who reads this.

Ca me pête les couilles.

I want to take up this phrase. It means “that farts on my balls.” Well, it technically means "that breaks my balls," but break and fart are homonyms so I'll stick with my interpretation.
It's ungraceful, but French, and so all crudeness is smoothed by soft double el's and forgotten es's. My boss calls us “choupinette” and “choupinours” depending either on our gender or on his mood, in which case we are occasionally all choupinettes. Though it makes it difficult to tell exactly who he is talking about (“go tell choupinours to come here”) it's the most endearing term of endearment that I've ever heard.

“Charlot” means fool or incapable person, which is pretty good as well. In the Matrix, when the Marovingien fairly sings an aria of French profanities, he overemphasizes the grace and misses the hilarity. Yes, they sound silly, but when they're used most effectively they're highly entertaining. The film I saw today (the one set in Washington) had French subtitles, and their filling-in of the profanity was truly inventive. They don't really have the same ones as us. Their versions of the word jackass are inumerable, but also more specific in their meaning. It makes me nervous to use them without fully understanding...

I was going to pick up “cabron” from Madrid too, but that never happened. We'll see if I can work in some colorful French. Maybe just with my French-talkin' friends and my annoying problem sets...

C'etait bien, les vacances

The alps are more than I remember. I, who can never be bothered to take out a camera, took so many pictures. The problem is that my head cannot hold an accurate memory of the alps. Every time I looked up from a path I was struck again by the enormity of the mountains. Every time I felt the need to remember it better. Why are they so far beyond my ability to store beauty?

I am home again. The rent is late and the air is hot, but I have nothing to manage and so life is manageable. My nose is still pealing from alpine sunburn. I was closer to the sun, so it was more mordant. I was very close to the sun.

I don't know what mood is coming, but a feel a change. This heat, these books, this stage in my journey... I am at a threshold. Two days ago I cried, yesterday I Slept, today stagger like a lock following the blade of a knife, wearing down to give way to something great.

I saw a movie of little consequence today, but it was set in Washington. In the winter in Washington. The green and the trees and the sea and the voices came back to me. At a party which was the cause of the Great Sleep, someone asked me if I was impatient to go home. I answered no, but that is only half true. I am not unhappy here, but I do want to go home. I don't get to go home right away, but when I finally get there the wave will have crested an I will run out and get everyone's feet wet before they see what's coming. There will be cool breezes.

Here there are cool breezes, but they are artificially procured by means of a fan which I bought today, and sing into now to hear the choppy little reflections. Then I spent almost as much money on a 170 page book, but I think more J.M. Coetzee is what I need. I think Disgrace was the most important book I read this summer. We will see what comes of Waiting for the Barbarians.

I think that they will write an article from my research on biofilms. It feels less hopeless, at least, though it is still far from invigorating.

So for now, I will wait-to-see-what-comes. That's not really waiting. I hate waiting. This is just fine.

The Answers Marching One by One

Getting inspired by Kate Zambreno. Sunburns and silence. Alone while my family rides bikes. Ants crawl between the keys of the keyboard. What is sweet here? Oh right, everything.

Also, rereading this  and thinking about how carefree my dreams have been lately.

And reading this and smiling.

La Côte d'Azur

Pretty bug. Two amazing meals. By the beach. With my broski and Popsicle. Vacances.

Holistic Attraction

When a stranger asks me to have a drink, there is nothing there to want. I know only one thing: the stranger is attracted to me.

When I am in bed, and we've just had sex, and my lovers eyes trace my collarbone and a hand follows the curve of my hip back and forth because the shape is pleasing, I see a similar attraction. This time, however, it is meaningful. I relish the desire; it leads to so many experiences. It also brings my attraction out of my mind and into the world, because until I see it in a mirror it is only a part of my imagination.

But the stranger's desire is not reflected. It is not real. Or rather, it is caught in uncertainty and is flailing blindly until it finds an image of itself. In its helpless state, sometimes it catches a single shard of mirror, or mistakes an irrelevant sunbeam for its reflection.

But one shard is not enough. One shard is not a broken piece, but rather something that is not anything. Two shards, however, are parts of a greater creature. The more shards there are, the more interesting it is to assemble them. The assembly is the crux of the adventure. And then to look into it for a moment and relish the creation before the cracks appear again.

The mirror I make is concave. It has corners. It's a box, and inside it goes as deep as I look, images of itself stacked within each other until I blink. One shard alone is flat, and self evident.

The truth of the matter is that attraction is not enough for me. Especially not a monopole, but even a monopole with some extra aspects is worth it. The hardest part of seducing someone is deciding that you want to seduce them. And one shard is never enough.

Yeup, rehashing old ideas but lets just call these drafts and one day I'll actually know what I'm writing about.

The world is holding its breath and I am begging for a breeze

The air is stagnant after ten pm, 4 stories above the ground. An artificial wind device would be most appreciated at this juncture, and I will seek one as soon as possible. With the arrival of an unexpired debit card and a father, all of my needs will doubtless be met immediately.

I have had a period of gentle certainty in my place here. More social opportunities arise than I am interested in participating in these days, which leaves a security blanket of potential escape on the shivering body of my hermitage. Anna is done, and so I began Le Trone de Fer, which, to my infinite disappointment, is not literature. It is a book, it is a story, but if it wasn't poorly written it was poorly translated and my patience for it is strained. On the other hand, I have read 300 pages of it and will certainly read the next 200. There is something to be said for stories. But I doubt I will look for its sequel.

Pierrot le Fou. That was literature. No, it was film, but it felt like literature. Maybe I will write a story of Pierrot le Fou, maybe it is inspiring. Maybe it's just conversational, and the conversation should be kept private. How would I write the colors? I saw it outside, in the night, and the bells of churches rang during the movie.

I am still uncomfortable at work. This is because I don't really have any. I'm not taught, either. You know I study physics because I don't think I could learn it on my own. Well, these summer adventures are all about learning physics on my own and it's all very contrary to my central beliefs about physics. Do I learn? What can I relay from my readings? Vague things, and only with specific questions. If I reread my summaries I do a bit better.

So there. There we are.

Oh, and I am eating luxuriously. Rillettes de Canard is meat that melts like summer on your tongue. However, I am starting to believe that my appreciation of food is somehow linked to my menstrual cycle. I find I have phases of everything-is-delicious and other times nothing-tastes-right and still other what-does-hunger-feel-like periods. Maybe there is some other cycle, but that is the cyclest cycle I know.

Next weekend, to the mountains! I didn't speak directly about the subject of this weekend, but it was pleasant though too hot. Apero at la Daurade, with normal conversations. I did the laundry! It was very pleasurable to do, I wish I had done it more often. The movie, and today the natural history museum which has an impressive collection of skeletons.

C'est ca la vie. La vie, c'est là.

Fishiness

My room smells of fish. I splash of mackerel juice found its way out of the can and is making my life a living hell. The mackerels have been been thrown out on the charge of being excessively fishy. They were not thrown out quickly enough, however, and I eagerly await the day that my room regains its neutral odor.

I may need to do some laundry to achieve that goal. But I need to do laundry for other reasons, like going to work. So, as the situation grows more desperate the amount of good that will come of it increases. By the time I actually get around to it, I'll be in a state of ecstasy at its completion. Why hurry?

I have a similar theory with regards to opening a bank account in France so that I can be paid for my minimal contributions to the water-place.

In any case, the window of my room opens out into a dramatic sunset and lets in the last of the daylight for this typing to take place. My writing has taken a backburner to my reading lately, as Anna Karenina is a jealous mistress (spoilers lol). I do have a small mountain of letters to send, but my journals lay around in their lonesomeness and my diarying has less flavor for me. Maybe I'm just overwhelmed by the fishiness at the moment.

I did write the first 500 words of a story the other day, but I'm not sure that it will materialize into anything. I did feel madly eloquent for those 500 words. That's part of the problem. Now that I had such a comfortable start I have no desire to drag myself through any of it. Also, dialogue is so difficult. I need to either hunt down that play I started or begin another one and practice practice practice. I'm too comfortable describing. I need things to happen. I need to share the moment with the characters.

What if I wrote an entire novel without any dialogue. Self-serving.

Look, at this point I'm just writing to stay in the habit of writing. Same with the 15 minutes I just spent with Radiohead and my fans. Gotta buy a ticket to Pacific Fire Gathering. I think I'll also buy Mathematica tomorrow. I can't live without it. Spending dollahs. Worth it.

Somehow many of my coworkers have heard of Burning Man through TV shows. Apparently in a Simpsons episode they go to Burning Man, and some other show too. I am curious as to what these portrayals are like. Anyways, Burning Man Burning Man Burning Man I cannot wait.

I also can't wait to start Le Trone de Fer which I bought yesterday. 300 more pages of Tolstoy and then it begins.

I still feel good. And none of it was real.

Last night I dreamed luxurious feelings. I dreamed food, and sex, and freedom.

I have some habits to fix.

http://archive.org/details/HabitPat1954

Especially since I just took a morning after pill from a judgmental pharmacist. This is incredible.

Who//What//Where//When//Why//How//ABANDON STRUCTURE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE

I've just reread my Hum paper on Niobe. If only I had taken Hum 110 with Robert Knapp for my entire Reed career, I think my writing would be better. Maybe I'll put it up on the blog so I won't ever lose it. That's how this works, right?

I think my favorite reason for blogging is that if I found this blog, as a random stranger, I would enjoy it. There are other reasons, of course: exhibitionism and nostalgia chiefly among them. This feeling of youth and invulnerability sure doesn't help either. I should probably look up the dangers of admitting to lawlessness on the internet. This Ubuntu word processor want to either capitalize the I of internet, or write the whole word in capital letters. How strange.

My last few posts have been a little gloomy, I know. I just post whatever I wrote in the order I wrote it in. Sometimes it seems a little silly to say “I am sad” on Monday, when in fact I was sad on Friday night and Monday is cheerful and bright. But I am a sucker for completeness and I think that's more important than temporal accuracy.

This Friday night was not a sad one. A work-buddy invited me to the Siestes Electroniques, which should be starting up again in an hour or two. It turns out that he didn't know what time they were at, because at 10:30 the park was locked and the show was over. We sat in an asphalt park for a while, drinking his cheap beer, and it was there that I found out that he had absolutely no social anxiety. I have never met such a person before. He's a little wacky, but pretty fun.

In a fit of boundless extroversion, he called a guy he'd met in his building and invited himself to hang out with Pierrot's group. We walked over to La Daurade, where they were sitting on a large map of the city. The conversations were not particularly memorable, but at one point we all got up and learned Indian dance moves from work-buddy and his friend. That was pretty great.

After a disagreement with a large Algerian man over whether or not he was entitled to a puff of a cigarette, we left the park to avoid a fight. We ended up at another, rather sinister park, where we stayed until 3 in the morning, discussing cinema and the allegory of the cave. They were nice semi-crusty semi-punky people, and we got on pretty well.

The boything was home to check on his grandmother and visit his family.