A little bit ragged

Too tired to practice singing
Too manic to cook, or more exactly so manic that I cooked two things wrong instead of cooking one thing wrong
Then tried to calm down, then ate two much of one the things I cooked wrong
Then cleaned
Then thought about drinking whiskey
Then sang Pete Seger
Then cried

The throat vibrates with melody
moving from Pete to Bono and back
my stomach feels too full
i am getting a little obsessive about what I eat
keep thinking I should be losing weight
keep seeing my stomach as huge and unsightly
but the vibrating make it better
rock myself a lullaby while I wake
hush little crazy don't you cry
someone's gonna save you from the falling sky

disconnected ... my small nest with the big TV
haven't read anything substantial for a few months
scraps of news ...
two minutes of television ...
a page of 30 year old humor is enough

constant adolescent daydreaming
everything is always a few months from now
what motivation can be found
even cooking has become a chore
use the food before it goes bad
try to make something that makes me feel good about myself
don't waste
but that locks me into the two rooms
maybe it is time to go more again
worried about bread
do I have enough for breakfast, will it still be fresh
what bullshit
the winter night coming on
the depressing short days bitter wet chill

Into the Wild ...

Just finished watching Into the Wild by Sean Pean.
My age ... my generation. The guy was 5 months older than me. Clearly disturbed, clearly brilliant ... like so many people I know/knew. I was down in Bogotà when he was on his way out west. I got back to states to finish school, and he was already heading north. I was walking the streets of Paris as he was starving in his Magic Bus. Somewhere in between, we both saw the first Gulf War announced on live television. Both of us disconnected already from that country. Both of us on our journey otherwhere. He in his way and I in mine. Both of us fleeing our parents and the culture of hypocrisy that we grew up in. The parents change, mine did at least. It seems that his did as well, though he did not live to see. The culture remains the same.
The enemies change now, shifting ever more quickly just like computer chips. Ahhh when I was a young man we knew who the enemy was: those god damn pinko facist commies. Whatever the hell that means. But that's what I was. Think different: you're a commie. Sounds like a joke doesn't it, and it half was. And it half was not. Any idea which did not fit, put you into the category of those who were unamerican. Was it worse in the fifties? Perhaps legally. As a teenager, with the added weight of adolescent conformism, it all remained about the same.
I came out of high school ... feeling superior? But nowhere to go with it? I don't know. It was only when I left the country that my possibilities seemed to open. When I came back after a year in Colombia, I was already gone. I was already a stranger in my country. Un etranger. The colony had been implanted in out minds. Even if I hadn't been with N, I would have blown off somewhere. Maybe just like supertramp. Maybe going to France saved me from a similar doom. I was weaker of course, I never would have given the money to charity, but that would not have stopped me from following a similar spiral.
In any case, the film is beautifull, there are scenes that made me cry simply from the beauty of the image. Like when he is shaking his head as he bathes, the beaded water spinning out under the sun. Breathtaking.

Wine Tasting - Ma Terre - Blanc

Ma Terre by Henri Milan. Vin de Table, because he does what he wants. 13210 St Rémy de Provence. White wine, though I have the red as well. I'm starving, so this is not the best time to be doing a tasting, but I'm trying to stay in the habit.
A quick swig of water to rinse the mouth.
A very orangey yellow. Very deep. A slight smell of calvados or apple tart. Maybe some anise seed behind that. It's making me think that it's going to be sweet, but I don't think that it will be in fact.
Yeah it's the anise seed and apple tart smell that makes me think of powdered sugar. Will it be spicy? No but it almost tastes like apples. Not sweet, but you couldn't say lemon, it's definitely apple.
Only had a chance to have a sip, cause then I went out. Corked up right. I'll try it again tomorrow.

There I am staring over my glasses. One eye always closed to the sun. I don't know why. One of my eyes always closes in the sun and the other closes in the water. Never understood ... sometime people ask me ... as if it were something strange. Well I guess it is a bit strange. Like windshield wipers? No that's a a Kenneth Koch metaphor. Was that his name. Talking about frozen peas in the supermarket, when what he wanted were canned peas. Those were the days when it came ripping out of my fingers. Have I let it all go to waste? Nevermind, go on, go on.
So one eye is open. Looking over my glasses. The day after a party. Out in the suburbs of Paris. We had already moved up to Brussels. This the first year. So it must be the summer of 2005. That first year was lonely. We just did it. We picked up our shit and went to Brussels. We didn't know anyone. We barely knew anything about Belgium. We had each been there for a weekend or two and that was all. But I knew I wanted to get out of Paris. I had been waiting to move for so long. I loved Paris, but I wanted it to stay that way. We just weren't that organized. Somehow other people managed to do all sorts of things and we did not. We got ourselves in debt. We changed jobs and had dinner parties. We were attacked by crazy neighbors and their dogs. People threw bleach at us.
We spent hours walking through Paris. Doing nothing ... just walking. Sometimes the same places. Sometimes halfway across the city.
But it was time to go. I wanted to go. I wanted to see someplace else. Live a different life. I wasn't looking for better, just different, just new. The ultimate new fangled gadget. A new life in a new city.
I got fired and Prague was too far. So Brussels. We decided one day. A week later I was in a hotel already working. A month later we had an apartment like we'd never had in our life. The next summer we were on our way. We both had jobs, we were making lot's of money. We had sold my apartment in Paris for twice what I had paid for it. We had cleaned up all of our debts and still had money in the bank. We had beautiful things and we were buying more. I hadn't realized it yet, but I was going past where my parents had gone. For O it was different, she had already done that. We were not rich, but there were no more worries. We bought what we wanted.
There is a memory of the first New Year's Eve. It was awful. It had begun so well. An absurd taxi ride to IKEA to buy furniture for the apartment. We were laughing. We were doing things right. We were in and out of IKEA in 45 minutes. It was a world record. The taxi driver was laughing with us. We would finally have bookshelves and a desk. We were making our home. And then we went to dinner and were nasty to each other the entire night. She called me a cheapskate. I did everything not to raise my voice, but I spoke to her viciously. We were still so alone. A friend here or there, but mostly just the two of us. Constantly together.
As the summer came, it changed. We began to meet more people. We began to explore the city. We became experts. Our friends came to see us from Paris. We walked for hours on end across Brussels. Eating samosas and oysters and drinking beer at every corner. And the big art deco buildings in the city center became familiar ... easy on the eyes. When you go past that one, you're just about at the café you want to go to next.
And so when we went back down to Paris it was triumph. We were happy and sucessfull. Paris was just to see friends and faire la fête. Life was so much better back in Brussels. I must have been a total bore, expounding on the wonders of the simple life of Brussels. I surely still am at times. And I miss it. Going down to get fries on a Sunday evening down at Flagey. The smell would reach me all the way across the square. Waiting in line, the rich odor ... I would be drunk on fries and samurai sauce. A bottle of Duvel on the way back. The greasy paper spread on the table, the spicy mayonnaise dotted across the fries ... orange and beastly but so delicious.

Just another night (revised by my future self)

coming home to a clean tidy apartment
doing what needs to be done
check my mail
stand on that machine
pump my legs
stare at the TV

work, work, sweat
as the sun goes down
this is the right thing to do

take a shower
let the water fall and fall
listen to the music

my body is taut
my mind is clear
this is good

now I will drink some wine
i will eat the food which I prepared last night
i am clean
i am born again
the food is the right food
the wine is the right wine
the music is the right music

then why do I shake
then why do I cry
why do I lean against the wall searching for the arms which are not there to embrace me

i am strong
i am setting up my life again
i am putting things in their place
i am moving step by step
i am following the instructions
i am dotting the lines
everything will all fall into place

but when?
and what if I fall ...

Sunday night (don't read this ... is just to keep the words coming)

A weekend spent mainly in my apartment waiting on people who never came, allowing myself to become overwrought for no particular reason. Almost crying. What the fuck is that.
O was in a bad mood this weekend. Don't know what her problem is. I should speak with her less. Doesn't do my head any good.
The words are not coming this evening, but I have to keep my fingers nimble. Haven't been pounding the keys out enough lately.
The singing is strange. I spent too much time on the computer looking for software to help me out with the singing. Bought myself a microphone. Figured out how to record myself. Wow do I sound awful. I spend an hour warming up my voice and practicing scales. While I'm cooking I begin to sing and it really sounds good to me. Like a warm reed instrument. I feel the air vibrating in my body. It sounds rich. Then I go and record and I am amazed at how bad it sounds. It's awful. I want to throw it all away.
But it's keeping me busy. I like it. I'm not smoking. I'm still drinking too much, but you can't do everything. I feel my stomach. I feel fat again, but I've put together the exercise bike. I have to start using it, but first I need the TV and the installation guy had an epileptic fit so he didn't come to install the tv. so i spent the weekend roaming from room to room and kind of singing but not really, looking for software, but not really, and i could have been writing the whole time, and i don't know what i'm doing here and i should really go to bed but not really, and i couldn't find the whole in the wall but not really, and i couldn't find the rhythm in my fingers and the figs are in the geyser, but not really.
need to feel the sweat again. the strain
but there is a bruise all up and down my leg, because a table fell on me in the middle of the night.
all of those words and nothing to show, will i publish this? I guess not, I will just leave it all in limbo. but the idea is that all that shit which flows though my fingers must be put out there otherwise there is no momentum, no impetus to writing something different, something better, but what could i ever even write.
novels are for architects like DFW who just comitted suicide.
never realised how autobiographical his novels were.
but the patience, the building, the details of these books
who am i to criticize even an author like MH who I can't stand
he had the patience to write those hundreds of pages, though sometimes I wonder why and sometimes there are so many parts that he could have finished, but he was just to lazy.
Ok I've written, i've limbered the fingers.
that's enough, maybe some more will spurt out later.

Longing to be a Manga

everything is sharp
boots and collars
hair and nose
the long stride
but city melts by at every step

Thought on my bicycle # 487

the seat is too low for my pumping knees
i am dodging trucks as exhaust fills my lungs
cold air on my hands as my eyes awake with light

could this not be a dusty road in high mountains

any road can take you there
the raga ringing in my ears
the peacock feathers burnt into my flesh

Another day in Dam

Getting over out hangovers took a little while, but as the sun progressively appeared in the afternoon, riding around on the bikes, slowly slowly, letting the heat sink in, doing the shopping for tonight, octopus, mangoes, ginger. through parks and canals and marshes. cloudy apple juice. the vague odor of pot as we glided by the coffee shops. amsterdam style art deco in the shape of a boat.

Up to Dam

it hits me again, that i just like traveling. i like the movement. i like airports and train stations. i like the cheap little bottle of white wine on the tray with the pre-packaged sandwiches.
is it any good, the man next to me asks. bit of an arrogant prick. i look at him and say no it's not terribly good, but then i wasn't expecting it to be. the typical fare, some mix of chardonay and viognier. too acidic, too fatty. but it will do for now. i show him the airline magazine and ask him if wouldn't like to buy usb key in the shape of a crystal heart.
in the airport, i manage to figure out how to buy the train ticket, but as i'm not going to the center, i can't figure out which track i'm supposed to go to and miss the train. doesn't matter. i just take a taxi. some driver swerves in front of us on the highway and the driver tells me he can't stand dutch drivers. i can't help myself and i laugh uproariously (really i do, it's not just so that i can use the word. the laugh just comes bubbling out of my chest. loud and full of good humour). i say well you're really out of luck man ...
L meets me at the door of the taxi, we throw my bag into some closet and and i get on his visitor bike because kitchens close early in amsterdam. we go to a lebanese place. the wine is not bad, but nothing special. well ok the second bottle (red) is actually quite good with what were eating. and the food is really good. grilled red peppers in pomegranate sauce, houmous with beets mixed in, raw lamb ... and that bottle of red is just right with raw lamb. the only unfortunate detail is the guy singing gypsy kings and besame mucho. i almost call the style police, but he is on the other side of the room and L and i are having too nice of meal to break all that up and have the entire staff sent fauxpas prison. L asks them 5 times to play some Ferouz (don't know if i'm spelling that right), but the waiter he is asking is not lebanese and doesn't know what he's talking about.
up till four in the morning. good conversation, some grappa and geuze, and extra chemical help. i only smoke one cigarette. yay. have a look at my slightly hungover amsterdammer head shot ;-)

I'll get by with a little help from my friends ...

running through my head
though there are no friends to reach
it hurts again

a conversation
a laugh on the other end of the line

a new house
photos of courtyards, sunlight and gravel
"yes, it's a perfect ... yes i'm jealous"

crying on the phone
obviously not
missing what ...
the comfort
the moments of joy and pride

we worked on it
we got it right

what do i do now, throat tight, nose dripping
I hide my head like a child

are you reading this?
are you there?
why do i bother?

empty behind the eyes
I didn't make it out the door and up the street
to lose myself in the evening crowds
i wasn't ready even for that

my eyes sting

Please read instructions on page 29

put food on rack
heat oven by degrees
create steam and add spices
the almost deception of small actions
cut, chop, wipe, clean
garnish liberally with olive oil and parsley

don't break the wineglass
don't lose the moment
put the food on the plate
eat with pleasure
drink wine chosen with care
use fork and knife correctly and in the proper order

why is the fish so white?
place the lid carefully over your mind
orange and white disks of half steamed vegetables
reserve anger is a small steel pot
don't forget to use a lid
ha ... ha ha ha

cry over your meal for approximately 30 seconds
add more salt if necessary

i ruined the rice and threw it in the trash
i drank wine and staggered around the room
i spilled soy stained water all over the kitchen floor

a metallic taste forced down in stillness

Reception of misconception

Can't miss what hasn't arrived
Move over and hog your own sofa
When I gulp, I only meant to survive
Don't fill in the card for me
I don't want to win the prize
The beauty pageant one way ticket
Framed diploma proving my kettle of fish
How do you prevent the expression of madness

Brick o' Brack

Always the need for a title. Have our lives become a TV sitcom. Don't miss the next hilarious episode where Mark really puts his foot in his mouth.

Wine tasting: Les Copains D'abord

There seems to be no AOC. All I can find is Vin Rouge de Loire.
Groslot and Cabernet from 2007.
Almost briny smell to begin with (playdough ??? I know it's wierd, but sometimes there is a natural smell that makes me think of playdough). After a couple minutes, some kind of menthol comes out. Something rubber like in the smell. This isn't sounding appetizing is it, but it doesn't smell bad ... just very different. I'm almost afraid to drink it. I went ate a bit of bread to clear out my mouth and came back. The wine is very cloudy. My mouth is a bit numb. I've been sucking on a fake cigarette all afternoon, so there's still a bit of mint in mouth. That's why I went for the bread.
I put my nose in and take it out. The wine is cloudy, they've skipped some filtering. I finally take a sip, but while I'm writing this which is stupid, because then I'm not thinking about what I'm tasting. Just a little sip, and I don't even know what happened. I try again and concentrate a bit more. Not much in the mouth, but the aftertaste is fascinating, thought it leaves quickly. There is not a lot of fruit, but what there is seems to come out afterward. Well that wasn't a great description, but I'm gonna start working on that.
Sorry if you keep seeing me in the same shirt ;-) I'm not that dirty, it's just that I always have my work clothes (read shirt and tie) on during the day, so I tend to wear the same normal shirt any number of days in a row. Well I have to admit, that I'm not that impressed by the wine after the bombs that I've been tasting for the last few days. I'll have to get more of them and write about them here. So in fact, what am I writing about here? Well anything and everything that goes through my mind. Massage, masturbation, wine tasting, personal hygiene. Whatever fits on the page will be written. That's why there's the adult warning, mainly because I'm not sure, so I prefer to keep it safe. Sometimes there may be poems ... I'll just have to see how things pan out. I'm working on my long lost mojo. Buried somewhere deep in my mind. The only road to freedom are the cramps in my fingers. I'm still trying to figure out who I want this open to. Anyone, I guess, except the people I know, but then I can't be bothered to hide myself either, so I won't.

The sun fall slanted halfway cross the balcony

The coffee is hot
My toes are cold
My ankes tingle a bit
The corners of my eyses still sticking and blurry
The noise of a sip over the early morning traffic

Drinking herbal tea from a plastic measuring cup ...

His new apartment is shiny and dusty
Streaks on the shiny desk
Already scratches on the coffee table
There is no one to scold him
He darts from corner to corner
Turning the lights on and off
Deep city firefly
Don't burn your tongue or your wings

After the massage ...

Went to see S&L last night. Brought a good bottle of white, from the same vignerons who make the red I was talking about yesterday. As usual, just went to have a drink and ended up staying till about 1 in the morning. I was talking about the things I would doing to keep myself and active and keep my spirits up. One of those things is getting a massage on a regular basis. But given the places around where I live, that often means getting a hand job as well.
I began discussing that with S, who began from the attitude that a hand job had no part in massage. Now I won't pretend that I'm an objective observer on this one. I'm fairly lonely these days, and I don't have a sexual partner. So yes I do like the little extra attention during the massage.
But at the same time, I think we need to make a distinction, which is where we got to last night. There is what we could call a "medical" massage and what we could call a "well being" massage. I'm sure that both have existed since who knows when. I would agree that sexuality has no business in a medical massage. For a well being massage, sexuality is practically the point.
When I go to see an osteopath, I expect help in healing my body. When I go to a massage parlor around the corner, I expect my body to made to feel good. My muscles and nervous ending don't end at my underpants. It seems to me normal, that my entire body be massaged. The result of that may well be that I become exited. Letting that tension build and letting it off during the massage seems to me a logical way truly relaxing the body.
S thought that I was banalizing the sexual act.
Am I? I said to S that there was someting implicitly different with an act such as going to see a prostitute. I have ocassionaly gone to see prostitutes. I invariably leave feeling dissapointed, as if I have just gone through a process where I was the one being used or exploited. This has not always been the case, but that's the subject for another day. I said to S, that when I went to get a massage and the woman then finished me off, I didn't have the same feeling. That I wasn't looking for the same thing, rather the masturbation was simply part of the massage.
But I think that has to do with the last time I had gotten a massage. The woman gave an amazing massage, and also gave off great energy and was laughing the whole time. I went back today, and was massaged by another woman. First of all she didn't massage nearly as well, and at one point she was obviously fishing for the erection. Was it enjoyable. Well yeah, it was. And she still gave a decent massage, but again that feeling of being used. Oh well, I think I'll just have to wait till the other one comes back from vacation.

Thinkin' about it

So a long as I'm here, I might as well continue. Does that expression even exist. Might as well ...?
I have a tendency to say mine as well which surely can't mean anything whatsoever. Are we all becoming illiterate. Anything that is not in the electronic dictionary does not exist or it may, but we don't really know do we.

So the idea of the blog is simply begin the practice of writing again. When I first began college back in '86, I had an English teach who insisted that we all keep a journal. At the the time, I used to write as little as possible. I hated writing and thought that whatever I did write was usually crap. And this went for everything. I'm not even talking about writing something that would be read by complete strangers. That was beyond thinking about. But even writing to a grandparent or writing a page for an essay was agony for me.

And so this teacher wanted us to write something, every day. Somehow I must have understood that it was important, so I threw myself into it. This was before PCs were common. Yes they existed, and I think there was even one of the colleges which I got accepted to which gave one out to every freshman. But almost no one I knew had one. I had a Smith Corona word processor. This was top of the line stuff. My parents got it for me as gift when I left for University (just went googling for a picture, but I couldn't find anything ... at least not in 30 seconds which is the most time we can take for anything today).
It was just a typewriter that hooked up to a screen (green lettering I think). There was a very simple menu. You could write and edit on the screen. Edit being a very big word for erase, retype, maybe change the spacing between lines so that the five pages you wrote would stretch out to the 10 you were supposed to write. You could save what you wrote on these mini casettes. The damn thing may still be in parent's crawl space.
And so I would sit there in a position not so different as I find myself now. The window to the left of me. I'm facing the wall and typing. I would listen to the traffic on Broadway and smoke. I had promised myself to quit when I went to school, but my roomate had done the same. So we both started smoking again. At first it was such a trial to write anything down. I would type out nonsense and then erase it. I would look for any excuse to something else. I would smoke another cigarette. But at the same time, there I was in front of that blinking green cursor. But at some point is just began to flow. I would write and write. The words would come streaming from my fingers. I could spend the entire night.
Things have not changed so much. Here I am again; in front of my Mac. The keyboard is wireless and there is mouse to the side. But the problem is the same. It has been 20 years since I wrote like that. It has been 10 years since I wrote a poem. I have tried a number of times in the past few years to force it out again. But now I don't have the choice.
Alone again at 40. Yeah yeah, sniff sniff. But what do you want. Alone like a fucking student again. At my desk ... nothing but my fingers and my dick. My mind is afloat. I need to anchor it down. I think the best way to deflate my ego is to piss out the words. So that is what I will do. I will write. I will bang the keys. I will trumpet out the thoughts spit them onto the screen. Some may have genius, but most of what I've gotten in my life was gotten by working at it. It's not a moral thing. I'm not better or worse than anyone, but I don't get anywhere except through sweat and effort. So the effort begins here ... in my fingers and my mind. Nobody has to read any of this, because they are only the scratches. But I figure, I will keep them on line. Publish or die? What a joke. Even my cat can publish today. But by putting it out there already, I will keep away from the poison of going back to edit. When I'm ready to write something for real, I will worry about the right words and the right rhythm and getting everything in line and not repeating myself. But for now ... spleen and bile; spit and vomit; piss and cum. Let it out my boy, just let it all out.

First Blog - stopped smoking

In some ways, quite up to date with technology ... in other ways absolutely lost. So here we go. I'm not so sure where I want to go with this blog, but it's about time I began to write again. Been too long. At the same, I just stopped smoking. All my senses are coming back to me. Taste, feel, smell, sexual stimulation. It's all in a rush.
Wait let me go get another glass of wine ...
That's better. Just discovering the new wine stores in my neighborhood.
So I stopped smoking a little over a week ago (calm down ... calm down nobody is looking ... nobody cares what you're writing) and little by little my senses are coming back.
But I've said that ... shit
Sirens waving in the background
Head is not spinning but nodding
Toasted bread ... radish and fennel sprouts ... smoked trout
The flavors are simple, don't add a thing. Not salt, no butter. The sprouts give a lightness yet with a surge of flavor over the fatty savory of the fish.
a glass of red wine ....
smooth and berry flavored with points of what ?
That slightly oystery flavor I find in red wines sometimes. Not really oysters, but it's the closest word that I can come up with. Rinses and fills my taste buds. Have I ever tasted wine before?
Back of the mouth tingling. Lines of nerves from my eyebrows ... circling around to the back of the neck.