from an email to an old flame:

I could imagine you leading a spartan mental life, especially in your years of seeking transcendence. There's a subtle impulse that is only felt in moments of internal quiet (or extreme upheaval). It's a strange experience, at least for me, because it's like finding another personality within myself. It urges me to do things that surprise me, and it also gives me the strength to follow these impulses through. But these impulses are also irregular, and even when I'm quiet, I don't always detect them. I suspect it's the same for you, and that's why you have shaped your mind "with a spartan ethic." Because it been a means to transcendent inspiration.

The odd thing is that when I was younger, much younger. . . . When I was a teenager, inspiration came from consumption. I'd read a book or hear a song, and it elevated something inside me. Sometimes my thoughts would be swept away in the excitement, and it was almost orgasmic in its ability to obliterate me. But other times it filled me with an urge to resonate, to create something of equal beauty and send it back into the world.

I don't get those feelings as often anymore. I sometimes fear that I've consumed too much and all that excitement has fried the wires of inspiration. But other times, after working really hard on a story, I'll listen to a song and it will take me to that place again. It makes me wonder if my soul is like a beaker, and I've filled it past brimming. Only through the act of creating can I pour some of that inspiration back into the world, after which I can experience the euphoria of filling myself up again. Heh. Makes me wonder. For all the noble language, maybe creation and consumption are just an addiction. A hard won needle and a fleeting euphoria.

painting the key

Our front door is actually a gate, and at night we bar ourselves in with a 2x4.

Last night, Lauren crouched on the warehouse floor and painted the wooden bar. I sat on a sofa nearby, polishing a poem about theater lights and misguided sisters. I looked up, groping for the word to replace "reticence," and I saw Lauren coating the 2x4 in black, then adding a dot of red. She was posed over her work like a child drawing lazy curlicues in the sand.

I decided to scratch the whole sentence and write instead about a mouth hidden behind pale fingers. When I looked up again, she was smearing the red dots and transforming the wood into a black widow. I returned to my writing and for a long time struggled with where to end the poem. It wasn't until Lauren stood and took several paces away from the board, to then turn and regard her handiwork that my own eyes lifted again. She stared at the 2x4, and I stared at her staring at it until she looked up and we both laughed.

It's all the same. Poem, painting, craft. Creation, polish, regard.

But that spell was broken when Hamer found a new place. In these nine days, she has stretched the social fabric of the warehouse to accommodate herself. And now that she's leaving, I fear it will never fit us properly again.

scapegoated

Last night I broke one of Josh's cups. It was hidden beneath a pot on the drying rack, and when I picked up the pot, the glass tumbled out and shattered against the floor. Immediately, Josh rushed over and said with more emotion than I typically hear in his voice, "Oh, Tim. . . . That was my *mumble, mumble* glass."

This irritated me. It was like he was accusing me of breaking his glass, when it was clearly an accident. In fact, it was less than an accident. An accident occurs when something is broken out of incompetence or clumsiness. If I had dropped the glass while drinking from it, that would have been an accident. Or if I had tripped and fallen with it, that also would have been an accident. But when I took the pot from the drying rack and dislodged the glass from its secret resting place, that wasn't an accident. That was bad luck, mingled a carelessly stacked pile of dishes. And if it hadn't been me who lifted the pot and broke the glass, it would have been somebody else. That glass was going to break. And I did not deserve to be talked to this way.

Josh began gathering the broken pieces, and I noticed the letters ATLA spelled out on the side. "Oh, it must have been from Atlanta." This came out more coolly than I intended. I did feel a little sympathy at that point. But when I get offended, my voice becomes like ice. Exasperated, Josh continued to mutter about his broken glass. I wasn't paying much attention at that point. He was over reacting.

What made this even worse was that I had been doing housework. I was putting up dry dishes. And before that I was peeling bananas I'd just salvaged from the dumpster, so we could freeze them and use them for smoothies later on. Meanwhile, Josh did nothing. He sat around on the hammock. And now that my industry wrought a little misfortune for him, he was getting all self-rightiously upset. He was implying I was a bad person. And I'm not.

Still, this situation had to be diffused. I wasn't about to apologize for something that wasn't my fault. But I couldn't think of any other solution. I just kept staring at the shattered ATLA. Hamer made a stab at resolution, though. "You're getting a demerit," she proclaimed. At first I thought she was talking to Josh, as a slap on his wrist for overreacting. But then I pretty quickly realized she was talking to me.

I put up a little fight, out of pride, then let the whole thing slide. She wrote everyone's name on the board, then put a tick next to mine. That tick was the first demerit in the warehouse. I didn't deserve it, I was certain of that, but I didn't fight it anymore either. It would gave Josh some resolution.

. . . . . . . .

I was still seething about this as I went to bed. It wasn't until I began to nod off that I saw things a little more clearly from Josh's perspective. I still don't understand it, not really. But he has a very different relationship with objects. He holds onto them for years. All I can figure is that they are his landmarks to the past. They are the waypoints to his own history. That glass probably had a sentimental value I can't even begin to fathom. While he was muttering, I remember him using a particular word. Only. It was his only. It was his only tie to something important and far away. It was the cue that reminded him of who he was at a certain time. It was a part of him he cherished. And when that glass tumbled off the counter and shattered against the cement floor, it was like a little lobotomy. A part of his history, his mind, his life was irrecoverably lost.

I'm sorry that he lost that.

But still, and I know this sounds petty, it wasn't my fault. And I hate being the fucking scapegoat.

fire

I have gone nearly a year without an audience. The only one to praise my accomplishments has been me, and I have learned to make that enough. I prefer for that to be enough. Because when I get another person involved, they invariably hurt me with their opinion. It makes me hate who I am. It makes me want to burn down everything and rise anew. I become like a phoenix. But a phoenix that emerges smaller and smaller each time.

Now there's a new woman whose eyes rove my face when we talk. It makes me smile when she does that. I can't help it. It's a smile that wells from within. And that lack of control frightens me. Because I know what it means. I know what's coming next. She's grappling the match from my fingers. She's going to start a fire she will not tend. And soon the theater of my personality will burn down. It will burn down, again.

the return

Last night I went to The Secret Show. They had it on the greenbelt, in the grotto where Blake, Josh, Lauren, and I hosted a screening of Microcosmos. Lindsey was so impressed by the space that she decide to have her next show there. They put it to good use, too. It was a beautiful night.

The first band I had never heard before. They were a gypsy band that wore potato sacks over their heads and sang songs about pestilence and violence. It's a popular genre these days. That, and Satan. One song stood out, in which they described slaughtering villagers with their witch's brews that induced insanity. Their lyrics didn't rhyme. That would have been fine, I suppose, but something about the waltzing rhythm made the rhymelessness jar at the end of ever line.

Wino Vino played next. They're also a gypsy band, and they also enjoy singing about pestilence, alcohol, debauchery, and ghosts. But they couldn't harmonize well, and often one instrument outclassed another. I was consistently impressed by the tambourine's performance, though. And both the wash boarder and flautist were flawless.

Green Mountain Grass followed, and although they're a bluegrass band, they started with their own gypsy song about drinking Stolichnaya. Their music immediately engaged the audience, both because of the performance of the artists as well as because the music itself demanded that we clap/sing along. One thing I especially appreciated about their performance was the way they would soften the instrumentals while somebody sang, essentially framing the lyrics with music. It was beautiful, and also helpful. I often have trouble listening to voices when they're blurred together with fiddles and drums.

In the middle of this set somebody passed me a pipe, and that completely changed the night. I took an enormous hit without realizing it, and no sooner had I blown the smoke out of my mouth than the world began to emerge from the darkness. Sober, the shadows hid the musicians from me. They also hid the tree and boulders and most of the audience. But almost immediately that viel was lifted.

During the next song, I began to notice people whispering. Before the pot set in, I was filtering that noise before I could even notice it. Now, it was pervasive. It came from every direction, even up and down. I was surrounded by people in all three dimensions. And pockets of them were whispering everywhere.

For a moment I thought I was going insane. I thought all these voices were the onset of schizophrenia. Maybe that first band had truly been a coven of witches, and they were spreading disease amongst the villagers through some heavily tainted pot. Maybe the voices would never leave me.

But then I looked around, and I saw that people's mouths were moving. Several were looking at eachother, rather than the band. I wasn't insane.

Lauren and I left after Green Mountain Grass, and those first several steps were treacherous. I had lost some vital sense of space, and several times I feared I was about to fall down the rock face. Luckily, I navigated it safely and returned to my bike. Somebody had left a few beer bottles and a can in the crate. For a few minutes, I was really confused about how this should make me feel. On the one hand, I was offended, like they were somehow ridiculing my bike for having a crate on it. It deserved no better than to become a trashcan. But on the other hand, I was impressed by their practicality. I had to take my bike and its crate away from the greenbelt regardless of whether or not there were bottles in it. It was better to put the bottles back there than to throw them on the ground.

When we got back to the warehouse, Lauren and I prepared some polenta with tempeh and spinach. It never set right, but it was delicious anyway--probably because we were stoned and hungry. I mentioned to Lauren that I haven't shat since eating seven bananas three days ago. She insisted that I have some dried fruit.

I slept well that night.

the day after the first

Exhausted. But the move is done.

I now live in the warehouse. I have a couch of cracked black leather and a desk of hard wood. Both were inherited. I found them in the space, abandoned by their former owners. I sleep on the couch. I type on the desk. Though I still don't have a chair.

My roommates are friends. We have swept and mopped and rearranged. We have scrubbed and foraged and relaxed. Daylight filters in through the skylights. We lounge on three half-sofas and a hammock. Music plays from Josh's iPod. It's fast when we decide to work. It's mellow when we rest.

Last night we went to a bar. Eight of us. Hamer, her grad-student friend, and I spent two hours arguing about noumenon, Hegelian dialectics, anarchy, psychoanalysis, self-understanding, and individuality. I normally don't talk about these things. I normally don't argue. But I did last night, and it felt great.

I think she's part of the petty bourgeoisie. (Her own term.) She's slumming. But that's fine. I enjoy the company. Nobody else disagrees with me these days. And some deep instinct revels in the confrontation. It's friendly. But it's also fierce.

Afterwards we went to the dumpster and secured several bottles of organic apple cider vinegar, a case fruit juice, a case of canned peaches, and six gallons of spring water. When we got home, I suspected everyone wanted to continue hanging out. Josh started playing music. I sat down in the community nook. Hamer danced. I was making an appeal to the others to join me for a conversation. I now suspect they were making their own appeals to dance or play music. This all passed unnoticed at the time, and feeling that nobody wanted to join us for a social nightcap, we each went to our separate bedrooms and closed the door. Good night.