springtime and the promise of an open fist

thursday evening with emily riding around town until we met jonas, ellie and patrick on the street. a loud bar where we ate pizza and watched orange girls with drunkness talk things at orange boys with sharp hair. an elderly man in a tan suit passed out fliers proclaiming the band on stage, who sang about redemption. into the cool evening and then to a pub where people were paler. friday, outdoor foods grilled up into the air and our stomachs, and free beer. settling evening on the parking lots and industrial buildings and far trees shaking in the wind. planes ranging quietly above. emily braided a soft braid on one side of her hair, wore a simple dress. patrick bloodied his foot while we played basketball in the parking lot. then someone stole his bed, so we crashed at our house, ate food, and opened the windows. saturday and bloody marys and blackened tilapia and in in in the day, blue and high blooming clouds and those shookup trees and trees and trees. lost in neighborhoods looking for a new rental, humid and quiet on porches, yes here it is, it is here now, okay, i'm okay again.

david erlewine has a great thing at Necessary Fiction, here, which i think i'm about a week late on. still, read it. here's his blog, please look out for him, there will be one of his books shortly, i know it.

this happened like this

i don't know why i don't feel like myself in the presence of other people. i don't know why i say the things i say or why i repeat certain words like competent, interesting, that reminds me, tangentially. sometimes if someone speaks at me with an accent i will begin using a similar accent. sometimes if someone brushes their hair away from their face i will do the same, though no hair is there to be brushed away. last week i showed the film Waking Life by Richard Linklater because i've had to teach this composition class all semester based in different philosophies. so i thought that film would be a good way to 'wrap up' the class. the same day i began showing the movie someone on htmlgiant posted the article written by PKD that is discussed at the end of the film. which is strange, especially considering what the PKD article is about. i don't believe this means anything but i wish it did. then i found myself thinking of 'coincidence' a lot and not believing in it, which is not to say that i believe in anything else.

also: there is a new issue of elimae out with a writing by a good friend, Patrick Whitfill, here. also: another friend far overseas has a story at SLQ, here. i remember the Turtle Creek well. i was drunk once there.

mood: even-tempered, distant, very close to robotic.

weather: sunshiny but cold.

food: a bean burrito with habenero sauce.

drink: Hansen's soda, tangerine lime.

money: federal refund check.

confusion: mild in depth but encompassing most things.

level of tiredness: moderate.

cleanliness of apartment, life, mind: moderate.

afternoon

i believe i need to stop getting drunk every weekend.

i believe i need to stop eating chile poblano's so much.

we drank margarita's at around two on saturday, went to I Love You, Man, all of us with Nalgene bottles full of whiskey or vodka then snuck into Observe and Report. we ate a mega-sized thing of popcorn in about ten minutes, before the first movie started. i drove my friend's truck home and gave some money to people on the side of the road. i don't think my body can handle 10 hours of drinking anymore. i think it's hurting my running. this is the evidence.

also, this blog will be ending soon. my year in johnson city is nearly over. we had a good run guys. wow guys we had a good run. that was a run we had guys. we made a run guys at it. what a run that was guys wow.

also, i have a new story called "Foreign" coming from Prick of the Spindle. it's a longer story. it'll be in 3.2, which i think comes out in June...

Waveland

good review in bookforum of F. Barthelme's new one. i will be ordering this soon.

i'm reading The Loser by Thomas Bernhard right now. it might be the best novel i've read all year (year meaning school year), but i'm not finished with it yet.

some wants

i want to beg to care and not care

i want to touch your face with my face

until our faces stop touching and we say goodbye

i want to undo my heart from yours

because they're knotted angrily

i want winter gone like i want many of the people i know gone

i want no surprises i want intense and painful boredom (ha ha, have a nice day)

i want to feel you like a knife inside me undoing my knottedness in the same way

i want to be on a river every day

i want to be lost at some gas station outside montgomery after being on a river every day

i want the end of a hangover illuminating an afternoon the way the end of hangovers do

i want this to happen in Dallas

i never want a cell phone or pay phone or any other sort of phone in my ear making me hear things i don't want to hear about

instead a wind in my ear is what i want

i want to be someone's enemy, possibly someone who consider themselves to be an artist or the man at so many bars who decides i'm the one he wants to dislike

if this cannot happen, i will make an enemy of you if that is alright