And October Trickles Down Neatly Into a Puddle of Pages.

By the time I realized it was October, a day had already passed. I hadn't realized how quietly days can disappear when you aren't looking. Initially I planned on blogging the whole month, as a sort of, well, celebration (cerebration? Enk.) but missing the first day was possibly the worst thing that could have happened...nevertheless! I shall prevail...(whut)

Yesterday I got to eat the biggest bowl of gyudon I have ever seen in my entire life (c/o Lawrence--BELATED GREETINGS TO YOU and Mike, who did all the inviting even though he was sick and became more so because of the pepper he put in his giant bowl of noodles). I got to vandalize a wallet in exchange for the giant bowl of gyudon and everybody couldn't have been happier (except maybe Mike, who was sick after all and couldn't eat dessert--not to worry we shall have dessert next time). I don't think I'll ever forget this day. I got to drive long distances and driving always relaxes me.

Below I am retyping what I wrote on my yellow notebook this morning.

Today is October 3. We are meeting Tom Dixon at the Intercontinental. I drew a chair he invented as a plate for last year's furniture class. He's pretty famous and--even more delightfully--still alive.

I don't feel so well though. On the streets I'm not sure if it was my pallor or my shimmering pants that caught stares.

That's all. Below that are my notes from Tom Dixon's talk. (Suffice it to say my unwellness went away instantly as I entered and saw all these awesome looking people sauntering around in the room.) I like Mr. Dixon. He was unassuming and had a great (read: dark) sense of humor, which came out a lot more at the end when he got more comfortable with the crowd. But to be honest, I was a little disappointed, because I didn't really learn anything new. Inspiring, yes, but it's like he shared to us how he does things in his own way and he goes on to tell us that we should do things our own way, which I have already suspected from the beginning was what we were supposed to do anyway. 

There were other big names that went up on stage (I didn't recognize any of them, except one, who apparently teaches at our school, and the only one I liked among them) but all they did was drone on about themselves (except for that one I liked, Mister Alcazaren, he says we should all learn about how things are made) and thank Tom Dixon.

We asked Mister Dixon a question during the forum (How do you start your conceptual process?), but he emitted a sound that sounded suspiciously like a scoff and said he didn't have any particular process, but that each piece had a story of its own. I liked his answer. Deep in my floundering artist soul, I agreed. But our curriculum insists that everything must have a system, an order, a pattern...that we should be able to explain every step. Where does all the fun go, then? Tom Dixon was right when he said that school beats out the fun in you (he implied it anyway, encouraging apprenticeship instead of a design course).

At long last, the forum ended, and we rose from our seats, a little unsure ("that was it?" "yeah, I guess. You going home?" "Nah, I think I'll go shopping for a bit.") Until after losing sight of our blockmates we realized they went in front for a photo op. Of course we wanted one, too. So we went up front and while waiting for Mister Dixon to finish his interview, guess who we spotted....

KENNETH COBONPUE.

So naturally we squealed over his way and demanded (read: asked nicely knowing he wouldn't refuse) a photograph, and he was all smiles and politeness and perfection (I'm probably idolizing him a bit). He actually made that forum worth it. One of my life goals was to meet him one day and finally I have that done with. Lovely.

October looks promising :)

In Summary.

Past the city lights were heady talks of communism--

How each minute of our life so far

Has amounted to this moment

Of shadows and imperceptible hope.

All we have seen come tumbling out of our mouths

And fly out the window,

Joining the gravelly air that smelled of dirt

Under the feet of people we know yet never knew.

But we never change.

Me To My Deadline || My Brain Is A Blizzard.

You are so close

I can almost touch you.

I wish you would stay still, though,

And be a bit more polite.

Maybe then

Maybe then I'd actually like you.

Instead of Plans. | Thoughts From a Year Ago.

I'm not talking to you

Because I don't want you to get used to it.

(I open my umbrella to find

Remnants of yesterday's afternoons

Tracing the spines with a finger)

And think that if I can go back

To take all the wrong things I've said

And collect them all in a basket,

I'll eat them all up

Before you can get there

But then I'll end up not talking to you at all

And I bet then you'd really find me strange.

Take your time

Watch me close the door

Sit by the window and try to find

That girl who wouldn't look twice at you

Except you won't have a reason to.

_________________

Was browsing through my old stuff and found something that still makes sense to me!

Caffeine Vision.

All it took was a cup,

And everything went horribly mad

Everything was a mash of colors

Everything I heard meant something else

But I didn't care, I took everything in

Because that's what caffeine does.

'What does texting look like?'

Right now it's looking like an airstrip

Where words are made of little

Letter shaped planes

Finding their way to you.

Then the room went swirling

Swirling along to Mina

Down into the dark called sleep,

And I dreamt of the coffee in my veins.

Prestidigital.

I watch my message leave the dock,

Imagine the invisible wings

That traverse in an instant

From my screen to yours.

I take the distance of that moment

And put it between my fingers.

But it never gets any smaller

And leaves me emptier than before.

What the world chooses to show us

Gets better and better.

Even as I suspect,

I can never look away.

Manchurian Squid.

A globulous eye looked up at me

Glazed and half-frozen

Pleasant dreams, it seemed to say

Darkly. I swear I saw it move.

Over-Obsessing.

I want to keep writing.

I want to keep writing until I'm out of words

Until my blood runs and my mouth implodes with silence.

I want to keep writing

I want to keep writing until I've translated the seas into pages

Of worlds that swallow people up

And swell with meaning and ebb with the tides.

The moon be contained on a shelf

Heavy words rendered weightless

Pulling you in,

Enchanting.

I want to keep writing.

A section of my wall about the intricacies of your lashes.

Under my bed you'd find tomes about the moment I met you.

I want to keep writing

So I don't have to think.

Mental Graffiti.

Broken things have a way of catching me.

A breath, a beat always escape.

I can never write as smoothly as you.

Words flowing like I can't even explain.

Clutching at my heart until I feel my breath flicker.

You make me want to look at the sky forever,

Where the world is far more than what I see

Where there might be a chance you actually remember me

And where I can forget myself, even though I don't know who that is.

Strangeness is beyond my grasp.

I meld into the shapes of people I hardly understand.

My thoughts stumble into one another

Creating landscapes I have never seen.

But in all of them, there is always you.

On Being Nice.

I’ve always carried around this great fear of offending people. Sometimes, when I’m looking at the mirror or looking at my photographs, I see it staring cautiously back.

Today, driving my sister to work, I carelessly decided to make left turn at the intersection (to clarify things, it’s perfectly legal to do so whatever color the stoplight’s flashing, just be sure the road is open) and ended up pissing off an oncoming taxi. His eyes popped out at me through the window and his mouth started moving rapidly and I didn’t bother to decipher what he was saying, as at the same time my ears were being assaulted by his perpetual horn. All throughout, I was lifting my left hand (an international sign for pardon, at least in my neighborhood), which was making it difficult to turn the wheel, that I didn’t even notice that the stoplight has already turned in my favor and had given me official rights to actually make this turn without offending anybody.

The point is, you can just imagine how my lips were quivering—well, almost. I managed to suck it up and bravely thought about how funny he looked (a flaring nostrilled hippo) and that for all I know that man might have been driving all night and going through all sorts of stress as a taxi driver who, based on a vague calculation I made a few years back, don’t really earn a lot on bad days, which is probably one of these (at which point I was actually glad for a moment that he had a chance to vent out all that horrible domestic or otherwise thwarted-dreams related stress he might have been bottling in, just too bad it was at me).

I told my sister so (not about the hippo part, or the glad about it part, just the he might have been driving all night bit) and she told me how nice I was to people, that I had even thought of that. I didn’t tell her I just didn’t want to offend people.

Wait, is that all nice is? Not offending people? Because that kind of makes me a doormat.

Well, okay, actually I just posed that question to make you think I had only realized that now, but really I’ve been trying to deal with it for years and still I think I haven’t progressed. I hate doormats (the people kind) because they remind me of me. I tend to have an unhealthy response to them, and it’s a part of me that I still have a bit of trouble accepting.

But then I figured that not everybody has this almost-neurotic need to be nice. If only to stop the viral chain that makes people look like enraged birthing mammals, this nice-ness might even be worth mastering. (Note to self- look up: diplomacy)

Fish.

There was nothing I could do.

You slipped away into the waters

While I stared down at it

Lapping at my land-bound feet.

I gripped my face instead

And tried to move around the lines

So they'll look different

And maybe you'd come back.

I waited until you never came

Until I grew wings and flew away

I'd search for you, but

I've forgotten what you looked like.

[Egh, crap writing! I am out of love, so even in a weather like this, it was a pain to churn this out.]