Oasis: "Don't Go Away"

This *will* be long. Fair warning -- though Phil: you get what you give.

I am so frustrated lately. I am nothing but a sloth; a veritable rat's nest. I am lazy, I sleep all the time, I missed both classes today and have literally done nothing productive all day long. I need to get my life in order... I feel like I'm moving sideways, or not at all. What happens in my life is absolutely in my command. My destiny is guided by me. While at this stage of my life, this bookended era of relative nothingness, stagnation and the supposed reflection of the rest of my life, I feel completely unmotivated, uninspired, un-everything. I live day-to-day in the sense that I haven't been working towards goals and because of this I am beginning to feel empty. I don't know why I am laying this all out for people, though friends, to read. I haven't done this kind of thing since the Love List years ago (and whoever wants a copy, let me know and you'll get one). There is trepidation but ultimately relief. But that ultimate letting go is like inching up high towards the edge of a rock peak. You don't want to look down and psych yourself out because it'll be worse that way, but you can't willfully trust in what will happen. Then once you get up the nerve to jump, it *is* an adventure, a free-fall, a weightlessness that feels so good and is addicting. Just the tip o' the iceberg.

Ryan Adams: "When the Stars Go Blue"

I haven't read a good book in so long. I am literally in the middle of five or six. Like I said: unmotivated, uninspired. I am reading "A Wrinkle in Time" (really) per the demand of Mary. She gave it to me over a year and a half ago and though a note inside pissed me off and was the last proverbial straw of that cycle (we do go in cycles, Mare) and I am ashamed that I've had it for so long without reading it. She was here a week ago and urged me to pick it up. I did and I like it.

Wilco: "outtasite outtamind (acoustic)"

Mary's friend Phil was reading a sci-fi book when he was here last weekend, and he really read it fast by the way, and then he and I were talking a little about books and I mentioned he had to read "The Beach." And Jeff: I forgot to tell you to too. You have to too. I got it from my friend Lisa about four years ago now and I liked it then, saw the movie and appreciated the book so much more (though the movie was ok, see it without the book in mind) and then reread it a little over a year ago and gained a new love for it. It is remarkable.

Jon Bon Jovi: "Standing Outside Your Window With a Suitcase in My Hand"

Here is a very illegal sampling of my favorite passage:

“All These Things”

There are one hundred glow-stars on my bedroom ceiling. I’ve got crescent moons, gibbous moons, planets with Saturn’s rings, accurate constellations, meteor showers, and a whirlpool galaxy with a flying saucer caught in its tail. They were given to me by a girlfriend who was surprised that I often lay awake after she went to sleep. She discovered it one night when she woke to go to the bathroom, and bought me the glow-stars the next day.
Glow-stars are strange. They make the ceiling disappear.

“Look,” Françoise whispered, keeping her voice low so Etienne wouldn’t wake. “Do you see?”
I followed the path of her arm, past the delicate wrist, up her finger to the million flecks of light. “I don’t,” I whispered back. “Where?”
“There… Moving. You can see the bright one?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Now look down, then left, and…”
“Got it. Amazing…”
A satellite, reflecting what – the moon or the earth? Sliding quickly and smoothly through the stars, tonight its orbit passing the Gulf of Thailand and maybe later the skies of Dakar or Oxford.
Etienne stirred and turned in his sleep, rustling the plastic bad he’d stretched out beneath him on the sand. In the forest behind us some hidden bird chattered briefly.
“Hey,” I whispered, propping myself up on my elbows. “Do you want me to tell you something funny?”
“What about?”
“Infinity. But it isn’t that complicated. I mean, you don’t need a degree in –"
Françoise waved a hand in the air, tracing a red pattern with the tip of her cigarette.
“Is that a yes?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I coughed quietly. “If you accept that the universe is infinite, then that means there’s an infinite amount of chances for things to happen, right?”
She nodded and sucked on the red coal floating by her fingertips.
“Well, if there’s an infinite amount of chances for something to happen, then eventually it will happen – no matter how small the likelihood.”
“Ah.”
“That means somewhere in space there’s another planet that, by an incredible series of coincidences, developed exactly the same way as ours. Right down to the smallest detail.”
“Is there?”
“Definitely. And there’s another which is exactly the same, except that palm tree over there is two feet to the right. And there’s another where the tree is two feet to the left. In fact, there’re infinite planets with infinite variations on that tree alone…”
Silence. I wondered if she was asleep. “So how about that?” I prompted.
“Interesting,” she whispered. “In these planets, everything that can happen will happen.”
“Exactly.”
“Then in one planet, maybe I’m a movie star.”
“There’s no maybe about it. You live in Beverly Hills and swept last year’s Oscars.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah, but don’t forget, somewhere else your film was a flop.”
“Oh?”
“It bombed. The critics turned on you, the studios lost a fortune, and you got into booze and Valium. It was pretty ugly.”
Françoise rolled onto her side and looked at me. “Tell me about some other worlds,” she whispered. In the moonlight, her teeth flashed silver as she smiled.
“Well,” I replied. “That’s a lot to tell.”
Etienne stirred and turned over again.

I leaned over and kissed Françoise. She pulled away, or laughed, or shook her head, or closed her eyes and kissed me back. Etienne woke, clasping his mouth in disbelief. Etienne slept. I slept while Françoise kissed Etienne.
Light years above our garbage bag beds and the steady rush of the surf, all these things happened.

After Françoise had shut her eyes and her breathing had eased into a sleeping rhythm, I crept off my plastic sheet and walked down to the sea. I stood in the shallows, slowly sinking as the tide pulled away the sand around my feet. The lights of Koh Samui glowed on the horizon like a trace of sunset. The speed of stars stretched as far as my ceiling back home.

I want to write like that, I want to live like that. I want to have moments of clarity where everything and outer space makes sense. I yearn to have moments of genius, like a fish who learns to play dead like a party trick (lame joke to Winnie); in light of these things, in light of other people, in light of life itself and what I'm missing, I yearn to live and I really don't feel like I'm living to the best of my ability right now. Maybe its the fact that its late and I slept thirteen hours last night. Maybe its the fact that I don't belong in a rural environment. Maybe its the fact that I'm poor with no prospects in sight. But whatever it is, it needs to be fixed.

Freddy Jones Band: "In a Daydream"

Right now, before bed, I am going to begin by cleaning my room a little. Tomorrow I don't want to miss any classes even if it means going to my Logic class that I've been to twice all semester despite the fact that the book is *still* not in yet. I am going to see "Talk to Her" with Cindy either Tuesday or Wednesday night depending on when she gets back to me, so fun is in the breakfront. I vow to restart my flax regiment, to minimalize my laziness (perhaps for Lent) while maximizing my output. I need reminders though. I *will* fall back into stagnation, that much is known, for I am weakwilled and lazy. But I have a list of things I need to work on, things to finish and things to start. Hopefully this will take this time.