5.30.2010

so much of water

I think as I age that my memory is improving. It can't be that, no, it must that the power of some memories has increased over time. We are so much of water that it must define a huge part of our personalities. Our composite memories are like water in at least two ways. First, that everything that has happened to and through us is interconnected, like every drop of water in a puddle or a sea the same. Second, that in the way light plays tricks when it refracts through water, some elements are clearer in memory to us than others; or it's that in that heavily chlorinated pool we swim instinctively in the same safe laps until something in the present moment jars us from our normal rhythm, bringing new glimpses of submerged old life into clear view with frightful intensity, or at rarer times like vaguely glinting treasure.

5.22.2010

the heaviest cloud

concept for children's book. The heaviest cloud is always ostracized by his peers for being far too slow, last to arrive at any storm, etc. But, through a sequence of devastating displays of raw natural power, the heaviest cloud is able to win the respect and love of his peers, and even gets the chance to murder his nemesis, the sun. A compelling proof of the adage that might makes right -- Kirkus.

the first dumb-assed flower of spring

early flowers in the yard, precise coffee and singing with our kid. a bevy of hungover angels perched on the roof, unpainted toenails hanging over the gutters.

the cat's gone nuts, maybe for spring or for ordinary cat dementia, his meow insistent and ill-timed like Lassie trying to tell Timmy to go for help, but if Lassie were more of an unreliable narrator who always bit a little too hard at 4 a.m., just when Timmy was starting in on that last cycle of REM sleep, a Lassie who tragically gave Timmy rabies that one morning only to deny everything later in perfect human Shaggy English, "it wasn't me." Here the movie reaches stride, Act II Lassie's Regret, Act III Lassie's Race for the Cure, Act IV Lassie as Fundraiser, Act V Meeting with the Donors, Act VI Lassie's Recurrence of Regret, etc.

early flowers in the yard, a second cup of coffee and our kid playing with a bus, a musical tractor, a soccer ball. i believe he's imagining the toy tractor as the world's greatest pizza delivery truck, with a flat-bed trailer and a sheet of pizza that brought to its full scale would be about 7' by 10'. in that same scaling up the soccer ball is now the size of our kitchen, and the little bus takes up a whole block. the roses look set to bloom, too, to overshadow the whole neighborhood.

Lassie, I thought I was good for it, you said stop by any time.

early flowers in the yard, waiting for old friends to visit and everything feels this out of scale. they're going to want to catch up, they're going to want to know how we are. i'll have to ask L. the answer, i'm not sure i could come up with one of my own after what feels like months away from myself. this is why when you ask people how they are they say they can't complain. it isn't that they don't have complaints, it's that they wouldn't have the first idea how to articulate them.

middle aged man as mentally-challenged flower, blooming in brief on a saturday morning. an interpretive dance that i entitle the first dumb-assed flower of spring.