Halloween happens in cyberspace, too.
October, 2005 Monthly archive
everything’s dying, and i skipped church again.
in the car, the light turned green but we just sat.
people started beeping but the weather
was arresting. that, and the shadows of our
individual thoughts dancing on the glass. it caused
a calm inertia. i could have sat there all day.
at the restaurant, in a trick of coincidence, you walked in with a new lady.
we said our awkward hellos and introduced our new significants
without acknowleging just how significant this event was,
as if we’d each gotten lost on different roads to neighboring cities and suddenly
were asking directions at the same gas station, nodding cool hellos.
thinking about it on the sidewalk later, the indian summer sun
bleeding over me, i felt the ache that comes from
letting hollow spaces stay empty: specifically, that our
story never had a moral so we let it end, quietly.
i remember the size of your back, and how it doesn’t matter now.
i’ve packed my affections in little brown boxes and
shipped them off to someone else,
and i’ll do it again, and i’ll do it again, maybe,
with — (yes, certainly) — regrets but also
with a warm jacket on and enough cookies to last me through this tired infant winter.
If Emerson College was good for anything, it was for their insistent curriculum which instructed that, in the entertainment industry, you must kill or be killed. Trust no one, but shmooze. Shmooze your face off. Exploit your contacts later. Networking is gold. Never forget that, people. Think only in terms of your own success, and step over anyone for it.
So it seems my old friend (and one-month sophomore year shmooching partner), Opus, is taking all of Emerson’s teachings to heart. What I find most hysterical about the following email he sent me, in addition to the fact that it’s a form letter he sent to everyone else, is that it serves as a reminder that I’m just as shameless as him, because he’s stolen my idea: Back in the 90s, I wanted to write a book entitled, “Kissing Opus Moreschi”. I thought it just sounded like a cool title. But the bloke has beat me to it:
Hey there,Remember me? It’s Opus Moreschi. We had some manor of
romantic relationship in the past. I hope you remember,
otherwise, I am embarrassed for myself.I’m currently meandering my way through a series of comic
essays that I hope to gather into a book called “My Life (In
Alphabetical Order)”. What I hope to work on now is chapter
G (girls) or possibly R (relationships) or S (sex). I have to
see how it all turns out.With that in mind, I am taking a page from the book of
Broken Flowers and contacting some of my exes. I wanted
to ask you a few simple questions to get some material for
my essay. I won’t be using any real names and your
anonymity will be preserved.If you could answer these following questions, I’d be very
appreciative. Make them as short or as detailed as you like.
Also, please be frank and brutally honest – I can take it.1) How did we meet, and what was your first impression of
me? How was the wooing process?2) How would you describe our sex life and/or sexual
encounters?3) How did I handle the breakup? How was I after the
breakup?Thanks in advance for your help. I’ll autograph you a copy of
the book if the damn thing ever gets finished.–opus
PS – If you can get this to me by the end of the weekend, I
would greatly appreciate it.
We practised dying last night on the living room floor. We’d walk along like nothing was wrong, and then — BANG! — we’d be dead. It would be from a gunshot, or a flying knife in the back, or maybe the effect of poison. Whatever the cause, we’d collapse — or lunge down to the ground — or skid our limp flesh across the kitchen. The kids were much better at it than me. It also took me longer to get used to the morbidity of the game, although the kids seemed to love it. They died and died and died again. I wondered why.
Because this is something we don’t understand:
How someone could be here, then suddenly not here anymore ? If we turn it into a funny game, something tangible, something we can act out, then get up and walk away from — it makes it a little less scary.
gas leaks, broken bike brakes, a
doctor’s appointment,
the smell of fried anchovies;
last night,
i tried escaping. halfway up the street and
almost crying, i realized it was cold and the walk would be
too long. turned around and gave myself a talking to:
this is not constructive. this attitude won’t do.
now the flesh on my thighs is sticky
from where peppermint tea is seeping through my jeans.
the sky has been a warm, dense yellow for days and
i’ve hardly even noticed.
tonight we’ll have cider, and cookies,
and discuss none of this.
The thing about working on a human rights website is that, whenever there’s a natural disaster, you have to scramble to update all the articles about relief efforts on the site. And, since Armageddon has begun, there is no shortage of natural disasters in the world right now, hence no shortage of articles, hence my wrist hurts from typing all day, and everything is becoming blurry from staring at the computer screen.
Yes, saving the world is tedious, and totally doesn’t pay as much as, say, marketing candy bars or programming all the computers at the Pentagon (congrats, Brent; you will always be more successful than me).
But I don’t mind.
In other news, it rained really hard yesterday. I got soaked. So did everyone else. Larry and I posed in our fishermen’s finest, waiting for Ry to get off the phone. This has been a long week.
No, really. Go on — test your knowledge.
This was based on a conversation in the lunchroom re: mens’ communal bathroom etiquette.
Apparently, men and women have totally opposite bathroom etiquette. Men say as little to eachother as possible, whereas I look under the stall door, identify the pair of high heels or sneakers, and call out to the person:
Nguyen, is that YOU?? Wussup, yo?! Wha’s goin on, dawg?
Guys just don’t do that.