Records

Do you remember this? It was very near the end.

It's funny the things we choose to remember. I wonder where you are sometimes. I wonder what you've become. Base or chaste. Married or marred. Suffering or insufferable. It's a piece of history I've long since tucked into a basket and sent downriver.

There are days, though, when things are especially quiet and the rain falls. On those days I want to lie in bed and listen to records. Stare at the ceiling and move only to relieve the tensions of the body. It's not for everyone. A private moment of thoughtful counsel requiring little dialogue and no explanation.

I know that you would want that, too.

Supportive

The core issue is about data processing.

I am, as I have said, very good at identifying social patterns. Using observation and mimicry for so many years has allowed me to develop a fairly sophisticated type of cataloguing. I can predict probable outcomes based on these observed trends. There’s nothing particularly unusual about this aside from the fact that it is, I believe, unusually cognitive. It would rightly be considered a coping strategy. When there are deviations from these patterns I notice immediately.

The issue arises when it’s time to actually analyze those deviations. I’m terrible at it. I’ll know that there's something happening, something potentially important, but determining what that is exactly is mostly guesswork. This is where a lack of instinct becomes crippling. Sometimes it’s a pretty simple puzzle to solve. At other times I will proceed on a completely incorrect assumption and find myself wildly far afield before I realize my error. There has been a lot of damage done from such mistakes.

I have no idea how one becomes better at such things. The options seem to be either:

A. improve
B. react less

By reacting less I mean disconnecting my behavior from the behavior of those around me; internalizing the motives of speech and action to a high degree. This has proven to be successful but only in those situations where I am not particularly invested in outcomes. We’ll call this the “I don’t give a shit” approach. When you really don’t give a shit there’s no need to calibrate based on feedback – you do or say whatever you choose to do or say and call it a day.

Clearly, this is less useful when you are invested. Pretending not to give a shit offers all the downsides of not caring and none of the advantages. It’s also an awful, disingenuous way to treat someone you care about. We’ll throw that one on the woodpile.

In the interest of possible improvement, I spend time studying those who handle this process well. Of particular value are those who, like me, take the long division approach of watching and calculating but somehow achieve better results. The friend I’m thinking of specifically seems to follow my format but does so with more accuracy. At some point in the processing stage she is able to take the same information I’ve gathered and know better what that information indicates. I don’t know how. I’ve asked her and she doesn’t seem to know how, either. She suggested that I am over thinking things. That’s definitely true, but not tremendously helpful. Watching her to see how she behaves in such situations brings us back to the beginning so no solution there.

In the short term maybe the best practice is to trust such people. I’m hesitant to do that. It’s not a matter of pride so much as it seems to be a weakness; a dependency of the sort that is so deeply unattractive. Sounds like a pretty weak objection. Perhaps trust really is the operative term here. She’s good at such things, I am not, and so when in such matters we disagree I should consider her position quite seriously. There’s something else in there, what’s it called? Oh, yes, being supportive.

Kendrick

You need to get with this shit.

Burial + Four Tet - Nova

Notes II

If I could wear you like warpaint
I would
a slick rouge up the cheeks
to identify my patronage
remind me of purpose
to caution strangers
______________________________

Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg; The Alhambra; Ko Samui; Florence; The Vatican
______________________________

Andrea Doria

I don't care if you're a boat or a hole in a dirt road
Remains of a rotted cake, can hardly remember then
kissed her on both cheeks taught her to hate men
______________________________

I'm standing at the window
waiting to see a walking figure or headlights
some sign that you've arrived
some sign that you've stayed
______________________________

When I see you smile so genuinely, an old smile I feel like a boy so open it's a pleasure and a fear I never feel
like a boy
______________________________

If I were a prince I would like to imagine
that I was not the product of a dowager
that I was not imperious and vain
that I could hold no distance between stations
and that such gravity as I could provide
would be made manifest in smiles and hale greetings

Notes

Once I served The Nothing
My car is full of spiders
______________________________

I am going to cover one eye
I am depleting the quantity of incoming stimuli to the betterment of greater exclusivity
______________________________

Unable or unwilling to differentiate between varying collections of sensory experience and this location is indented and experience [illegible] all of colors and sounds the pressing immediacy of form and object
______________________________

Microfiche

Describe the circumstances in which one would level a flare gun at the horizon instead of vertically: entity one wishes to contact is both known and distant
______________________________

There's this false expectation that a relationship should last forever. And that's ridiculous. Every relationship eventually ends and that's okay. The expectation creates a hostage scenario. And it makes for awkward situations in which you can't be friends with that person or even be around them.
______________________________

Everything is moving but me most of all. I cannot be still I cannot find stillness nor certitude.
______________________________

trying to invent rules mutually exclusive goals worry about spectrum and brain growth rates

1. communicate/provide an authentic representation
2. successfully engage

grapple with the postmodern division that has become too common

do you see what I see? do you hear what I hear?
______________________________

Confessional
Deep leviathan crown prince of the new sincerity I am interested in the development of my personal brand I cannot function independently I am motivated by shame I need a girl who is better than me I am terrified of girls who are better than me I just want to get drunk and talk about dark matter I have a thing for ponytails
______________________________

as mistakes accrue
the extent of work that the muscles do
to hinder and hold what they might of you
truthfully, I don't know what you're going through
______________________________

Haunted House next door
wet rock and curtained windows
slate shingles flecked with oxblood and bleak view obstructed by bare trunks
and telephone wire
scaled siding, cake, spoiled sugar/confection
slime, serpentine
white chimney, cracked ivory darkened fire damage
especially today it's raining
______________________________

a peck, tip of my nose
the few strands that work their way across a headband
the hollow of my arms filled neatly
a soothing of the chest completely
the note I produce is a
vibration/a resonance
I think in D
I think in D
______________________________

this is so simple
a smaller pattern of fewer threads, one band of color,
don't spoil the arrangement
through touch
or at least insensate grabbing
a harsh and directionless need
______________________________

The benefit of breath
is largely
the altitude of momentum
and not
the power to comment on same
as once I suspected
______________________________

Geryon, Moloch
shall we mythologize
______________________________

FAVORITE
CRAVE
______________________________

Brunettes are great because the follicles are filled up so it feels like you're getting your money's worth.
______________________________

Identifying something as awkward says more about your lack of social facility than it does about the situation.
______________________________

"More weight"

The difference is temperance born of fatigue. A blunting of sensation (that allows for a cleaner, more efficient interaction of cogs) I don't feel so much better as *heavier* which mimics the motion of deliberate choice

a chronic but sustainable malaise

Henry Miller's Writing Commandments

1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to "Black Spring."
3. Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5. When you can't create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don't be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it -- but go back to it the next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.