i miss

split-second dream on the verge of nodding off
i saw your face in an unbidden memory
art class, you had mono, orange hair and a new
fairy tattoo

four oclock i should be sleeping

write me back if you remember?

time runs
but where does it go.

bad memories are still memories. so what happened to mine?

from ages thirteen to twentyone my mind draws a grainy picture fear-uncertainty-confusion in a mishmash of light and dark. a suffocating humidity surrounds my attempts to recall memories, a stifling heat that makes traversal of the past a painfully slow and unpredictable effort. using years and apparently significant events as an index to the series of events, more often than not there is nothing there. when sitting with old friends, inevitably the mental scrapbooks open a little wider with each drink and soon a raucous outpouring of anecdotes fills the room. "remember that?" they say, and everyone nods.

but i don't.

although i know that there was much time spent alone, there are few discrete moments of the solitary times either.

where are my memories?

the timeline of the past is felt more often as an emotional continuum than as a personal narrative of events. strange to know how it felt, but without the context of what it was to feel. almost as if searching via tactile feedback for a light switch in the darkness along a tiled wall; each tile with a different texture that is recognizable to the touch but not consciously identifiable. the smells are pungent and hang in the air, charged with an electric energy that jangles the nerves. all of my senses are aware and recording the experience, but in retrospect there is no synchrony to the sensations.

as i awaken each day, the previous day quickly resolves itself into to-do lists, appointments and ideas. but the essence of it, the awareness that i am continuing from yesterday into today, very often is absent. will i ever gain something more than a vague sense of time's passage? at what point will i begin to have memories that i can actually remember with any degree of certainty?

...

sitting in the swiveling eggshell chair by the window at three-thirtyfive in the morning, i look outside at the rainslick streets reflecting the pale streetlights five stories below. the l-shaped corner of the shabby old couch tugs at the corner of my eye and i turn to look. sitting there to my left is a projection of myself, two years from now. he is a shadowy form, for i have no way of divining his physical appearance. all i can see is a disembodied smirk as shakes his head slightly, slowly, sarcastically; he leans forward and whispers. i hear his voice, my voice, and i know that my mind is enacting a simulation of the question -- one that i had asked myself only moments before the apparition appeared:

in two years, what will i wish i had done at this moment? what path will i have taken; which one leads me toward the person that i wish to become?

in that shadow of my future self, the one who may be a ghost of one who died, may be a vision of one who survived, i see no reflection of those who now surround me. none of my friends look like him, none of them feel like him. the world in which he lives gives me no clues. those among my friends and acquaintances whom i would say have "succeeded" cannot point me in their path and guide me.

i need to have another conversation with this guy, and soon.

audio: dizzee rascal . brand new day

who and how

thinking. about-

acting. society. imitations of one within the other.
strange dreams.

trying to sleep earlier but seeming to wake up later, all the while sleeping for the same amount of time every night.

trying to think but daydreaming instead, every time i look up at the sky. clouds chase the sun, wisp-thin fingertips too slow to grasp the elusive source of heat and light. the closer i get, the farther i have to go?

a step further: my desire to outlive this threadbare life is fueled by the fantasies that i see others pretending to enjoy.

let's go for a drink.

let's go for a drive.

let's do clubs.

let's go for dinner.

	a party;
	[another party]
	a hotel;
	breakfast.

let's go.

let's do.

but how can i do now without paying twice for it later?

i tried living that way; all i felt was stress, latent fear of the last straw being broken and everything crashing down.

i won't live on faulty prayers and blind assumptions. to acknowledge death is one thing; having done that, how to go about living life? i'm not sure whether to go deeper in or move farther out; is it possible to become more, to have more -- and stay empty and centered?

whatever. platitudes are useless anyway. seems best to forget them as soon as i touch them. as if simplicity could be _possessed_ in the way that a word possesses a concept; entraps it, reduces it, chokes and stuffs the experience into a neat bundle of lexical references. nothing is extraneous, but words function to construct a sense of the truth without ever getting to the heart of it, the taste of it.

in order to succeed, i must change. but in adapting to the world, how can i keep from becoming a textbook example -- a "success/failure story"? everyone around me seems to say 'do now, think later', but if i don't think about what i do, how can i end up where i want to be? and if i think about what i do, how can i avoid distraction in the face of a world full of apparent options, many of which will not reveal themselves as mistakes until the moment of completion?

--

it seems like i have a mid-life crisis every six months, he says, half-chuckling as he nestles further into the headrest. he turns away from me to half-open his eyes in an unfocused gaze, time passing as a slow blur at fifty-five miles per hour outside the window. my eyes trace the delicate line of his jaw, the overhead light casting a heavy, quiet shadow over his boyish features as unkempt dark strands creep down to encroach over his brow. absorbed in his self-oblivious state of drunken contentedness, i follow his gaze out over the departing city lights. the train rescues him from a night of partying and me from a long day of rehearsing scenes for my friend's film.

but imagine if you lived your life, always certain of yourself, never asking questions, i replied. how boring...

he closes his eyes and pretends to sleep. as we resume our conversation a few moments later, i notice in my peripheral vision, a well-to-do middle aged man peering intensely into a magazine, straining to appear casual as he eavesdrops on our conversation.

--

i must admit, i have felt more excitement and seen more nearly-attainable possibilities in the past few months than ever before. as if the world is a box full of mirrors, i open it a bit wider every day; but without a clear understanding of the myriad reflections, i see pieces of dreams filling in the blanks where my self would otherwise show through. i wish to leave that warped image behind, but am at the same time curious to see who will be constructed by experience, crudely fashioned through a crooked social lense as a tree's branches are pushed and bent by the wind in the struggle to reach the sky; evolving to become something different tomorrow than it seemed to be at the beginning of today.

if only i could stop having these violent dreams. but desperation and inspiration are two sides of the same sensation, i suppose. what use is excitement without a little fear to make it real?

audio: joshua collins . project 3 [chris lake]

In a way, Jackson's brief peepshow was a godsend to FCC Chairman Michael Powell, other Republicans on the commission, and conservatives in Congress. The incident, however tasteless and inappropriate, really was small potatoes as national crises go. But it gave Powell a chance to shift discourse away from his campaign to remove restrictions on how many TV stations a sprawling conglomerate can own -- a proposal opposed by a vast bipartisan grass roots coalition.

As some of Powell's critics have pointed out, letting a few giant corporations own all the TV stations and cable systems in the country makes it more likely than ever that local community standards regarding what's fit and proper to broadcast will be ignored. Concentration of power leads to abrogation of social accountability. It makes TV literally all about money and nothing else.

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