it's sunday. we went over to the farmer's market this morning. i bought some oxtail pho (which i've yet to eat) and then, when we stopped off at longs, i bought a thai iced tea. i really shouldn't drink the latter, because i'm lactose intolerant, and i always pay for it afterwards (and maybe those around me do too). but, hey, it's good going down, right?
i've kind of been drifting through this weekend... not doing much. i have a hard time recalling what i've done. yesterday, i could've sworn that my wife and i went somewhere or did something, but i can't remember what. oh yes, yesterday, actually, my entire family (including the dog) went over the pearlridge. it was actually pretty crowded over there. a lot of people in masks, which is good, but not particularly practicing social distancing. we went ostensibly to get brunch, which was from that philly cheese steak place, charly's. my sandwich was meh. i couldn't even finish it... after that, i kind of escorted the kids to all their favorite places, which included gamestop, razor concepts, box lunch, and the new mini q... i don't know. maybe at a certain point, you start seeing that all of these little "entertainments" are pretty pointless. i mean, it's somewhat ironic, because i am all about trying to write stories and stuff, and yet, i don't particularly believe in "entertainment" for its own sake... what's the deal with that?
*****
i have been gradually working on composting. i am trying to read a few books and watch a few videos on composting. one book, the complete guide of composting, is this huge picture filled book that's just impossible to read. i mean, it meanders all over the place. it keeps referring to certain techniques (on page 168) without actually getting into it. hate stuff like that. so i opted to read another book, which is called the rodale book of composting. i guess this guy rodale was supposed to be some sort of expert on composting. it's somewhat better. the chapters i've read have all been explaining the science behind composting, and why the end product of good composting, this thing called humus, is beneficial to plants.
in my own yard, i've been collecting weeds, which i intend to use as the green portion of my composting. i've also been raking up dead leaves, to use as the carbon (brown) portion. oh yeah, i also have continued to feed my batch of worms... although i haven't set them up for success in a real vermicomposting bin... they are still essentially living in their own poop.
*****
why do we do what we do?
i guess, like nietzche implied, those that ask those sorts of questions too often are of "weaker" moral character, in the sense that they are separated from the flow of life for too long. when you are "in the moment" and "in the dream", you don't really question things so much.
so the problem isn't a "why" one. it's more of a "how." how do we re-enter the flow of life?
again, for me, i take no pleasure in the things that most people do... i'm pretty boring in a sense. i actually enjoy caring for things, and finding ways to improve myself. that's ALL i've been doing for this prolonged break, even if the results were pretty meager... sometimes i wonder if i'm missing out on something... honestly, though, if it weren't for the pressure of other people, i think i would just continue living like this... kind of like leon from the professional... before he met matilda.
Sunday, July 12, 2020
Friday, July 10, 2020
7/10/2020
i guess i finished david sedaris's master class. as a bonus, he included a reading of "a spirit world." it was an interesting story. sedaris is good at lightly stitching elements together to form a sort of gestalt. it is reminiscent of the go master (from yasunari kawabata). i can't recall the two players in the game, but one is the acknowledged master (from the old school), and the other is a player from the new generation. the challenger plays in an aggressive, systematic way. but the old master plays in such a way that motive is mysterious. structures and formation rise up like the morning mist (i'm paraphrasing here, but that was the impression i remember distinctly). it is difficult to do anything, much less write, in this sort of fashion, to lead the reader along without really hinting where everything is going. i would like to- i aspire to- write like this. even if it is lost on a majority of readers, that, to me, is high art.
sometimes, it would happen. i would write something without fully realizing things, or being completely aware of things, and then at the end, or even at a successive reading, i would see a pattern in what i had constructed. that is the magic of writing, or of any art... the construction of a higher order or pattern, through the mundane stitching together of lines or words. it is like- looking at the surface of the sea- and at first only concerned with the play of light upon the surface... and then, not different from what you are already looking at, you see the underlying world beneath... with all of its wonder and horror... and you realize that you were ALWAYS looking at it, it's just you didn't SEE it. i always think that that is what is so wonderful about drawing... how you stitch together lines, shade in different shapes... and then gradually a face and a form appear off the flat of the page. and maybe even a feeling...
*****
the dog doesn't love me. i'm not someone who particularly engenders love in others. i'm sure there would be people who disagree with that, to my face, but it's true.
if my wife came home, then the dog would practically whine with excitement just inside the screen door. and then he would circle around her, and practically jump and lean his paws against her shins... that's love.
and when my wife is not home, then there is an emptiness within the dog. a chamber of the heart is unoccupied.
even when the dog comes up to me, lying in front of the computer, and sidles up against my body... i know that he is just settling. and waiting for what is better. what is true.
i have felt this way for most of my life. aware that the world just settles for me. aware that the world is always tolerating me, and just passing the time, waiting for what they would really like. what would really turn them on.
that's, i guess, the main part of me, this sadness.
i wish i could be what people wanted. i think that's what i really try for. that's what all this busy-ness is about. to be useful, for one thing. to be helpful. to be kind. to be productive... but there's a line that i don't cross. i don't actively try to be wanted. because deep down, i know that it can't be true.
the dog always loves someone else.
*****
sometimes, i feel like i am wasting my time. but a part of me, this summer, doesn't care. i'm not particularly restless. i don't really miss being around people. i think i "go out" primarily for the benefit of other people. i go out just to make the people around me happy. i mean, sure, i get some collateral benefit from going out too. like, i appreciate seeing other parts of the island, and such. but i would never go out alone, for instance. my eyes, my skin, for some reason, they don't connect to any internal want. i literally only justify things by the happiness of those around me.
at the same time, there is this internal compulsion. this dream of being better. i can question the absurdity of it. i can try to break it down. but at this point in the game, like george jetson on the treadmill, i can't stop it. it's a part of me. to deny it is to walk with this absence and guilt. so i play this game, even if it has no end, and is without a purpose...
maybe that is my "someone else." it is to be that which i promised i would be. i don't know if that makes sense... but.
*****
holden caufield only loves people when they are dead. isn't that funny? that is similar to me. not that i only love people when they are dead, but that i believe that people will only love me when i am dead. as a living thing, it is impossible to see who a person is. but in the "safety" of death, when all is supposedly said and done, and all accounts are settled... when there is no "threat" of yet another final word to mess up the ending of the story... well, it is okay then to cry about a person, and to claim how much you loved them and how much you will miss them... because they're no longer in the game.
isn't that so ironic? and fucked up?
i say "i love you" whenever i can. but is it a habit, maybe something simply done out of compulsion? why can't we "feel" an appreciation for those who are alive, WHEN they are alive? (and sometimes we can't even feel that appreciation when people are dead?) why are we so dead inside?
i guess that's part of my quest, through all these routines... i said it before, but i want to melt. because in melting, all that is dead and frozen within me will be freed. i think i could remember again. and maybe in that remembering, i could feel again. feel the richness of being alive. WHILE alive.
sometimes, it would happen. i would write something without fully realizing things, or being completely aware of things, and then at the end, or even at a successive reading, i would see a pattern in what i had constructed. that is the magic of writing, or of any art... the construction of a higher order or pattern, through the mundane stitching together of lines or words. it is like- looking at the surface of the sea- and at first only concerned with the play of light upon the surface... and then, not different from what you are already looking at, you see the underlying world beneath... with all of its wonder and horror... and you realize that you were ALWAYS looking at it, it's just you didn't SEE it. i always think that that is what is so wonderful about drawing... how you stitch together lines, shade in different shapes... and then gradually a face and a form appear off the flat of the page. and maybe even a feeling...
*****
the dog doesn't love me. i'm not someone who particularly engenders love in others. i'm sure there would be people who disagree with that, to my face, but it's true.
if my wife came home, then the dog would practically whine with excitement just inside the screen door. and then he would circle around her, and practically jump and lean his paws against her shins... that's love.
and when my wife is not home, then there is an emptiness within the dog. a chamber of the heart is unoccupied.
even when the dog comes up to me, lying in front of the computer, and sidles up against my body... i know that he is just settling. and waiting for what is better. what is true.
i have felt this way for most of my life. aware that the world just settles for me. aware that the world is always tolerating me, and just passing the time, waiting for what they would really like. what would really turn them on.
that's, i guess, the main part of me, this sadness.
i wish i could be what people wanted. i think that's what i really try for. that's what all this busy-ness is about. to be useful, for one thing. to be helpful. to be kind. to be productive... but there's a line that i don't cross. i don't actively try to be wanted. because deep down, i know that it can't be true.
the dog always loves someone else.
*****
sometimes, i feel like i am wasting my time. but a part of me, this summer, doesn't care. i'm not particularly restless. i don't really miss being around people. i think i "go out" primarily for the benefit of other people. i go out just to make the people around me happy. i mean, sure, i get some collateral benefit from going out too. like, i appreciate seeing other parts of the island, and such. but i would never go out alone, for instance. my eyes, my skin, for some reason, they don't connect to any internal want. i literally only justify things by the happiness of those around me.
at the same time, there is this internal compulsion. this dream of being better. i can question the absurdity of it. i can try to break it down. but at this point in the game, like george jetson on the treadmill, i can't stop it. it's a part of me. to deny it is to walk with this absence and guilt. so i play this game, even if it has no end, and is without a purpose...
maybe that is my "someone else." it is to be that which i promised i would be. i don't know if that makes sense... but.
*****
holden caufield only loves people when they are dead. isn't that funny? that is similar to me. not that i only love people when they are dead, but that i believe that people will only love me when i am dead. as a living thing, it is impossible to see who a person is. but in the "safety" of death, when all is supposedly said and done, and all accounts are settled... when there is no "threat" of yet another final word to mess up the ending of the story... well, it is okay then to cry about a person, and to claim how much you loved them and how much you will miss them... because they're no longer in the game.
isn't that so ironic? and fucked up?
i say "i love you" whenever i can. but is it a habit, maybe something simply done out of compulsion? why can't we "feel" an appreciation for those who are alive, WHEN they are alive? (and sometimes we can't even feel that appreciation when people are dead?) why are we so dead inside?
i guess that's part of my quest, through all these routines... i said it before, but i want to melt. because in melting, all that is dead and frozen within me will be freed. i think i could remember again. and maybe in that remembering, i could feel again. feel the richness of being alive. WHILE alive.
dream: 7/10/2020
i had yet another williams-ish dream. again, in this dream, there was some class that i was taking that i was doing poorly in. actually, it seemed further in the quarter, and there were assignments that i had not done. i recall looking in some file box, and seeing everyone else's "tests" turned in, but not mine, because i hadn't done it... there was a sense of mild panic in this, because i knew i couldn't make it up.
then there was another strange part of the dream, where dr. fauci, apparently my history teacher, came up to me, and asked to speak to me. when i went to his office, he told me that he hadn't realized that i had taken the same course before, and that he needed to improve my participation and morality (?) grades, because up until then he had been giving me low scores on these, based on my participation in class... i remember thinking, how could he make judgments on these things when i hadn't really turned anything in for the class?
in any case, i had this mild thought that i needed to talk to some registrar or something, because i was essentially paying for a class i had already passed before.
not much else in this dream... except this. when i returned to my dorm room, it felt so profoundly empty and lonely. unlike in previous dreams, there was no one around. i remember recalling that none of my friends were at the school any more. phil had already graduated. and i remember looking at the four walls of the dorm room and feeling incredibly... i don't know. i was starving, but i recall not really wanting to go out into that emptiness to get something.
then there was another strange part of the dream, where dr. fauci, apparently my history teacher, came up to me, and asked to speak to me. when i went to his office, he told me that he hadn't realized that i had taken the same course before, and that he needed to improve my participation and morality (?) grades, because up until then he had been giving me low scores on these, based on my participation in class... i remember thinking, how could he make judgments on these things when i hadn't really turned anything in for the class?
in any case, i had this mild thought that i needed to talk to some registrar or something, because i was essentially paying for a class i had already passed before.
not much else in this dream... except this. when i returned to my dorm room, it felt so profoundly empty and lonely. unlike in previous dreams, there was no one around. i remember recalling that none of my friends were at the school any more. phil had already graduated. and i remember looking at the four walls of the dorm room and feeling incredibly... i don't know. i was starving, but i recall not really wanting to go out into that emptiness to get something.
Thursday, July 9, 2020
7/8/2020
today was yet another uneventful day. but i think i got a lot done, in terms of my routines... i've been experimenting with color in my drawings. it's still very basic. i'm following the instructions from betty edwards's "drawing on the right side of the brain." she basically talks about using colored paper as background, and selecting (at first) only two colors to draw with, preferably one that's darker, and another that is its near compliment. so today, i drew on orange paper with a brown pencil and a peach pencil (i know, they aren't complimentary). i first start with the darker pencil, and try to shade in all of the darkest regions. this tends to take a long time, as i'm essentially mapping out the drawing with the dark pencil. then, there's this thing called "heightening," where you color in the lightest portions with your other color. it turned out okay, although i think ideally, what happens is that you have dark regions (delineated by your dark color) and highlights (delineated by your light color), and magically, everything else sort of gets "filled in" by the eye as the middle shades, basically the background color of the paper...
i also got a chance to meditate earlier in the day... it's a practice in being nonjudgmental. there's a lot of crap in my head... random stuff. like tunes that won't go away. or shapes in the carpet that keep arising to represent images or faces or things, only to dissolve into other shapes. or just people...
one thing that i notice is that certain people or situations have a kind of nervous energy about them. i don't clearly understand the associations, they don't make any rational sense, but in meditation, i can sort of detect that baseline disturbance. like, for example, i often think of people and their judgments, and it instantly carries this energy of weariness or defensiveness or despair... in a very minute way. but i notice that these sorts of thoughts will flash and shift my mood subtly. my hope is that, through meditation, and through awareness of these images/thoughts, i will slowly be able to "decouple" things... i recall that, i believe, charlotte joko beck (zen teacher) once talked about the importance of decoupling thoughts from feelings... and that the source of their compusive energy is this lack of awareness, this conjoining and confounding of thought-images with emotional energy...
*****
i've been doing my 4 page freewriting. it doesn't lead to anything "productive" in the sense of being publishable, or even remotely public. but i kind of have looked on the practice as a sort of free association psychological exercise. i try to write INSTANTLY each thought that comes into my mind. and as a result, it's strange, but i've started to remember things in my past. little details. i've mentioned this before, but it's really my hope that i can relive my past a bit more. for the longest time, i feel as though i've been dead to myself. i only recall the past in very general (and often negative) ways. for example, college was a time of loneliness and despair... actually so was post-college life... actually... so when wasn't i lonely and filled with despair??? but, like what i was talking about with meditation, that "image" of that time is just a symbol, something that is a frozen lake... there are still living fish swimming below the surface... and all i have to do is look closer, and "decouple" that association of sadness from that time and that place... and hopefully, everything will come alive again...
*****
musubi got sick from eating some tomatoes. my wife made an omelette for him, and put in some chopped tomatoes. we had googled it just before feeding him, and most of the articles said that tomatoes were fine to feed to dogs. as long as they were ripe. these tomatoes were pretty ripe, but not entirely. i think that's what made musubi sick. he's been very lethargic, and unable to do simple things like jump on the bed, or climb the stairs... it seems as though he's aged a lot. anyway, we finally took him to the vet today. the vet didn't really find anything particularly unusual... but we're going to do a stool test... and we did buy some antibiotics for him... so hopefully, we will have our good old musubi back...
one thing... i hate to admit it, but i am kind of abusive to musubi. not in any overt way. but i annoy him a lot. i kiss him, and stroke him, and he hates it. he growls instinctively whenever i approach him. i don't think he hates me. i mean, he comes to me a lot when i'm typing on the computer, and just sort of sits beside me, so that our sides touch. or he plays with me, bringing his rope toy or his banana for me to throw around. so a part of him tolerates me. but i'm definitely not his favorite...
i've thought a lot about why i can be mean to musubi. lynn mentioned that the way you treat a dog (or any other harmless animal) is how you really are inside. really? i guess i am a bastard inside... i tried to reflect on this. my excuse is that the dog repeats an issue i've had for much of my life. see, musubi LOVES my wife. and me, i'm just someone he tolerates. i'm always second fiddle. so the way i treat the dog is with this awareness that i'm not someone he really wants to be around. i think that this is a repetition of my situation with my brother. everyone LOVED him. and me, i'm just this pale substitute that people always tolerate.
i honestly think that way of most interactions. like with most people, i'm always thinking that they just want to get away from me. maybe it's mutual. maybe it's a projection on my part. because i'm uncomfortable around most people, i just keep thinking, what do they want of me? i suppose that i live my life trying to give people what they want, not because i really enjoy people (i don't- i feel uncomfortable around them), but because it seems as though that might make them happy? which leads to the issue of self-hatred... because i think my brother taught me to hate myself... and then i took the job upon myself... because if there's one thing i can do better than anyone else, it's hate myself...
i also got a chance to meditate earlier in the day... it's a practice in being nonjudgmental. there's a lot of crap in my head... random stuff. like tunes that won't go away. or shapes in the carpet that keep arising to represent images or faces or things, only to dissolve into other shapes. or just people...
one thing that i notice is that certain people or situations have a kind of nervous energy about them. i don't clearly understand the associations, they don't make any rational sense, but in meditation, i can sort of detect that baseline disturbance. like, for example, i often think of people and their judgments, and it instantly carries this energy of weariness or defensiveness or despair... in a very minute way. but i notice that these sorts of thoughts will flash and shift my mood subtly. my hope is that, through meditation, and through awareness of these images/thoughts, i will slowly be able to "decouple" things... i recall that, i believe, charlotte joko beck (zen teacher) once talked about the importance of decoupling thoughts from feelings... and that the source of their compusive energy is this lack of awareness, this conjoining and confounding of thought-images with emotional energy...
*****
i've been doing my 4 page freewriting. it doesn't lead to anything "productive" in the sense of being publishable, or even remotely public. but i kind of have looked on the practice as a sort of free association psychological exercise. i try to write INSTANTLY each thought that comes into my mind. and as a result, it's strange, but i've started to remember things in my past. little details. i've mentioned this before, but it's really my hope that i can relive my past a bit more. for the longest time, i feel as though i've been dead to myself. i only recall the past in very general (and often negative) ways. for example, college was a time of loneliness and despair... actually so was post-college life... actually... so when wasn't i lonely and filled with despair??? but, like what i was talking about with meditation, that "image" of that time is just a symbol, something that is a frozen lake... there are still living fish swimming below the surface... and all i have to do is look closer, and "decouple" that association of sadness from that time and that place... and hopefully, everything will come alive again...
*****
musubi got sick from eating some tomatoes. my wife made an omelette for him, and put in some chopped tomatoes. we had googled it just before feeding him, and most of the articles said that tomatoes were fine to feed to dogs. as long as they were ripe. these tomatoes were pretty ripe, but not entirely. i think that's what made musubi sick. he's been very lethargic, and unable to do simple things like jump on the bed, or climb the stairs... it seems as though he's aged a lot. anyway, we finally took him to the vet today. the vet didn't really find anything particularly unusual... but we're going to do a stool test... and we did buy some antibiotics for him... so hopefully, we will have our good old musubi back...
one thing... i hate to admit it, but i am kind of abusive to musubi. not in any overt way. but i annoy him a lot. i kiss him, and stroke him, and he hates it. he growls instinctively whenever i approach him. i don't think he hates me. i mean, he comes to me a lot when i'm typing on the computer, and just sort of sits beside me, so that our sides touch. or he plays with me, bringing his rope toy or his banana for me to throw around. so a part of him tolerates me. but i'm definitely not his favorite...
i've thought a lot about why i can be mean to musubi. lynn mentioned that the way you treat a dog (or any other harmless animal) is how you really are inside. really? i guess i am a bastard inside... i tried to reflect on this. my excuse is that the dog repeats an issue i've had for much of my life. see, musubi LOVES my wife. and me, i'm just someone he tolerates. i'm always second fiddle. so the way i treat the dog is with this awareness that i'm not someone he really wants to be around. i think that this is a repetition of my situation with my brother. everyone LOVED him. and me, i'm just this pale substitute that people always tolerate.
i honestly think that way of most interactions. like with most people, i'm always thinking that they just want to get away from me. maybe it's mutual. maybe it's a projection on my part. because i'm uncomfortable around most people, i just keep thinking, what do they want of me? i suppose that i live my life trying to give people what they want, not because i really enjoy people (i don't- i feel uncomfortable around them), but because it seems as though that might make them happy? which leads to the issue of self-hatred... because i think my brother taught me to hate myself... and then i took the job upon myself... because if there's one thing i can do better than anyone else, it's hate myself...
Wednesday, July 8, 2020
dream: 7/8/2020
this is the second consecutive time i've dreamed of williams. apparently, i missed out on some english 100 class or something really basic... or i went to the first class and flubbed it. something about not doing the readings for the first class or anything. so i was really motivated to find the teacher of the class... i think part of it was that i needed to purchase the right books for the class (something about how i was having the class tomorrow, and i needed to buy the book today so i could read it). so anyway i was searching for the prof (in the dream, she looked like professor knopf, an actual prof i had, i think for medieval literature). anyway, i went to the correct floor, and was looking for her office. it was strange, there were some desks labeled with the correct number, but they weren't hers. some open air offices... open air, meaning that they weren't in separate rooms, and were simply desks sitting out in the hallway. and then when i went into a room towards the back, there were more desks. most unoccupied, some looking very old, and on the way to some recycling heap or something. and it was very noisy. there was the sound of some child running in the hallway...
there was some earlier part of the dream, in which there was a science student or something. someone who helped me out with gathering the basic papers for a few of my classes... some unidentified student, someone with glasses or something....
at this point, this is all i can really remember, although it seemed the dream contained more, especially in the outset.
there are always these common themes... something about finding a class, something about not doing all the readings... and struggling to make that right.
there was some earlier part of the dream, in which there was a science student or something. someone who helped me out with gathering the basic papers for a few of my classes... some unidentified student, someone with glasses or something....
at this point, this is all i can really remember, although it seemed the dream contained more, especially in the outset.
there are always these common themes... something about finding a class, something about not doing all the readings... and struggling to make that right.
Tuesday, July 7, 2020
7/7/2020
i just listened to david sedaris again. this time, he talked a lot about his influences, and i jotted down a lot fo the authors that he considered to be "good." sometime, i'll make an effort to find their books and read them.
it's funny, it's actually somewhat rare for me to read a book in awe of the writing. i mean, i can appreciate things stylistically, but not much seems to resonate with me. i thought hemingway was a bit too sparse for my tastes... i'm not sure if his work would really work nowadays. i feel that we are a far more verbose culture (or at least we pretend to be), and that hemingway's writing (and i'm going primarily with "old man and the sea") is a bit too brutish. i liked dickens (again, i'm going by what i most recently read, which in this case was "a tale of two cities"), but his sort of ornate, baroque style of writing is far beyond me; maybe dickens, to me, is on the other side of the spectrum from hemingway. i think the scope of his plot is awesome, his mastery of so many characters... i don't think i could keep track of so many people and so many events... i got flustered even in plotting out minor things...
i'm also reading "catcher in the rye" for some reason. i guess like sedaris, i'm just cycling through some of the things i was supposed to have read in high school... and i did read "catcher in the rye," but for some reason, i don't remember a lot of the details. or maybe i didn't appreciate them as i do now, being an adult. as a teenager, and a pretty sheltered teenager at that, i didn't get a lot of the sexuality that abounds in the story (even though it is precisely about raging adolescent hormones). for some reason, my memory of "rye" ends somewhere near where the elevator guy/pimp snaps the protagonist in the penis. and in my memory, they weren't particularly oblique about it. i wonder if they'd changed the text since i read it in high school... anyway, i don't recall all these other episodes that i'm reading about... the sally hayes thing, about her dressing in some miniskirt so he could watch her ass as she skated... or meeting up with that sophisticate in the bar, and listening him talk (or not talk) about eastern philosophy and older women... don't remember much of that.
my opinion of salinger's work is that it- well, i know it was admired at one point- i recall attending some writing class where one of the students- a teenaged girl- was trying to write a continuation to "catcher in the rye." and trying to emulate that voice. that annoying voice. i understand it, but perhaps i'm at a different place in life, so i find that voice grating. i also don't find it particularly endearing when the author throws in references to his dead brother. it just seems too- i don't know- formulaic. it's almost like the author times it, so that once you get so sick of caulden and his melodrama, then he'll throw a bone about his little brother, so you instantly feel sorry for him all over again... it just stops working after like the tenth time or so. (btw, i find myself emulating that whiny voice just now. swear to god. :P ).
margaret atwood... she is a writer i admire. she writes in a pretty sparse way, but each detail packs such a punch. each detail is purposeful, and playful. she does a lot of little word plays... they are wicked and evocative. in many ways, i wish i could write like her...
anyway, i do have to read more. i think my regimen calls for only reading a chapter each time (i happen to read other books when i'm on the toilet... and for those books, the progress is- well, sporadic, just like my stools :P ). sometimes, with short-chaptered books, this tends to make the progression very slow. but at least i'm moving through stuff...
btw, forgot to mention haruki murakami. aside from "hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world," which was the first book i'd ever read by him, i don't really appreciate most of his work. i may have said this before, but some of his scenes are truly nightmare inducing. the one scene i always return to was when this japanese officer was slowly and methodically flayed alive by some mongolian. it was all the more horrific because, up until then, that officer was portrayed as some stoic, matter-of-fact, brave person. but under the hours-long methodical operation, he eventually is reduced to bouts of falling unconscious and screaming uncontrollably... until he is reduced to a pile of unbound flesh... i still shudder when i think about that scene... and the idea that there are many ways to die, and that you can seem brave when you choose a quick death... but torture... that's another thing entirely... to be pinned down and awake and aware of the incredible pain and the progressive destruction of what you had considered to be your sacred self... piece by piece... that is... i can't imagine it.
anyway, i digress. that scene was from "wind up bird chronicles," which, for some reason, i didn't really get. i mean, he always/often has these weird women. and i notice that in a couple of the stories, "wind up bird chronicles" and "norwegian wood," there's a kind of redemption found through this sort of waif like girl figure. something i found too strange and formulaic. but, yes, i sometimes think it would be great to be haruki, because he seems to "get around," at least in his stories...
"1q84", by the way, had so much more potential... it seemed to be a story that wasn't sure where it was going. and it ended in a very mundane way, to my thinking. i think there was so much more potential. especially as he seemed to be trying to make the association with 1984, well, then why didn't he help us to see the horror of that alternate world? instead, it was just some story about two plots gradually coalescing. a fucking love story. that wasn't really about love. (i mean the two characters were basically strangers, aside from one momentous occurrence when they were ten years old or something. it wasn't particularly convincing to me. but then again, i'm an anti-romantic.)
oh well. i'm feeling generally optimistic that something inside of me is melting. i will continue to work at my routines, and hopefully more and more of my past and me will come alive.
it's funny, it's actually somewhat rare for me to read a book in awe of the writing. i mean, i can appreciate things stylistically, but not much seems to resonate with me. i thought hemingway was a bit too sparse for my tastes... i'm not sure if his work would really work nowadays. i feel that we are a far more verbose culture (or at least we pretend to be), and that hemingway's writing (and i'm going primarily with "old man and the sea") is a bit too brutish. i liked dickens (again, i'm going by what i most recently read, which in this case was "a tale of two cities"), but his sort of ornate, baroque style of writing is far beyond me; maybe dickens, to me, is on the other side of the spectrum from hemingway. i think the scope of his plot is awesome, his mastery of so many characters... i don't think i could keep track of so many people and so many events... i got flustered even in plotting out minor things...
i'm also reading "catcher in the rye" for some reason. i guess like sedaris, i'm just cycling through some of the things i was supposed to have read in high school... and i did read "catcher in the rye," but for some reason, i don't remember a lot of the details. or maybe i didn't appreciate them as i do now, being an adult. as a teenager, and a pretty sheltered teenager at that, i didn't get a lot of the sexuality that abounds in the story (even though it is precisely about raging adolescent hormones). for some reason, my memory of "rye" ends somewhere near where the elevator guy/pimp snaps the protagonist in the penis. and in my memory, they weren't particularly oblique about it. i wonder if they'd changed the text since i read it in high school... anyway, i don't recall all these other episodes that i'm reading about... the sally hayes thing, about her dressing in some miniskirt so he could watch her ass as she skated... or meeting up with that sophisticate in the bar, and listening him talk (or not talk) about eastern philosophy and older women... don't remember much of that.
my opinion of salinger's work is that it- well, i know it was admired at one point- i recall attending some writing class where one of the students- a teenaged girl- was trying to write a continuation to "catcher in the rye." and trying to emulate that voice. that annoying voice. i understand it, but perhaps i'm at a different place in life, so i find that voice grating. i also don't find it particularly endearing when the author throws in references to his dead brother. it just seems too- i don't know- formulaic. it's almost like the author times it, so that once you get so sick of caulden and his melodrama, then he'll throw a bone about his little brother, so you instantly feel sorry for him all over again... it just stops working after like the tenth time or so. (btw, i find myself emulating that whiny voice just now. swear to god. :P ).
margaret atwood... she is a writer i admire. she writes in a pretty sparse way, but each detail packs such a punch. each detail is purposeful, and playful. she does a lot of little word plays... they are wicked and evocative. in many ways, i wish i could write like her...
anyway, i do have to read more. i think my regimen calls for only reading a chapter each time (i happen to read other books when i'm on the toilet... and for those books, the progress is- well, sporadic, just like my stools :P ). sometimes, with short-chaptered books, this tends to make the progression very slow. but at least i'm moving through stuff...
btw, forgot to mention haruki murakami. aside from "hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world," which was the first book i'd ever read by him, i don't really appreciate most of his work. i may have said this before, but some of his scenes are truly nightmare inducing. the one scene i always return to was when this japanese officer was slowly and methodically flayed alive by some mongolian. it was all the more horrific because, up until then, that officer was portrayed as some stoic, matter-of-fact, brave person. but under the hours-long methodical operation, he eventually is reduced to bouts of falling unconscious and screaming uncontrollably... until he is reduced to a pile of unbound flesh... i still shudder when i think about that scene... and the idea that there are many ways to die, and that you can seem brave when you choose a quick death... but torture... that's another thing entirely... to be pinned down and awake and aware of the incredible pain and the progressive destruction of what you had considered to be your sacred self... piece by piece... that is... i can't imagine it.
anyway, i digress. that scene was from "wind up bird chronicles," which, for some reason, i didn't really get. i mean, he always/often has these weird women. and i notice that in a couple of the stories, "wind up bird chronicles" and "norwegian wood," there's a kind of redemption found through this sort of waif like girl figure. something i found too strange and formulaic. but, yes, i sometimes think it would be great to be haruki, because he seems to "get around," at least in his stories...
"1q84", by the way, had so much more potential... it seemed to be a story that wasn't sure where it was going. and it ended in a very mundane way, to my thinking. i think there was so much more potential. especially as he seemed to be trying to make the association with 1984, well, then why didn't he help us to see the horror of that alternate world? instead, it was just some story about two plots gradually coalescing. a fucking love story. that wasn't really about love. (i mean the two characters were basically strangers, aside from one momentous occurrence when they were ten years old or something. it wasn't particularly convincing to me. but then again, i'm an anti-romantic.)
oh well. i'm feeling generally optimistic that something inside of me is melting. i will continue to work at my routines, and hopefully more and more of my past and me will come alive.
dream: 7/6/2020
i had a relatively vivid dream this morning. i was at williams again, only a different, unrecognizable williams. at least it seemed like williams at some points. i woke up alone in the early morning. i walked up to the bathroom mirror (though i did not really see myself in it... maybe if i did i would see someone else?). i got some shaving cream, and i recall that although it was a new bottle, it didn't come out smooth, so i shook it vigorously... and then it came out in this overly large dry styrofoam-like cloud that i smeared across my face... i recall the thought that there were all of these supplies outside- when i looked out a window, it seemed as though there were some garage or something with all of these supplies stored up. and i remember thinking what would happen if i stole something; would they catch me and kick me out? i recall thinking about them grilling me, and how i would eventually give it up... but anyway, it seemed as though the whole dorm started waking up, and i saw all of these people walking through and using the room. it was never like that at fayerweather or the dorms i was at, but for some reason, it was extremely crowded then. and there i was, walking around with my shirt off (thankfully i must have been wearing something below), and shaving cream on my face... and there were even girls there. i recall three asian girls dressed in black, making plans to go to their classes... i suddenly realized that maybe i was running out of time, and going to be late. i looked for my planner, and my schedule, and realized i had to attend some class outdoors at "lewton" at 9. when i glanced over at the clock, it was something like 8:50. i desperately asked where lewton was, and this one girl with large glasses answered, exasperatingly, (as though i definitely ought to have known this by now) that it was somewhere near west, or in the same direction as west, or something. (of course, i didn't know where west was either, but i tried to remember the direction she pointed...
anyway, that was about it for the dream.
i guess what was different about this one was that there were more people, and it seemed more intimate, as though they were coming into my life or something. in the last few times i dreamed of williams, for the most part, i was a stranger.
i also seemed to recognize some of the faces in this dream: ghosts, no doubt.
i don't know if i have mentioned it, but i seem to be recalling miscellaneous things about my past. it is my hope that something in me is starting to melt. the past is like a web that i'm starting to trace, like a spider. i touch a node, and there are vibrations that return to me, and each vibration summons up a related flash of a face or a voice or something... of course, i don't really have control, and there are definite limits to what i can see... but it is something. the past is not dead, and perhaps neither am i.
anyway, that was about it for the dream.
i guess what was different about this one was that there were more people, and it seemed more intimate, as though they were coming into my life or something. in the last few times i dreamed of williams, for the most part, i was a stranger.
i also seemed to recognize some of the faces in this dream: ghosts, no doubt.
i don't know if i have mentioned it, but i seem to be recalling miscellaneous things about my past. it is my hope that something in me is starting to melt. the past is like a web that i'm starting to trace, like a spider. i touch a node, and there are vibrations that return to me, and each vibration summons up a related flash of a face or a voice or something... of course, i don't really have control, and there are definite limits to what i can see... but it is something. the past is not dead, and perhaps neither am i.
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