Sunday, June 16, 2002

and then there's this.
i wrote this letter to my friend paige. i figured it had general interest, and so i post it here. i may start putting more things I've written up here and not just tell stories and talk about things that have actually happened to me.

whats up you wanted stories of the city of angels. 3 months ago. but it takes a while to get enough good ones for a letter. i haven't yet, but I'll write one anyway. sorry the friction funding didn't come through. the day will come, though, and we'll be ready. you should definitely do the nyc/publishing house thing. you haven't ever lived in a big/really big city, have you? i've been here a year and a half now, and I feel like a battery is charging up even though it's exhausting to live here. like when i get out of here in however many years and go somewhere more stable like you were talking about, I'll be able to get a lot done in whichever direction I'm headed (writing/movies/music/etc.).
la is crazy. I've been working steadily for the first time in a while, starting in late april. much needed stability. lots of crazy stories, but most are best told in person with gestures and silly walks to illustrate. writing some. we got a writers group together among my friends once a week for a while there and that helped a lot just to get my head in the right place to start writing again. I just got a typewriter...well not just, but i only recently started using it.....and i get good vibes out of it when i'm writing on it so i'm going to keep using it. it's nice to know that someone else, or a bunch of other people, used it before. i wrote this on it yesterday:


i have visions of other worlds
red worlds
with people-creatures
with vague and undefined
features climbing out of the
shadows that cloud this other world or my
visions of it.
blue worlds that rest like an hour before
dawn on a sunday. orange worlds.


they creep through my mind when i
try to sleep off the week.
i think they want me to send them something
but i don't have their address and it will
likely be years before i can find what
they need.
they must understand my situation
i mean, a man has to make a living these
days and, in the wake of the tragic events
of september 11, which have shattered
our nerves but deepened our resolve, i must
churn out product for the war machine.


this is not a time to cavort with aliens.


i just don't have the time to
let their signals wash across my thoughts
and don't know if i shoul--


write in the morning. squeeze the dreams
out then, when they are juicy and just then
retreating. pound through their door then,
catch them before they have woken enough to know to run.
they will pay for leaving their window open. every man
has his place in the war machine. i will accept their calling.
the fall, the boyant cry of the hunted that has just escaped from the slaughter:


why is there blood on my pantleg.
why did i pick this revolution
did i think it would succeed?
you must release me some time, if
only to oblivion. you cannot hold
my soul forever. take what you need
now, and quickly, and let me moan
away to memories of the end of
august and quiet summer nights in the
north country where the soft breath
of winter remains in the air even then.
where the streets are empty and
the quiet rhythm of the sea echoes
off the rocks of the inlet. i've reached
the end of my line.
---



not particularly coherent or polished but it's more interesting that anything I've written in a while so I figure it must be the ghosts in the typewriter. tell me more about school and such and what's up in your life.