Your voice in the dark.: April 2006

With your pen and notebook you've blown me away // It's the smallest words we cannot say

I walked up the hill like a warrior approaching battle. My pencil and 8 x 12 notecard holstered in my breast pocket, I marched into combat with my Accounting final exam. I had to laugh at the drama in that very mindset I was trying to carry, complete with 'Art is Hard' by Cursive (a terrific song, the cello is just mean) blaring through my headphones. It couldn't have been a more calm, sunny day outside really. I'm not sure it could've been more anti-climactic.

Almost 3 hours of pure testing delight. (S I G H) How I love me some bank reconciliations.

I wasn't as prepared for it as I should've been. Physically (I really need to go out running again, the famed "150 lbs. of solid steel and sex appeal" is starting to sag a wee bit) or academically. Or emotionally. That happens I suppose when a certain female of the species steals me from the pages of the text and lift me slightly off of my feet for 90 min. Of all the things I could say about her, I'm not sure I can say that she is someone who necessarily enhances my academic affairs. But I wouldn't trade those minutes away for anything.

"I don't want to hurt you" // "Well you can't 'cause I'm already dead"

In a dream I'm in a session of therapy with a woman that I can only describe as Goldfrapp with more flowing (Shannon-ish....) brown hair. She is trying to slowly pick apart my head but suddenly bride's maids and groomsman and suited and dressed men and women are parading through the many doors surrounding us. She leads the session into a very fancy bathroom, where suddenly she seems to be very flirtacious in her analysis; very whimsy and nearly stumbling into me twice, the latter instance nearly leading to an unplanned romantic moment before she sits atop the dual sink and continues with questions. The surroundings/tones continue on their Woody Allen film-esque path, I keep getting the impression that she is trying to seduce me into this off topic small talk so as to keep the minute and hour hands spinning as handfulls of people cycle in and out. She very matter-of-factly askes me what I think 'life' is. Before forming any sort of answer to the question she asks the only other person in the room, an elderly woman "what sort of adjustments have you made as your life has gone on?"

She replied "I havn't made adjustments, life adjusts me". I woke up right then.

What does that last bit mean?

My neighborhood became our own domain // Oh how I'd run when she called my name

Happy Easter/Passover holiday to you all. I hope yours was/is all that you hope for. Mine was very nice. The first one in a while where I reached for the jellybeans rather than the Walgreens punch clock (damn the "business of convenience"). Such as it seems to be with many of our outdoor holidays here in the great lake state, the mood would have to make up for the absence of the sunshine for the most part. But we did thankfully, and wouldn't you know it was the first holiday gathering in sometime that did not include the traditional argument between my mother and x family member. Good show.

A great feast was had; the rolls were soft and the potatoes delicately salted. The place that has celebrated many a holiday gathering now, my Grandmother's house, is actually what used to be our house for pretty much exactly the first half of my life. That is always a nice bonus in any holiday gathering, that extra feeling of familiarity, to see the scrap of wood with my 10 year old 'my hideout' etched in black crayon in my old bedroom closet.

After the feast, the family did something for the first time in years, not since the passing of my little cousin: the Easter egg hunt in the backyard. It really felt like 'the next generation' was there in front of us for the first time. It felt way greater than any of those 'wow we are old' moments you might have with your friends after hearing something about High School or whatever. Seeing them scamper about on the prowl for hidden treats really sent me back to our Grandma's house before she moved away, to the huge, almost baseball-field sized (in the heart of a child) backyard where the dozens of eggs hid under the beat up red car and in the hollowed log and below the rusty wire fence. I took photographs and dreamed:

but how do you coin the phrase though that will set your soul apart? // just to touch a lonely heart

I really like re-discovering music that is sort of nestled back there in the old days. They are just like a secret that you had with yourself that you locked away for when you were ready to fully understand it or for revisiting those pure emotions of the first time ever that night or that sunny day or about her or for us together. Just like hearing The Cardigans 'Lovefool' way back then, and then finding their wonderful song 'Carnival' right afterwards and then years later (in the golden year 2002) suddenly they were there, the perfect melancholy, lush instrumental pop group to score that time. Or 'Bad Days' by the Flaming Lips hiding away in the subconscious and then one day when I was ready, the door opened to their 'Soft Bulletin' album that had been there waiting for me for 5 years...until just that right moment where it fit. Just like this song, watching the video after Saturday Night Live with all my other favourites almost 10 years ago and then suddenly it flies free of the grey matter in my head and spreads its light brand new. Just wonderful.