On the ride to Hanover to catch the bus, Dad jokingly says something about toxic waste in the cab of a truck, and I immediately think of The Toxic Avenger, and how in high school I would seek out all these bizarre, obscure and deranged movies. (Associations.) The hunt for B-movies isn't quite so important to me anymore, but it's interesting to think about the part it's played in my life, and how it's shaped me in the long run.
Then on the bus, in Lebanon, the driver announces that the movie will be Clash of the Titans. Watching it is the furthest thing from my mind, but I have a feeling it's a more immediate thought for some of the other passengers. That's not a judgment of them, but of a certain culture in which we live, and the distance from it which I feel.
Later on the ride, I recognize that my back is tied in knots, and my teeth feel really sensitive. I have various physical ailments that pop up from time to time, and maybe I medicate, or go to a dentist, and that sucks, but that's it. All there is too it. My eyesight isn't great, so I wear glasses. I don't want to think about these things any more than I have to.
Rather, I want to live as much as possible with a certain vitality, a transcendental bravado, like I felt only days prior, hanging out with Ryan and Travis - before, during, and after the Pennywise show. Not that I want to be drunk, seductive, and singing really loud all the time - the only-partial quality of these realizations is another issue altogether - but that I want to capture a spirit, in essence, that I feel when I feel like I'm living authentically, and not being held back.
My teeth hold me back. My back holds me back some times. My eyesight would hold me back.... But so does boredom. Having to earn money holds me back, as do all the things that that stop-gap entails. False emotions hold me back. So does bureaucracy. Just have to fight all these constraints in order to live.
...
And now I'm back in Boston, living in Quincy. Some times I take the train to Ashmont, and then the #215 home. Back-of-the-bus drug deals, undercover cops, the corrosiveness with which the Boston accent can be employed... and a whole world I never fully experienced in the eight years I lived in the city of Boston.
Other times, I get off the T at Quincy Center, to walk home. Majestic oak trees, great Swedish-castle-homes, and that fresh fall air... green ferns, shrubbery, a warm wind, and no long-sleeves for me, thank you. Last night, after a BBQ, followed by trivia at Charlie's, I felt wonderful on this walk, and I had the perfect word to describe it. But in the half hour it took to get home, I forgot that word forever. Better that way; tra-la-la.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Wait for it...
I was up in Vermont for a little bit, and had a pretty good routine going, if only short-lived. Get up between 9 and 10, coffee, toast, and eggs, and if time, some reading (non-fiction, to get the brain working). At 11, off to work - either landscaping and gardening, or painting - for a couple of hours. Then lunch (maybe sausage and an IPA?) and reading the papers for an hour, before going back to work for another two. Then home to shower, have supper (been using that word to describe the meal between lunch and dinner), check email, watch Family Guy, and have dinner. The rest of the night writing and reading. As Depeche Mode says, enjoy the silence.
(I realize that's only four hours of physical work, plus the chunk of writing I do that gets paid for, but bear in mind... we live in a society where one of the biggest problems is a 10% unemployment rate, and one of the biggest initiatives is to create (make up) new jobs. Many of the jobs available now exist with the purpose to convince us to buy more things, which is why we need those jobs in the first place.... All I'm saying is that we could all be working four hours a day (or much less), and I'd like to practice that life whenever I can. Smoke it.)
Anyway, over the weekend following that routine, I spent a couple days transcribing my handwritten notebooks from the past six months. Came across this, from some time in May: "Two sort-of poles: the wonderful earthly delights (as Bunuel describes them) of adulthood, and the anticipation with which I used to look forward to going to punk rock shows in junior high and high school...." My point at the time - "There is pleasure in each, but not a total pleasure..." - is not quite as important as my realization on this Saturday in September: that I don't get the same pleasureful anticipation that I used to, especially from driving over to Burlington, VT to see my favorite bands.
The kicker: as I typed this up, I found myself in the midst of one of these bouts of anticipation - just like when I was 15 - because I was excited for the following day, when, with Ryan D and Travis (high school co-conspirators), I would go to Winooski to see Pennywise, a favorite punk band from high school. How much of this feeling was willed by typing those words and how much was genuine, I can't say, because it all occurred to me at the same moment. It doesn't matter too much; it's the sensation that counts. In any case, we had a blast. I'll stop analyzing the connection between the youthful anticipation and the actual (awesome) experience it preceded, and instead default to a quote from Vaneigem's The Revolution of Everyday Life, which I'm sure was on my mind back in May:
"...You are under the spell of a past moment - a moment of love, for instance; the woman you love is about to reappear, you are sure of it, you already feel her kisses... such passionate expectation is in effect the prefigurement of the situation to be constructed."
(I realize that's only four hours of physical work, plus the chunk of writing I do that gets paid for, but bear in mind... we live in a society where one of the biggest problems is a 10% unemployment rate, and one of the biggest initiatives is to create (make up) new jobs. Many of the jobs available now exist with the purpose to convince us to buy more things, which is why we need those jobs in the first place.... All I'm saying is that we could all be working four hours a day (or much less), and I'd like to practice that life whenever I can. Smoke it.)
Anyway, over the weekend following that routine, I spent a couple days transcribing my handwritten notebooks from the past six months. Came across this, from some time in May: "Two sort-of poles: the wonderful earthly delights (as Bunuel describes them) of adulthood, and the anticipation with which I used to look forward to going to punk rock shows in junior high and high school...." My point at the time - "There is pleasure in each, but not a total pleasure..." - is not quite as important as my realization on this Saturday in September: that I don't get the same pleasureful anticipation that I used to, especially from driving over to Burlington, VT to see my favorite bands.
The kicker: as I typed this up, I found myself in the midst of one of these bouts of anticipation - just like when I was 15 - because I was excited for the following day, when, with Ryan D and Travis (high school co-conspirators), I would go to Winooski to see Pennywise, a favorite punk band from high school. How much of this feeling was willed by typing those words and how much was genuine, I can't say, because it all occurred to me at the same moment. It doesn't matter too much; it's the sensation that counts. In any case, we had a blast. I'll stop analyzing the connection between the youthful anticipation and the actual (awesome) experience it preceded, and instead default to a quote from Vaneigem's The Revolution of Everyday Life, which I'm sure was on my mind back in May:
"...You are under the spell of a past moment - a moment of love, for instance; the woman you love is about to reappear, you are sure of it, you already feel her kisses... such passionate expectation is in effect the prefigurement of the situation to be constructed."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
