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So I'm here with Kelli, Friday evening. Our plans are in flux. The hooches are conspiring against us! [Kelli]
But the day is sweet and warm, a bit of rain -- but the skies showed a lot of blue, too. I'm writing this from Kelli's computer as we try to figure out what to do tonight. It's nice to be groovin' into the holiday weekend. I've been waiting for warm weather and Summery stuff.
Here's to a great extended weekend...
Once, I walked down a deep tree-lined lane. I was going from one side of campus to the other. Moments before it had rained and everything was glimmering and vivid in the late afternoon light. Droplets shimmered on each blade of emerald grass and dripped from the leaves of the old trees with every shift of the air. I remember how the tree trunks looked: moist and almost hyper-real. I stopped at one point in the lane, walked over to the side and pressed my palm against one of those trunks, feeling the rough texture. Then I went on to class.
Today, the rain has stepped back and things are blue-skied and bright. But there is still that underlying Spring shower feel. And the greens remind me of that day at college. I'm drinking cool water and looking out the window -- and time seems piled up behind me.
I think that I'd like to get out a bit more in front of it.
If you time it just right, you can bodysurf a wave far up the beach, bouncing and speeding along in the foam. Too far out and the swells just lift you up and set you back down. In too close and they curl and thump down right on top of you -- kinda fun, but painful, too.
But if your distance is right...
You get a long fun ride.
I've been out of college for 15 years, now.
Sheesh.
The air is still fast moving -- but now the sky shines, pulling emerald out of the leaves and grass. It is cool and rain-wet. I've had soup for dinner and I am contemplating a glass of red wine.
I feel good; the evening seems deep.
There is a sense of Summer vacations past: lots of fun stuff to do -- long hours to do it in. I don't actually have anything planned (and it is only Spring) but I feel ready-to-go, wide open and relaxed. I have some music on, 3 Doors Down. I'm grooving.
This is a nice vivid dusk, after a stormy pearl day.
I hope your evening hours are as bright.
(I went with a piece of chocolate cake -- instead of the wine. It was excellent, and took my mind off of my painfully inept efforts in Virtua Fighter 4.)
So, a pearl.
The sky is breathing heavy, shifting green trees, birds, and a siren in the distance. The daylight is diffused.
Pearlescent.
...And now quiet, like a pale sphere under clean water.
I remember painting wet-on-wet with watercolors, how the shades would blend and blur as I brushed them onto the moist canvas. It was silky, chaotic. Pretty. With enough water, the color would be just a sheen.
Like a pearl.
Today is.
It's sweltering.
Everything is pressed in close and heavy, even the air. The sky is milky and low. A gusty wind is blowing, but it misses the skin (and any chance of cooling) bending and twisting the trees, instead.
My head hurts.
I think I'm going to go grab a shower, cool down. Maybe do some laundry tonight. Some writing. Perhaps later I'll watch another DVD, or read. I haven't been back to The Haunting for a while... Hours like these can really stretch on. Really press in. I could use a good weekend, something bright and open.
Hah, looking out the window I see that the day has brightened. I can hear birds. Funny, how changeable things are.
And there's a cooling breeze across my face...
The thrills, chills, and day-to-day drills. Spill. (But only a little.) Flee! Be free...
And so it goes...and goes. This bland extinction, this kingdom of dust. The fading of signal and tone, certain waters washing colors pale and translucent. Are these the golden years? One can only hope not.
Is this not my life too? 2:31 PM 5/8/02, and I am not to be trusted.
A bad day. I look for ways to act. Try to find the best ones. I'm sick in the middle of me. What's respectful? What is self-respectful?
Which way do I go to be good in this warped landscape?
I want to be free, to be out in the open world, the wind curving around me, strong and safe. I want to be vivid and I want to be a real boy. Shall I pray for 2,000 years?
"What has happened?"
"I don't know."
"We are in a cage."
I'm into the evening, smoothly. The sky is filling with wind and darkness...and then fading to pale light. There is the smell of rain on the cooling breeze but the showers, so far, seem hesitent. Birds are chirping in the mercurial dusk.
I've been tinkering, and writing, and getting a variety of stuff done today. I feel like having a cup of coffee, now. Don't know if I will though.
Half of my light bulbs are replaced; the last, a sweltering halogen number, awaits my screwdriver. It'll be good to get more light in here. I love illumination. If I were constructing my own home or designing an apartment, it would be bathed in light. Layers of light (brighter over more subdued) and color variations... Darkness and shadows and be interesting, and even inspiring at times, but for day-to-day living -- make my space shine.
Time for that halogen.
I'm sipping red wine in a dimly-lit room. It's not really romantic or mysterious -- I just need to get some new light bulbs. But the wine is good, so that's cool.
I got a lot of stuff done today and I'm unwinding now. Maybe later I'll read some more of The Haunting, or play around on the PS2. Now it's just a nice mellow moment, a Thursday evening with the light still in the sky and the sounds of the highway swishing distantly. The breeze through my window is cool...but not cold.
This afternoon, I added all the entries from my original journal, "I Have Nothing to Say", to this version of Tangerine. They are in the archives, categorized under "January 1997". (Actually, the entries stretched out over most of the year in 1997 -- but I didn't record the dates on which I wrote them, just the hours. What can I say, I was into a whole "deconstructionist" thing at the time.) Later, I'll be adding all of the old Tangerine entries, too. There are quite a few of those, so it'll take a while. I will also be adding "category" archive pages, eventually.
At the moment, though, I'm going to finish my wine, stretch my back, and find some light bulbs...