"Against Pollution"

When I worked down at a liquor store, a guy with a shotgun came raging through the place, bustled his way behind the counter. I shot him in the face. This morning I went down to the Catholic Church....

-The Mountain Goats

Sometimes there are beginnings. Sometimes we will find our way home. Sometimes something within us will burst.

"Barrel of a Gun"

-Guster

There are times, of course. Fewer, now that I am dating and then engaged and now, less than a week before my, no it's never the first person any more. Our nuptials. I am lonely. The wine, $5 French. Entry-level from a premier grand cru Bordeaux name. I think the disjointed incomplete sentences are artistic, please bear with me. Although I know only Sandi and Ben know this exists, and I know their love is damn near unconditional. So, back to the wine. And I am watching BET. Because <i>Coming to America<i> was on. And damn, that movie is good. Surprisingly astute. Not that I remember why, only that that was my general impression. And since the Olympics are only during the days on the weekends, I am sticking around for the Tyler Perry movie that follows. So I think about Elizabeth Alexander. She wrote an essay once about Tyler Perry and the emasculation of the Black male. But I <i>like</i> Tyler Perry movies. They are pleasant. Pleasant somehow and unbelievably so. Like a big down comforter. Like all of the good things about the South with none of the racism. Well, according to Alexander, no <i>overt</i> racism. It is subtle, I guess. The reduction of black life to that of the Black Urban Professional. But I am, of course, now, an urban professional too, and it shocks me. I never did get used to the idea that I was poor. My father made sure of that. Even when we were legit poor, there was never telling him that. So I guess I kinda always assumed that I was at the point of life that I actually am now. But yet.  For some reason... Elizabeth Alexander had assumed that I was a doctor when I was assigned to show her around campus and be her guide for the day. I was clearly the most academic one on campus (besides the actual phd candidate, but he isn't actually affiliated with the school. And he probably will never finish his thesis.). But there was that statement that my Machine Learning professor said to me... our semester project... I didn't do it for him... I did it for myself. Of course I did.... I am the absolute opposite of altruistic. I only do things for myself. All I really need to do, I guess... is feature selection and I can at least present at Kalamazoo. It would be a dream for me. To contribute to some esoteric scholarship. I bought a clump of garnet and it reminds me every time of the Old Frankish or English jewelry at the Met. You walk to the right of the big staircase straight ahead of the entrance and before the first doorway is the good stuff. I'll get there eventually. The doctorate. The Anglo-Saxons. But not now. My life, now, is not my own. Nor has it ever been. I am increasingly in control, but now I am happy. I have a job where I get paid a ridiculous amount to just sit at a computer and play with numbers. I would do that anyway. Not that I ever did... but eventually. I'll come into my powers. Slowly, slowly, the fulfillment comes. Today it is getting a stupid little Python script to run, tomorrow is marriage. Then the children we have already named. But slowly, slowly. I translated it into Latin once. If I ever got a tattoo, it would be that. I forget the words, but it was something like "Anima en motua non mortua est." The soul in motion is not dead. I am in the middle of writing my wedding vows, and the only thing I can ever promise is this: The soul in motion is not dead.

Post Script
I forget what it said, but I saw a tattoo once on the MAX written in Latin. It was clearly wrong. Permanently mis-translated Latin. It made me cringe.

"Poke"

-The Frightened Rabbit

I love depressing end-of-love songs, even though I don't ever want to have that ever with Sandi, it seems to mirror the expression of my soul just so. Like how I can only read elegies.

How did I used to do this? I guess the answer is a type of distance. Between myself and the world around me and no real way to approach or bridge that gulf. And I have no need... since I always have somebody to talk to about anything. I've been writing all of this for years for her, so what's the point of continuing? I still don't know, but I'm growing self-conscious at what I perceive as a dimming mental acuity. It is as if I am discovering a realm of sensitivity to people which, while illuminating, distracts me from unraveling the writhing mess of confusion and angst living within myself. I'm also somehow more self-conscious, more vulnerable now than when I had nothing, which is a weird feeling. I'm suddenly strikingly conservative, like when I looked at my first paycheck and saw how much of my money was going to the government each month. And I'm afraid to lose even the meanest gain.

"Pale Green Things"

Got up before dawn Went down to the racetrack
Riding with the windows down
Shortly after your first heart attack
You parked behind the paddock
Cracking asphalt underfoot
Coming up through the cracks
Pale green things
Pale green things

You watched the horses run their workouts
You held your stopwatch in your left hand
And a Racing Form beneath your arm
Casting your gaze way out to no man's land
Sometimes I'll meet you out there
Lonely and frightened
Flicking my tongue out at the wet leaves
Pale green things
Pale green things

My sister called at 3 AM
Just last December
She told you how you'd died at last, at last
That morning at the racetrack
Was one thing that I remembered
I turned it over in my mind
Like a living Chinese finger trap
Seaweed in Indiana sawgrass
Pale green things
Pale green things 

-The Mountain Goats

"As Tall As Cliffs"

-Margot and the Nuclear So and So's

Thanks, Ben, for setting this up. So it turns out I will probably graduate. As long as I can make it through the next the 43 hours or so. I finally had an okay interview, so we'll see how that goes.


I needn't be afraid?
of all those devils on the wall? 
that make a fellow small? 
when he's feelin' grey?

Grad School

i'm back bitches