals, the ones whose routines were technically flawless and aesthetically perfect. Not the gold medals, the difference being that spark, the charisma, the unexpected triple axel (ugh, I hate that I'm using an olympic ice skating metaphor, but there it is), the ballsy thoughts, the ones where you hang out over the edge, knowing that if you fall you’re going down hard. These are the ones.

The ones that you find a year later and read, not remembering or believing that they came out of your head. You accept the fact that it is your handwriting, it must belong to you, and you smile, proudly, foolishly, like a starry-eyed first-time parent. This is from me? I created it? Well, what do you know, it’s not bad (followed by another foolish smile). Finding these little scraps is one of the few ways that I surprise myself regularly.