9.13.2001

2:45 PM: words have never felt so cheap and useless.

9.12.2001

10:48 AM: the next day, we'll file politely back into our desks and say the same things in hushed tones for a few minutes until the phone rings and those reports still have to be ready by thursday. keys click and the latest problems with the database are going to take some more work, says the project manager. does he have to talk so loud? why are the walls so thin?

allow events to change you.

9.4.2001

5:40 PM: she crossed her legs and continued, 'it's not that we don't want to believe in something, it's that we can't anymore, god, punk, santa claus, there are always holes in the story, hairline cracks that they'll find and tear apart so they can sell you the pieces. and by the time y'r old enough to know you should have some sort of faith, you've already been broken, figured out that nothing is perfect at all, thanks to the heartless bastards around you, all too glad to point out flaws in the plan. and if you've made it this far, congratulations, because now you can try all over again to fill that gaping hole, only now you've been broken down so far that you don't even need them to tell you y'r wrong anymore, you've got yr own little voice inside tearing down philosophies before you can even finish building them, before you even get the chance to believe.

y'r so broken from being godless you get a job and uncomfortable shoes and begin to fake it, not at first but soon you squeeze out a kid and stop paying attention to the questions, there are bills and work and dinner parties to fill the time so you don't have to think about it anymore, just go through the motions for fifty years til y'r about to die, when you go batty and cling to the closest thing to truth for dear life. my grandma's house looks like spartacus, a thousand dying messiahs looking down from their crosses at every angle while we eat applesauce out of flowered bowls. it's all she talks about, church and god and mary full of grace til she pauses and you get this glimmer of absolute fear in her eyes for a second, she's so scared to death of a stroke tomorrow and the chance of being wrong - all her eggs are in this one basket, and like everything else, it's not that sturdy.

then here i am, young and absolutely horribly faithless, yet viewed as some sort of freak because i'll actually come out and say it rather than just smothering myself in capitalism - they look back at you like you've just said something unspeakably rude, but it's also this look of absolute terror because somehow, some way, i've found them out for the fakes they are. worse yet are the ones who just smile back and keep talking, while i'm filled with this jealous disgust at someone so blind in their beliefs, it's pornographic almost, the same emotionless smile and wide eyes.

and then there's you, who goes on believing it all even though it's all wrong, and you'll be the first to admit it. y'r setting yourself up for a fall with yr politics, yr religion, and yr fairytale ideas about love that you know are full of crap, but you believe anyway, for want of beauty or lies or something bigger - if pressured you misquote a koan or change the subject, yet still really truly believe what you know is wrong. i mean, really what on earth is wrong with you?'

i smiled and took another sip of coffee. 'so how about those reds?'

8.31.2001

2:04 PM: the rain found me on the sidewalk, plodding back from lunch - a midstep pause staring at grey scratches in the distance coming closer and suddenly everything was wet and getting wetter. my blustery walk back surrounded by damp commotion, and up in the elevator alongside two dry suits, smiling. i leave a puddle behind as one smirks out the door, 'bet you wish you'd had an umbrella...'

i did.

8.30.2001

4:36 PM: outloud: sodapop twist & fizzle stop swizzle oh a flip-hop floppily on top be boppity code a la mode a lollipoppily loada tip-flop choppy flow.

8.17.2001

3:47 PM: hey kids, what do you know about love, y'know? all i know is everything but what i need to, what i'm supposed to do when my footsteps start to float, bobbing, and i fall gently off the street, my head full of sunshine as i rise towards the sky.

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