Let's Have a Little Chat, How Bouts?

I proposed this question to N/A a couple days ago (while successfully evading actually answering it myself), and he's been chewing on his answer ever since.

Since it's a great question (which I actually stumbled across when reading an essay about No Country for Old Men in the book The Philosophy of the Coen Brothers), I propose it to all of you.

Feel free to ramble on as you see fit in my comments section...


Is there a rule that we can follow and, in following it,
be brought to a place where we can affirm our whole life?

-------

So I now officially have a last day here at work. It was all talk before, but now it's real and set in motion. Before, although I was excited about that which has been LONG overdue, my mind was cramped with a billion "But what if you don't find a job"s and "...what about this shitty economy"s and a hundred million other worries and concerns.

But today... making it official...

It was like a mouth opened up, and out of it, when I'd been expecting sound, spilled the most brilliant white light instead.

It was like I was standing naked on the edge of a cliff, on the perfect day, with the most perfect sunshine on my skin and the wind whipping around me with warm fingers of possibility.

It was like suddenly: freedom.

All worries and trepidation aside, this is a good good thing.

I feel it in my bones.

-------

I feel so listless lately, like I just wanna shake-shimmy out of this skin into something alive and awake.

I just need to figure out which skin needs the shake-shimmying.

-------

Mike Patton, Thank You For Making Me Feel Like I'm Going to Poop My Pants

I am entirely fascinated by the fact that Mike Patton has the ability to make me feel VISCERALLY UNCOMFORTABLE when I occasionally stumble across one of his songs.

I cannot say that I necessarily LIKE this song, per se.

But I appreciate the fact that it makes me feel hair-pullingly insane:

Goodbye Sober Day.mp3

-------

I'm in an inexplicably good mood this morning. Despite the fact that I just realized my underwear is on backwards.

-------

Heat and Metal

I bleed this month into a sock
between my legs,
and in the morning
it smells like heat and metal,
like I'd been ridden
straight into the sunrise
so hard
you could almost feel the hot prick
of spurs in my sides.
The tang of bit tight between
my teeth, the matted pelt.
And then:
the nothing between my back
and sky but the thick tongue
of sweat-stained leather,
slick with the reminder
of the fate I've bucked.

-------

This morning, when I got into my car to go to work, I noticed a purple Ford Escort parked in front of my neighbor's house.

I used to own a purple Ford Escort, so it made me think: What if my past self had returned to warn my present self about some impending danger!

And then I realized that my past self would only be able to warn my present self about something that had already happened, which would mean my present self would already know about it anyways.

And then I thought: that somehow figures. I'd be awesome enough to figure out how to time travel but dumb enough to travel from the PAST into the present instead of vice versa, making the whole escapade 100% useless.

I then turned on my headlights and realized it was a BLACK Ford Escort, rendering this whole tale absolutely without point.

So goes the world of Lindy Loo.

-------

Weird and Wacky Yesterday

Yesterday was just plain old weird. Apparently I shouldn't take Mondays off.

Other strange occurrences:

• I broke my cell phone keypad by getting tears in it while upset and talking on the phone. It sort of works, but the delete key now types a T, the 7 key requires you to press it about 8 times to get it to work, and the phone spontaneously dials a random number every once in a while.



• I'm standing a few feet away from this 30-something guy at the grocery store, running back over my grocery list to make sure I got everything. He's trying to decide on a beer. As he passes me with the beer he settled on, he says quietly, "You smell really good" and keeps on walking. I am caught so off-guard that I'm unsure of whether he has actually said this, so I suddenly turn into a proper-English haughty southern-belle and blurt--extremely loudly after him--"PARDON ME?!?" He pauses mid-stride, and turns around, saying equally loudly: "I said: You... smell... really... good..." grins, and walks off. I grin and shout a Thanks after him. I actually want to scamper after him and slam him into the Kool-aid rack, smashing my mouth into his, for the SHEER fact that he actually managed to figure out how to impart a sincere, non-hitting-on-me compliment on me successfully by realizing that, if he says it and just keeps walking instead of staying to awkwardly linger and awkwardly converse with me, then it will be clear that he meant it as a compliment and nothing more. But I do not embarrass myself. Nonetheless: way to go, beer man. You need to give lessons.



• Lyudmila emailed me to tell me she "would like to see that we became good friends and not only":
  
  Hello my the surprised friend!
  My name Lyudmila and I wish to take away from you at all a lot of time and to penetrate in my letter! My trade the doctor the dentist. I had an ingenious idea to try to find love not in that place where I live namely not in Russia! In me there were such emotions since recent time! I would like to tell to you about it my friend. On my work in the Stomotologichesky Polyclinic I had a chance that I will go on an exchange for practice to other city for me it it was good and not much not on myself because to go to other city on practice! I do not have there friends or even I am simple girlfriends with which I can to spend time and speak cheerfully about problems in mine to a new life.
  But all has exchanged and on an exchange there has gone my colleague which only not for a long time has come to us for work after the termination of Medical university. But the desire to find the acquaintance from other country at me remains on former. I thought of a step as acquaintance to the person from other country much. Once after work I have gone on foot because weather was fine and saw as enamoured steams follow a hand and exchange gentle kisses. I do not have not enough tenderness and the favourite person in the lives and it to me became very clear after this walk. I like to walk sometimes one alone with myself and to think about the lives. I could not find the happiness in my city and till now is lonely. For myself I have resolved to search for the love in other country. Especially I heard much about that that people from other countries are more romantic and are careful concerning relations with women, so to say they have a spark in eyes! I am ready completely to this step and have bought yours e-mail in International Dating Agency. To me have told that you my friend very good lonely person with kind and open heart. I wish to tell about myself directly that to me 32 years and my growth 168 see I live to Russia, city Kanash. I wish to be happy life in the and I have serious sights at this world. At me the big age and is a lot of experience behind shoulders. I am confident that we can to find with you the general a theme of conversation and to learn each other more.
  I hope to see yours the letter my friend about your life. As I to place my foto with the letter and some resume in a file. I very much would like to see yours the letter and to have with you acquaintance.
  I would like to see that we became good friends and not only.
  If you are serious and interested please reply ONLY to my personal e-mail: lyudmilaneedlove@gmail.com
  My letter to you was sent by manager International Dating Agency therefore write on my personals e-mail: lyudmilaneedlove@gmail.com
  Yours new friend Lyudmila.

-------

Lindy Loo Meets Her Philosophical Arch-Nemesis and Cannot Destroy Him Because It's Her Mom's B-day So Instead Leaves Him a 20% Tip and Then is Pissed Off About It the Rest of the Night

Actual conversation with the server at the Indian food restaurant that we went to with my mom yesterday for her birthday.

[The server is cleaning up after we finished our dinner. He addresses the inquiries I made about their use of ghee and/or milk products in what I was ordering.]

Server: So why do you not drink milk?

Me (a bit shocked that he is asking this of a customer): Ummm... (long pause) For animal reasons.

Server: Milk comes from so many places. From coconut. From banana. (He lists off numerous items where "milk" comes from, and I am unclear as to what his point is but am getting uncomfortable.)

Me: Um. Yeah.

Server: 99% of people in India drink milk.

Me: Uh, oh. (Realizing I'm getting lectured)

Server: It is good for bones.

Me: Oh, the calcium you mean... (trying not to go off about how milk is actually one of the worst ways to absorb calcium into the body)

[Server leaves to bring us the bill. He hands the bill, of course, to my brother. He leaves again. My brother gives me cash and I leave my credit card for the server. The server returns to pick up the bill, and then a few minutes later brings back the receipt to be signed.]

Server (peering at the card name; turns to my brother): Lindy Loo? Can I please see your id?

Me: Um, that would be me. (I hand him my id)

Server: Oh. (he scrutinizes it and then hands it back) This is your mother? (pointing at my mom)

Me & My brother: Um, yeah. It's her birthday actually.

My mom (grins)

Server: Oh oh! How nice.

My mom: Yeah--they decided to treat me to dinner tonight.

Server: How nice. So you the mother! ... Where is your husband?

(My mom, my brother & I all awkwardly mutter pretty much nothing sensible out of shock)

Server: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So (turning to me) you are the daughter?

Me: Yes.

Server: (pointing to my brother) And this is your husband?

(We all laugh)

Me: Nonono. That's my brother.

Server: And where is your husband?

Me (speaking icily): I'm not married.

Server (starts to speak): Oh--

Me (cutting him off): And I'm very much ok with that fact.

Server: I'm not married either. But I find it lonely.

Me, Brother, Mother (silence)

Server: Are you from here?

My mom and brother tell him where they live, my mom says I live nearby

My mom: Where do YOU live?

Server: Across the street. I've only been here for two months now. I don't know anyone.

My mom: Well, I'm sure once you give it a little time, you'll make some friends.

Server: No. No friends. I have no car. No friends. I've been here two months now. It's lonely.

Everyone gets uncomfortable

My brother: Well, you've only been here two months, so I'm sure you'll meet more people once you get more settled in?

Server: No. I don't think so.

My brother: I'm sure it'll get better.

Me (to my mom): We can head if you want. (we all start to get up to leave out of extreme uncomfortability)

Server: Yeah. I don't think so. (pauses sadly) Thanks. Have a good night.

Us: You too.

(We're walking towards the car.)

Me: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!?

My mom: That guy was TOTALLY hitting on you.

Me: I don't think so. But seriously: Was he lecturing me about not drinking milk??

My brother: Yeah, I think so.

Me: And what the fuck was up with him asking mom about her husband?!?

My brother: I just felt bad for him. Because he has no friends.

Me: Yeah, but that was fucking RUDE. All of that. I mean, what business is it of his about our "husbands?" You don't ask that shit as a server.

My brother: Don't flip out about it. Jeez. He just comes from a different culture than ours. You have to be respectful of that. I don't think he meant anything by any of it.

Me (wishing it wasn't my mom's birthday otherwise I would be ripping my brother a new asshole)

-------

More Inexplicable Google Searches That Brought People to This Blog

• Swaboda in her underware



• order Styrofoam pillars



• heavy drinker Bernie kosar



• commentary on cannibalism



• hearts sludging



• musical eroticapaintings



• trepanned veteran

-------

I think this is done (or at least close to), so I share.




       Scat

The caress of the eye over the skin
is so utterly, so extraordinarily gentle,
and the sensation is so bizarre that it has
something of a rooster's horrible crowing...

       She played gaily with words, speaking about
       breaking eggs, and then breaking eyes, and her
       arguments became more and more unreasonable.

-Georges Bataille



                    The eye


is the asshole of the face.

       It took me 30 years to realize this?


Pupil nothing but space
caught in the rectal tightening
of captured light.
Sphinctal aperture: surely
puts a damper on the notion of
"eye as window to the soul."

       What is the soul anyway
       if not a tight fart trapped in chambers,
       gasping?

In orgasm: it crows, it crows.

Pupil and asshole dilate.
More light enters eye to illuminate: Soul
huddled in a corner chamber?
                    or
loosened in a sloppy rattle
from the other end,
to our horror and surprise?

Ah the ass, the eye.
Bataille. Bataille.
The socket as erotic
as the inner thigh.



                    The egg


       she sighs.
If only the mouth could scream
something so perfect and horrible.
Drop one word
that could kill
like detonation,
smear everything to light,
to white.

       House with no walls.
       Pear pulled from mouth.
       The earth is moving,
       universe expanding,
       and still

                    there is the egg.

Union of eye and ass:
smooth scatological orb.
Is there anything more perfect
and obscene?

       The only thing
       to separate birth from
       piss and excrement:
       the cloacal flap.

Filthy and sacrosanct.
Wherein lies the soul?


The muscular squeeze and

it drops to the table
like

                    the perfect poem.

-------

Why I Need to Get the Internet at Home, 'Cause I Think the Randomness of My Brain's Thought-Patterns Is Probably Freaking the Folks at Cha-Cha Out

(Cha-Cha)


Urgent questions I texted them just last night:

Can a hemorrhoid make your butt feel like it's buzzing?

Are eggs birthed out of a chicken's butt?

What is the name of the book by georges bataille whose title has the word "encyclopedia" in it?

What is the definition of sacrosanct?




An assortment of urgent questions from the past few months:

are clothes with moleskin as a material really made from the skin of moles?

if yeast makes a dough taste soapy/like chemicals, does that mean the yeast is bad?

what does clutch mean when used as slang and an adjective?

what is tarquin?

how much blood is in the human body?

Who was president during world war ii?

which has more calories: moist cat food or dry cat food?

what Etta james album is the song "sunday kind of love" on?

why is coca cola being sued over their vitamin water?

What movies is said taghmaoui in?

did mickey rourke have plastic surgery on his face?

-------

What I Wish Upon the Lady Who Works With Me and Temper-Tantrums Constantly About Work, Pounding On Her Keyboard Like a Bratty Pouting Child, Spouting the F-Word Left & Right, and Bitching Melodramatically at the Top of Her Lungs, All in an Attempt to Make Herself Seem Important When Really, She is Just an Easily Replaceable Cog

Cancer of the fingers
Cancer of the mouth
Cancer of the f-word
Cancer of the whine
Cancer of the boringness
Cancer of the terrible haircut
Cancer of the pout
Cancer of the huff
Cancer of the voice
Cancer of the spirit
Cancer of the stupid fucking bitchness
Cancer of the cancer

-------

Man Has Tiny Fir Tree Growing in His Lungs

There is something so lovely and fairy-tale-esque about this:



Read the story

-------

Seriously, You Can't Make These Things Up

So I popped out of my adjustment again yesterday, and it wouldn't be so fucking annoying if the cause of it wasn't the STUPIDEST THING EVER.

True story of me popping out (swear to god)...

Dude Who Sits Next to Me At Work: *NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM* (making loud chewing noises)

Me (trying to ignore him and get headphones on as quickly as possible before he says something stupid)

DWSNTMAW: Mmmmmmmm.

Me (fumbling headphones)

DWSNTMAW: Hey.

Me (turning head towards him too quickly--*POP*): What?

DWSNTMAW: *NOMNOMNOMNOM* (making loud chewing noises again) Guess what I'm eating?

Me: What?

DWSNTMAW: Meat-stuffed M&Ms!

Me: Awesome, dude. Congrats.

-------

Spring is Here!

I know 'cause I saw two robins going at it in the middle of the road this morning.

Bow chicka spring wow.

-------

Reasons I Like the Blimp

• It reminds me of a fat pet, which makes me want to get all squeaky with it and start baby-talking things like, "AWWWW, you're so fucking FAT!!!! Isn't da big squishy blimp the fattest? Ah boo boo boo" and then get all ass- and cheek-pinchy and annoying.



• When I see it, I can't help but think of myself as being in some weird apocalyptic sci-fi movie, where I have to scurry to my car quickly before I get caught in its spotlight and some mercenary dude guns me down for being out past 9:30pm curfew.



• It just looks absurd. Like, I look into the sky, and I think: I cannot think of anything more absurd than you. Up there.



• It just is so stupid. Everytime I see it I think, "Hee. Someone thought you were a good idea for transportation. That dude is now dead and also A FUCKING IDIOT."

-------

Reasons I Dislike the Blimp

• The fucking INCESSANT DRONING. FOR HOURS.

-------

It took four years...

but I think I am officially sick of the blimp.

-------

I'm Getting Old and Don't Even Know Anymore...

But does really liking Bon Iver make me emo?

Or is it no longer even hip to insult someone by calling them "emo," and I'm just really REALLY out of touch?

Either which way: there's something about his voice.

And I really like that there's no scientifically discernible explanation for why we're attracted to the music/voices we're attracted to. That pleases me.

The ineffable reigns.

This book is kind of interesting, regarding that topic.

Maybe that nullifies my emo-ness?

*slow emo-tear of hope*

-------

Favorite Warning on Our New Coffee-Pot at Work

- Do not pour towards people -

-------

Why I Seriously NEED Some Sound-Proofing

'Cause seriously: No matter HOW hard I try to tune out my front neighbors to give them their privacy, how can you NOT hang in for the full overheard conversation when it starts like this??

Female Trust Fund Baby: So I wrote a poem about Chuck today.

Male Trust Fund Baby: About WHO??

FTFB: About Chuck.

MTFB: Oh... About Chuck!

-------

Trepanned Veteran, Dirty Girl

Yesterday, I was standing in the living room, trying--with my pocket knife--to punch a hole into the bottom of a thick plastic cup that I was holding precariously in my hand. Right when I had the thought "perhaps it's not a good idea to be trying--with your pocket knife--to punch a hole into the bottom of a thick plastic cup that you're precariously holding in your hand; perhaps you should place it on a stable surface instead," my pocket knife folded up into the thick of my fingertip and severed a large flap of flesh. I am cheap and don't buy bandaids or gauzes, so I ended up having to wrap toilet paper around my bloody finger and cinching it with painter's tape. The cut (not my membership into the Club of Stupid Ideas that Result in Injury) reminded me of a Plath poem I used to be fond of back in the day. So I share.

Cut

What a thrill -
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge

Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.

Little pilgrim,
The Indian's axed your scalp.
Your turkey wattle
Carpet rolls

Straight from the heart.
I step on it,
Clutching my bottle
Of pink fizz. A celebration, this is.
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.

Whose side are they one?
O my
Homunculus, I am ill.
I have taken a pill to kill

The thin
Papery feeling.
Saboteur,
Kamikaze man -

The stain on your
Gauze Ku Klux Klan
Babushka
Darkens and tarnishes and when
The balled
Pulp of your heart
Confronts its small
Mill of silence

How you jump -
Trepanned veteran,
Dirty girl,
Thumb stump.

-Sylvia Plath

-------

Cat Landscapes

-------

Please Excuse Me...

Apparently I'm all, like, warm and fuzzy and Chicken Soup for the Fucking Soul today or something.

-------

So:

I get off at my exit to go to work at about 6:15 every morning. And in order to get to work, I have to make a right turn at the light. Every once in a while, there's this crazy lady who just flat-out REFUSES to make a (legal) right turn on red in the morning, and I'll end up behind her, and I'll beep and I'll beep and other people behind us will beep and she'll STILL continue to sit there, refusing to budge. It's happened twice, and the second time--I must admit--I got excited and happy and was like, OMG it's Crazy No-Turn Lady!! And weirdly, I often think about her in the morning. I get off on my exit, and I'll roll up behind someone's car at the light, and I'll hold my breath for a second, wondering if it'll be her, and it's not. It's kind of like staring really hard at the sky in the hopes of seeing a shooting star.

Point being:

I like that I think about her in the mornings. It gives me the feeling that we're all important to somebody somewhere and somehow, even if we don't realize it.

-------

Faces

(This is not a gush about N/A, so shut it, One-F Man)

It's kind of funny because when I met N/A, I had built up a public image of him in my mind, and it was: The bigmouth. The knows-everybody. The intimidator. The focused writer. The dude-who-sits-out-and-types-on-his-typewriter-at-the-fricking-coffee-shop. The smart poet. The instigator. The center of attention.

N/A is a well-known figure in the neighborhood. Out of anyone I've ever know, he definitely has a Reputation, with a capital R.

I was slightly intimidated by him. He has a Big Presence. And I'm a fairly quiet girl.

It was jarring initially, juggling my perception of the public persona I'd built for him in my head with the actual person.

The image I'd built for him didn't include someone who sneezes, hates onions, gets hurt feelings. It was kind of a cardboard facade of celebrite.

So I dig the fact that spending time with him reminds me almost daily of how nuanced and particular and normal people can be underneath such big voices.

He is The Poet, but he is also stupid, silly, aggravating, fun, occasionally boring, gentle, quiet, sweet, and doesn't think to soak a jam-jar first before trying to scrub the label off.

There's something comforting in being reminded that we are all incredibly unexpected and yet, so startlingly the same sometimes... that no matter how "big" the person, everyone has the same quiet needs.

-------

       Desire

Does it mean anything
that it thrills her
to share this cigarette,
their fingers fumbling
like lips in a wet filter kiss,
content in her reading
of the moment, a reading
which may not even
be written in the text
of this nicotine fix?

         It is the way that water
         takes the form of anything
         around it.

         It is just a cigarette.

We craft in our heads
that which is, perhaps,
not there, maybe
there, there.
It doesn't matter
because still we craft
that which is,
perhaps, not there.

         What will his mouth taste like:
         Mint,
         Cigarettes,
         The musk of meat?
         The question mark,
         not the period,
         intercedes.

The stubble on his chin
is a radio transmission.
It says: There is no nonfiction.
It says: The way when you leaned in,
your breath spilled like water
across my neck.
It says: To kiss is to kill.
It says: Desire-----------
                   then cuts off.
                   Signal dead.
           Satellites to blame.
Your hand close to mine but
not touching.

         Always the unfinished
         thought always
         the unfinished thought
         always
         the
         unfinished

-------