So, anyway, back to what I was talking about earlier.

[But seriously, a 500m tall wave?]

Maybe we should just get married. It'd make it easier to do move and do the things we want to do. Or maybe they're just the things I want to do. Do I even know what I want to do? GAH!

I once wanted to be a poet, but now that urge has migrated.
I wanted to be a photographer, but that went somewhere too.
I, but where we went was far enough away that I went there too.

Okay. Maybe I should get my head on straight, do some soul searching, go on a trip on a magic swirling ship. How much soul searching can one person do? It's only been 28 years. I've probably spent at least a fourth of that time thinking about what would happen after that fourth was over. Where has it gotten me?

Its just a mess. All of it. I do not limit this to myself. I think the minute piece of existence where humanity has found it's niche is just a messy room with no one capable of cleaning it properly. We haven't found the floor wax or the towels. We think mopping with cold water gets the job done.

I have this beautiful house in my head. Its deep in the woods. It always smells slightly of damp cedar. In the afternoon it drizzles. In the morning, the sun jigsaws the ground. Ferns. A piano leaks through the windows. Its just about the calmest place anyone could imagine.

My parents suggested the other night that I become a nurse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lituya_Bay

Its hard not to think about the future. I'm constantly at crossroads, which makes it look like nothing at all is bound to happen. Sort of like walking through a wide field without any sense of its borders. I've got through so many possibilities this year; grad school, peace corp, foreign service exam, studying Chinese full time, continuing work in Beijing, returning home with no plan, travel the world for a year/a few months, nothing. And at some point I change my mind veer down another course, then another, then another. Its frustrating for myself and probably irritating for everyone else. I like all these ideas, save the 'nothing' one. It depends on the day. How do you make a decision when your mood dictates the choice? You must divorce yourself from that interjection. You must make some sort of logical leap of faith, though I don't believe it should be completely severed from the emotional aspect.

then a piece of mind fell over me

You know what the biggest emotional barrier is? My girlfriend. There is absolutely nothing more prevalent in my life than her. Do we have a future together? Can we work it out in the end? These are questions that remain still more stark than the question of the future, because without an answer to these questions there can be no making of a future for me, or for us. Its a ridiculously tangled affair, one that never seems to have any clear outcomes. Some days, I feel I need to leave this all behind and move on to something new. And others, I want nothing more than to stay with her and work it all out. Neither side has a clear lead in the race, its neck and neck. Her patience is starting to wear thin. We have a little whiteboard next to our door on which she has written: "Have you made up your mind yet?" And she likes to stand next to it pointing and smiling with this sort of manic flight attendant grin. She has told me it doesn't even bother her any more, than she doesn't really care what the outcome is. She just wants to stop worrying about the whole thing, and I can't help but feel I owe her an answer and it should be soon. She'll need to move on if I decide to do something that isn't compatible with "us". I know we'll both be alright in the long run, but it'll be that week/month those months that will be downright unbearable. I guess when it all boils down to it, the part of me that wants to move on hasn't done so because it doesn't want to go through that. Does anyone, really? Like watching the ground rush up at you and wishing it wouldn't hurt when you crash.

Staying in China:

Continuing work in Beijing
Studying Chinese full time / Grad School in Beijing
Nothing (staying at my current job)

Leaving China:

Grad School
Peace Corp
Foreign Service Corp
Traveling around the world
Teaching in another country (wouldn't mind going back to Japan, or maybe trying to make it in a European country)
Returning home with no plan (maybe move to a city and just find a job, though this is probably not the best time to do this)


I can't sleep when I think about the times we're living in...

I'll write more later

It hasn't been night for days

stomach, most important
its vowels sound on exit

highways through you
off-ramps onto backgrounds

stages unused by more than one
creeks run through the floor

long passages with no walls
shed with floods, gasps, sloughs.




Do you see where I'm going?

brilliant, smokey light
coming in on the wind

disappearing one at a time

uneasy quietness
on days of vapor

Post-Past?

Post-bygone
Post-future

I'm here, aren't I?

I

[Fonts without defined shape.]


I would write poems to you all day long.
Read them at random, knocking on your door.

Your color is all around, dousing the frame of the sky
all while we plan to together die.

Fingers crossed.

"Try not to wake up the lights"

There's only so much left to make sense of. Its being poured into a vase.
I'm so tired, I can barely keep wide awake.
The way we once tried to defy closing our eyes makes me wish another day was added to the week.
Kongday. Kong meaning 'empty'. A day without anything to fill it.
We also once tried to bring counting out of effortlessness. Do you remember? I remember eyes staring at me from the seething waters. I remember taking off my glasses as a monk takes off his hood.

I'm off to wonderland one last time. Trains are stopping for the night, their conductors whistling johnny-be-good and twirling their hands like a windmill. I live next to windmill and the birds are my carriers, they twist me in hemp ropes and fly me till I can't figure out how to walk when we land. These are the gravity days, these are the days when I wake up and expect everything that hasn't happened yet to be waiting on my windowsill.

If it doesn't come true, at least we'll still be surrounded by all these books, and that lovely vase will never be bereft of flowers

I'm up in the woods,

I'm down on my mind.

http://www.longnow.org

I want to be involved with this organization. Its hard to say what I'd do, but I have limitless energy and enthusiasm reserves inside myself. If you haven't looked at this group before, I highly recommend it. I think they've got the right idea.

"The Clock of the Long Now": A clock built to last for up to 10,000 years. Buried in a mountain in eastern Nevada. What a beautiful idea.

I'm building a still,
to slow down the time.

I'm Not

If you've never heard it, I highly recommend "Personal Pitch" by Panda Bear.

What was it that drove me to write so much poetry when I was in University? Beyond the love of words, not much else. I put pen to paper and didn't really worry about what came out. I rarely edited, I shared with friends, I sat on beds and floors and couches and inhaled the dust of night landscapes.

English, French, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish. Next up: Arabic.
Although I only speak one of these with any major proficiency.
I guess I'm not the kind of person to stick with one thing for long. I'm too restless.

Restless Body Syndrome. That'll be the da-a-a-ay that I die.
I'll save some money and I'll buy your watch and throw it in the river.

Nanou3

I miss you, and its not only because I feel as though you are the siblings and loves I've never had. I miss you because you are the cabin in the woods that waits for me when I let my eyes rest. You are the view of myself that remains a closeup on my hands. You are the pushing of piano keys and the breath before a final note. I believe one day we'll all be together on a stage, bowing and waiting for the lights to be swallowed by the exiting audience. We'll be friends and loves and brothers and sisters. We'll never be apart and I'll never feel you far away. You are the ones I want to see when I die. Does anyone understand?

Clap, Clap, Clap, Clap.

Don't worry, I only use this when I must broadcast the viral infections,
The dips of day to day existence.
Most things are dull otherwise.

I can't take the GRE in Beijing. Its full up till the fall, and by then it will be too late. I'm plotting alternative courses.

Do you remember when I used to have a passion for writing? For artistic pursuits? What was I like? I can't recall being that person.

Alternative courses? Delaying enrollment till Fall 2010[!? God that seems too far away], The Peace Corp followed up by Fellows/USA, The Peace Corp minus Fellows/USA, Nothing, Disappearing for a few years and turning up one cold spring morning at a farmer's market in Wilmington with no memory of what happened to me [my personal favorite], staying the course [second star to the right, straight on till morning].

Really, I just write in this when I'm frustrated.