20

a couple times a year i have this dream, although it seems like my subconscious should have outgrown it by now.

you were in my dream and we were all “THIS ISN’T DONE YET.” then i realized it was a dream. you said: "why did you do that (thing that I don’t remember now) (in the dream) (it was a thing that hurt you)?”

and i said: “i wasn’t there in that part of the dream. it was a dream lady masquerading as me, but i hadn't arrived yet. i've just arrived now. we’re both dreaming right now, but the thing that you think i did was in your dream before we synched up. i would never do that thing. but we’re synching right now. and you’re right, this isn’t over. you should call me when you wake up, if you remember to.”

“i’ll call you when i wake up.”

i am woken up at this point by the vibration of my phone on my night stand.

i think: “oh wow, he’s fast!” and for five seconds i contemplate how magical this is, and then as the chemicals that constitute my logic slowly fall back into place (i picture a lazy movement similar to the little rings in one of those handheld water games from the 90s*), i feel all that old sadness crowding around me.

then i see that it is a text, an invitation to see Human Centipede 2 at midnight. it is not from you. that is not one of the ways in which we are not done (although it is true that we will never see this movie together). i wonder if the subconscious brain can ever know "done," and i'm glad that consciousness evolved to split itself in two, and i'm glad that i spend most of my time wearing the version that knows "done," or at least knows "done" to the extent that it's functional and not steeped in the old sadness, which can, in dreams, feel acute.

thankfully only a third of my life (ideally) is spent wearing the version that doesn't know "done." although sometimes i wish it were more, strangely enough. sometimes it is nice to feel that something isn't done, though i am not necessarily referring to our thing in particular. always feeling like everything is done sometimes makes me feel a freedom from my own history that can make everything feel "unfamiliar" and not steeped in anything, and after a while that leaves me feeling desperate to be steeped in anything (even gargantuan familiar sadness will do).

the task of life is to feel appropriately steeped in a familiar system that doesn't reek of an old sadness.

sometimes it is more simple than that; sometimes it is just nice to sleep.


i eat a banana for breakfast and i don’t think about you for the next six months.

*http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080602143211AANXphn

18

-I’m No Nihilist-

Didn’t feel the earthquake but saw a bunch of birds that felt the earthquake,
fleeing from our permanent planet and from the smells of cars that need repair

I am eager for a different weather, for a storm to keep me company

I am disturbed by the photoshopped cats on the bags of cat food
I like my cats how I like my humans: real looking, with a disconcerting amount of facial hair

I am eager to forget how absurd a set of traffic lights looks beneath such a big sky,
and that there is no such deliberate cooperation in space

Things smash into each other with an embarrassing amount of disregard,
And this is the same spirit in which aphorisms are formed:

We have coached ourselves to say “live in the moment” when a moment is obedient,
and we say “this too shall pass” when a moment misbehaves.

Really these both hint at the same thing: life is happening while it moves closer to not happening

So really these phrases are interchangeable.

I’m no nihilist, but I’m certainly spearheading the movement to make people aware of this.

Can you imagine if we reversed the occasions for these phrases?
How much more interesting and creepy they would become?

Imagine someone telling you, “this too shall pass,” while you’re throwing back drinks and having a great time with friends,
And that same person rubbing your back while you vomit into the toilet later that night, advising you to “live in the moment.”