Ah, ye olde blog. I barely know thee. Struggling with whether or not to abandon this bad boy once and for all. There is only so much writing one can do. I write for work, I write for myself, I write (whine) in my journal. Really, does the world need that much of me on paper? Probably not. However, I think I’ll keep it around for times like these when I have a few minutes on my hands and I want to off-load some thoughts. The beauty of the blog is the ability to be unpredictable. And by unpredictable I mean bust out some non-sequitur shit just because you can.
To all the people on the bus who think it is an appropriate time to clip their nails. Stop. Please, for the love of all that is sanitary. There was an Asian woman behind me tonight on the bus clipping her nails and all I could think of were the little bits of keratinous shrapnel that were probably lodging themselves in my freshly washed hair. It’s times like these I want to turn around and pull an Elaine, intone through clenched jaw something cutting and justified, if not a little less than kind. I have a solid Seinfeld character in me dying to come out. I am feeling less and less inclined to restrain her these days. Not sure what’s up with that and how dangerous it could be.
So, I started reading Swann’s Way last night and so far if feels like taking a warm, aromatic bath in word-love. Within the first twenty pages he put to words something that I have been trying to describe adequately for the last two years. When reading fiction you live for the sentences, sometimes few and far between, that are just true on an almost elemental level. Reading them brings you this beautiful, quiet, existential relief. They don’t have to be deep, complex truths, they can be about something as simple as waking up and not knowing where you are, and what that feels like and what it means in those moments. Put the right way, these sentences offer us an ephemeral connection to each other; to something primary that is so god damn hard to feel sometimes. So far, Proust piles these sentences up like fruit in a basket, they’re on every single page, sometimes one right after another. It’s probably going to take me forever to read In Search of Lost Time in its entirety, and not because it’s thousands of pages long, but because I want to take my time with it. Read every word. Feel every truth and get as much relief as I can from it.
Today I had a weird image of a tattoo on the side of my left calf. I looked down at my leg and must have seen a shadow or something, but all of a sudden I felt like a different person. It only lasted for a moment but I felt like another iteration of myself, someone who could have been or still could be. Someone who would have a tattoo on her leg.
I’ve been off facebook for a couple months, and it’s been interesting. I feel like the last person to get a cell phone or something. Strike that, I am the last person to get a cell phone. A smartphone to be specific. It’s amazing how rapidly total saturation happens. Everyone I know, with the exception of one or two people, has a smartphone. The busboy at the restaurant I occasionally work at has a smartphone. At some point it’s like satellite dishes on the sides of trailers. Like, really? What’s necessary gets irrevocably warped to the point that soon it’s just reality. I wonder if I’m being a little petulant and anti-social by not being on facebook or having an iPhone. A willful, nasty little luddite. The crazy part is that I love technology, I find it just as fun and intriguing and engaging as the next person. I miss facebook, I do. I feel like I went down the rabbit hole, saw how seductive it was, and now I’m trying to come back out. But what happens when the world becomes the rabbit hole. That’s what San Francisco feels like right now. And I don’t like it. I wonder how long it will be before it becomes too much to fight against it, or I fold back into it.
I love the city. I love being alone, surrounded by people. On Sunday I was having an “I hate everyone and everything” day, and I went to Ocean Beach, sat at a café for three hours, and wrote and felt better. I like watching people and being around them, but a lot of the time I don’t want to talk to them. If you live in a small town, this is impossible. In Missoula I felt like I couldn’t get away by blending into the masses and it drove me nuts.
Susan Miller says the end of my current money woes is in sight. November 18th to be exact. Hallelujah! After two months of multiple irons in the fire, I will look forward to having a few things settled, and indeed Susan’s right, there is (fingers crossed) an end in sight to the Fall 2010 Savings Depletion Extravaganza.
I have a thing for ersatz French cafes. I’m in one right now. They play the right music, dim the lights appropriately, and have nice wine. They’re not quite France. But they’re close(ish). God bless Francophiles everywhere.
I’ve only been gone from Europe for three months and I’m already dreaming of when I can go back, maybe semi-permanently. But that is awhile off for now, so I must instead focus on inter-continental travel at hand, i.e. my trip home for xmas. I haven’t seen my linny lou for almost seven months since our ill-timed vacations did not overlap. It’s far too long. So, come December it will be sisterpalooza in Portland and the three of us will be unleashed on the coast and it will be a beautiful thing indeed.
Viva La Blog.
