what's that movie, high fidelity?  i never saw the whole thing (for shame!) but i recall john cusack's character organizing records "autobiographically."  music sort of timestamps things, i suppose.

so: i recall picking up this album (along with ok computer, another seminal album) on a brief trip to san francisco, to attend a kiiko matsumoto (acupuncturist) conference.  the conference was at some wharf, and next door was some import car convention.  i recall seeing these "slick" people in their neon cars, and, compounded with other impressions of the city (open green spaces with people reading, ultimate frisbee), wondering what life would be like in such a place, and with someone.

i WAS accompanying someone, who was a close friend, and also my ticket for a place to stay...  i recall that, during that trip, she disclosed a secret to me, and from the moment of that disclosure, i remember feeling simultaneously very protective of her, and at the same time, incredibly distant from her.  this was the album that played in the long car ride back to l.a., to this awkward and pregnant silence.

middle of nowhere

there is a feeling of emptiness whenever someone leaves.  it is as though a piece of yourself, something that you had taken for granted, has gone.  and it's not an obvious piece, like an arm or a finger.  it's something internal and vague, like maybe someone stole a kidney in your sleep and left nothing but some neat, near-invisible scar.  it is an emptiness inside.

and suddenly, i wonder what it is that is missing.  i was being all business-as-usual, operating like a juggernaut through each successive day, with each task before me producing a focal point to be broken and resummoned, again and again and again.  the faces of those around me, and beside me, the conversations i had with them, out of peripheral vision, they were collateral conversations about the weather, or something else harmless and inconsequential...  i, they, could've been something more, but they never were allowed to be...

and now they are gone.  they have left.

and, yes, i can live without it, without them.

but i wonder if that isn't the problem?

***

i sometimes feel that there is a danger within me, like a vast abyss.  and i push words, and put distances between myself and others, to keep people from falling into me.  i guess i only have two switches: polite and reserved, or- something dangerous and beyond intimate, identity-consuming...  there is a sadness in not being able to let people in, but it's a necessary sadness.  there is no alternative but to hold the world at bay from this gravitational pull within myself.