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Reader. Gamer. Binary Mystic.
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Monday, July 03, 2006
...because I can't read your rolling eyes.
This was supposed to be written the night before my 30th birthday. I wanted it to have an audio quality. Specifically I wanted it to sound like Richard Bausch's reading of his "Letter to the Lady of the House." The story sounds like something that comes up at 3 in the morning on a restless night. You have to picture the narrator writing the letter on an old wooden desk that has a cherry finish. There needs to be one desk lamp with a dusk cover. The pen that the speaker uses is a regular blue ink white Bic pen with a blue cap. It's the kind of pen you spent days chewing on in class during high school. Of course he's writing on a yellow legal pad. The light from the old lamp illuminates the paper and reflects off the ice in a small glass half-filled with whisky. The bottle is somewhere in the distance. Your eyes scan the room, but everything is only conceptualized in silhouettes due to the lack of light.
His words attempt to fill this darkness, this emptiness. The narrator's story is that of a husband who is reflecting on the years of marriage and of a decision to stay with wife despite the changes and distance that life has imposed on them.
I really just wanted the tone and not the content. Because I know that I am nowhere near that point in my life. I sit here writing the night before the 4th a little past midnight and take stock. I've been blessed (or fortunate for my friends who use a different vocabulary). That word best encapsulates my life to this point. I have a family that has always supported all my endeavors even when they didn't agree with them. My beautiful friends have remained in my life long after the life span of other friendships. The woman that I have the privilege of calling my wife has been patient beyond any measure that I could have hoped for. The only health scare I've had was a displastic mole that was surgically removed, leaving a scar that aches when it rains.
The night when I will stay awake after a fight over my use of pepper is years away.
8:58 PM
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Dialectical Dialogue I
Jill: Who the fuck do you think you are?
Jack: You remember those stories your mom used to tell you, like Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs?
Jill: Yeah, so...
Jack: I'm the Wolf.
II
Jesus: So you're telling me that everything that one says has already been scripted in their mind?
Buddha: Right.
Jesus: So ever word that's coming out of my mouth has resounded somewhere in my subconscious.
Buddha: Actually in the Universal Subconscious.
Jesus: That's bullshit.
III.
Achilles: Count Dooku is not Sith!
Hector: He is. He is the apprentice to the Sith Lord. Plus he has the red lightsaber.
Achilles: How is an old man an apprentice? Dooku is just a Dark Jedi.
Hector: Then why does he constantly addressing Darth Sidious as, and I quote, "My Master" ?
Achilles: Whatever...
IV.
Roger: So what do you want to do tonight?
Jessica: Whatever you want.
Roger: How about bowling?
Jessica: Nah.
Roger: How about drinks at Finnegann's?
Jessica: Not in the mood. Let's just stay home.
V.
Cloud: What do you get when you mix River Phoenix and Yoda?
Sephiroth: What?
Cloud: My Own Private Dagobah...
Sephiroth: ...
VI.
Stephen: What matters to me is the base level of sounds at their purest. What makes a dog a dog, a tree a tree, etc...
Leopold: But what really matters is the relationship between the words; the friction that these words create. Who cares about the source code of language? I only care about how we can use words to capture reality.
Stephen: The thing is that our words ARE our reality.
Leopold: So it wouldn't be real if I punched you in the face?
Stephen: It only matters because we can conceptualize the distance between your word HAND and my word FACE.
V.
Antinous: I'm sorry. We tired our best to save him.
Penelope: Did he suffer?
Antinous: No. It was an instant death.
Penelope: . . .
Antinous: I can prescribe something for you, something to help with the pain.
Penelope: No, I want the pain to burn away what is left of my soul.
VI.
Romeo: The doctors tell me that I have a few months left.
Juliet: I heard. So what are you going to do?
Romeo: I'm setting everything in order. I just wanted to see you one last time.
Juliet: What do you think will happen after you pass?
Romeo: I hope there's nothing in death.
Juliet: Why?
Romeo: Because at least in that nothingness, I won't be able to think of you.
2:35 PM
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Entropy
I let everything fall apart.
My fingers gently pull the plugs out of the dam of my past
and I am in tatters. No, I am tatters.
There is something ticking in my soul
and I know exactly which wires to cut
but I don't...
so I sit and wait
and allow everything drift away.
5:26 AM
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Breathe
"One and to the Two..."
El terreno de nuestras memorias es como un jardín,
en que a veces tenemos que arrancar las yerbas malas
para que las flores florezcan.
Tenemos que ensuciar nuestras manos
con la tierra de nuestras vidas,
ensuciando el espacio rosado
debajo de nuestras uñas claras.
Y con la poca fuerza que tenemos
en nuestros brazos de paja,
jalar por la duración del universo.
En así pasamos nuestro suspiro
en el infinito
jalando y tirando
mientras que otras yerbas malas
crecen y ahorcan nuestros sueños.
5:56 AM
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Destiny
El hombre propone y Dios dispone or Man schemes as the Gods laugh.
This has been my lession for the winter. I allowed the idea of Home to make decisions that almost cost me everything. I gave up a comfortable job, nice apartment, my wife's comfort and my cat's couch in order to restart my like here in Miami. Here is a brief recap.
December:
M. and I enjoyed the last of our time in Greenville, NC. We spent the bulk of our time either wrapping up loose ends at work or packing books. After a long, tiring trip, we arrived in Miami in mid-December. The rest of the month was spent on the holiday festivities.
January: The 1st readjustment month. M. and I are both unemployed but had a reasonable amount of savings (for 2 months). Paperwork at the local community college falls through the cracks and incompetent hands, so we're on standby in the work sense. The adjustment to the living arrangements is not going as planned. Our primary vehicle need major repairs and saps 1 month from our savings.
February: I start working at the college, but my wife's paperwork is negated for some illogical reason. Sporadic cash injections help, but things are getting tight. I get hardship deferment on most of my student loans (which will buy me time until July). M. remains unemployed for most of the month. Fortunately, my mother's client offers her a place at his company to get her by until something better comes around. I am adjusting to the students at the college. There are serious disciplinary problems from the start. Education should be the impartment of knowledge not wasting time telling students to be quiet.
March: Things begin to settle and then suddenly crack. M. has random outbursts at the situation, which I caused. The reality that we might be stuck at home for a while dawns on her and she can't stand it. I try to be spartan about it but really just bury myself in my escapes (books, games, movies, etc.). Things seem to improve when M. is hired at a large corporation at a decent rate, but she is still frustrate that the position doesn't match her degree. My teaching is going smoother, as I begin to identify the kinks in the classes, the main one is apathy.
April: Cherry blossoms bloom, and the tax man cometh. I acquired some more work for the summer. This should hold me over until my contract begins in August. I'm a little nervous about teaching teenagers, but my decent demeener should pull me through. Maybe I'll be a tyrant in class. M. is doing well at her job. She doesn't enjoy her status, but that should change soon. I'm finishing up my Bloomsday book and am tempted to reread Ulysses (while I still have time).
5:53 AM
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Mea Cuba, Mea Magna Cuba
We are residents of a city that lives in the shadow of its past.
Our Cuba is more dream that reality,
and we spend our waking hours navigating between the nostalgia
of our parents
and the grit of our day to day.
Because todo esto no pasa en Cuba,
but then again,
nada pasa en Cuba
because for us there is no Cuba.
The island is more
an attitude
than a geographical spot.
It's composed of mentiritas, cohibas, que volas, and oye.
It wears a guayabera when it goes out at night.
It plays Beny and Celia on its way to work in the morning.
Miami only exists for us in reference to Cuba,
As a loose beam,
or a tettering taby cat.
Our Cuba is a dream of
a dream of
a dream
that is slowly becoming
una pesadilla.
6:49 AM
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Vibraciones
I. Tree
Pedro se sienta
y dice
la palabra
"árbol"
y imagina
vibraciones
resonando
desde el pasado
hacia el presente
el dice la palabra
y ve
el primer árbol en el primer jardín
con su fruta
con su serpiente.
Se sienta debajo
de su árbol en su jardín
y sabe que su idioma
es la fruta
y que su lengua
es el serpiente
que silba
debajo del árbol.
II.
At night I dream of a dark ocean full of letters
with waves that rush and pull at my feet
the letters spill onto the shore
and beat against the rocks
I know that if I enter these waters
the waves will pull me under
swallowing me whole
filling my pink lungs.
I know that if I open my eyes
I will see the source
But for some reason, in my dreams,
I keep my eyes and mouth shut
blinding myself
suffocating myself
The letters are warm and silky
they cover my skin
constantly forming
infinite permutations
and combinations of words.
I know, in my dreams, that one day
these waters with caste my cold body out
and I will lay on the shore
as the letters recede back into the sea.
I know this in my dreams...
5:23 AM
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