What about it?
Bad job, freedom, participant/observer
Weird birthday. Joy said it was a full moon which will “mess with the feminine divine,” but I’m pretty sure it’s because I was trying to fix a problem that isn’t mine to fix. I’ve been doing this for hundreds of years. The problem goes back even further. It’s of another world but also—and this is crucial—this one. I’m being obtuse on purpose. I don’t think I can write about it another way. The point is that I fucked the job up yesterday, a habit that is also on its hundredth or so year, which is fiction, because there is no job and so no way to fuck it up, which somehow has no bearing on the fact that I did.
Joy also said, “Is this somehow birthday related?”
On our last day in Ohio we met up with some friends for Yemeni food. One of those friends writes commercial jingles and I was thrilled to hear about it, and how he helped himself get a job with a major brand by strategically using their product during the meeting. Later I ate Coney Island at the airport. The waitress was in her sixties with dyed magenta hair and a bunch of tattoos, including a jack-o-lantern on her wrist and and the words what about it? along her forearm.
Oliver got me Stone Soup by Eric Ruby. I’ve been pretty rigid with myself about creative work over the past year and I’d like to stop that and try new things and take more chances. Eric’s work inspires me in that way, makes me feel free.
At the risk of sounding twee I’ll tell you that sometimes when I can’t sleep I’ll think of an object or a couple of objects and picture them in my head, then I’ll zoom out from there and see what I’m shown—what I’m showing myself, though it feels I’m more observer than participant. Last night it was a pink ceramic bowl with three brown pears inside. When I zoomed out they were on a kitchen table with a blue tablecloth, and the table was next to a tall window that could open out sideways from the middle with a latch. It wasn’t open though. Across from the window, beyond the table, a man was lying prone on a gray couch. He looked up at the ceiling. The sun was setting and making him feel sick. The color at that time of day sometimes made him worry that he was going to go crazy. It was a particular orange that didn’t feel right or safe to see, and on this particular day, he didn’t feel that he had any reason to resist it either. The one who brought the pink bowl and put the pears inside of it was gone. It was his fault. The orange spilled in through the tall window and soaked the table. The man ignored the signals from his body telling him to turn and cover his head with his hands. He stayed still, watching the color spread across the floor until it reached the couch, where it slid up its side and over the man and into his eyes and did nothing.
That sent me to sleep, but only after I held on for a little longer trying to see if there was anything else to see, which there wasn’t, and which, mercifully, didn’t seem up to me.
"what about it?" is a great tattoo