Category: Words

I started to watch a movie several years ago called “the Pillow Book.” In the movie, a Japanese woman has a bit of a calligraphy fetish, and wants her lovers to write on her body. Eventually, she meets the character played by Ewan McGregor and thinks he’s great in bed, but has terrible handwriting. He suggests that she teach him to write better. She tosses him out, but eventually becomes his lover again. I could never get through it, it was very slow moving and more than a little convoluted, but I did watch enough to learn that Ewan McGregor is packing some serious genital heat (which would be an awesome band name)

I’m sure you can Google around and find pictures of him. Or, let me Google that for you.

Anyway. Ewan McGregor’s dick is not really what I wanted to write about, even though it is admirable. For a dick. It was the idea of writing on someone’s body that made me think of the movie, and then I was distracted by the dick. It happens to the best of us at times. Dick is like that.

Tattoos are the writing on my body.
Songs, lovers, books feel like they’re engraved on my heart somehow.
I feel like a lot of things are written on my heart/mind, but they can’t literally be.

I’d love to be able to write
The things engraved on my heart
on someone’s body
With a zen brush
Or indelible ink
Depending on the thought
and the lover
and what I had to say.
Permanent like a tattoo,
or fading away
as soon as the ink is dry.

It would be nice if some of the more painful stuff written on our hearts would fade as quickly and cleanly as zen brush calligraphy.

I have trouble knowing when I’ve had enough.

Food. Drink. information. Togetherness. Whatever.
Actually, that’s not quite true–i am usually well aware of when I’ve had too much togetherness. My mental state starts to fray pretty dramatically when I overdose on company.

I don’t think I’m a very balanced person in general. I tend to skew intense. I tend to skew obsessive. I tend to skew all in or all out.

I suck at many of the things that normal, civilized people do every day: chatting, remembering to brush my hair, not staring at people, pretending that I am paying attention. It makes for fun times in meetings, where I am as likely as not to answer a question with “I’m sorry, I was watching that squirrel over there and didn’t hear what you said.”

And even though there are aspects of my lack of balance that I work on, like a tendency to be negative, and not pay attention in meetings, I am not particularly motivated to become less intense or obsessive. It’s my character. If I change it, I would be someone else. Or so I like to think.

Actually, I’m not really even all that inclined to work on the daydreaming. I suspect that if I stop daydreaming and start focusing, I will turn into a monster. I don’t have a stitch of empirical evidence for that though. I mean, I’ve never turned into a monster. It’s a theory. Some people think it probably isn’t very likely. Other people think that it’s not that fucking hard to pay attention in meetings, and I should have to do it like everyone else.

But…

Well..

I keep going back to that theory about turning into someone else (or a monster) and so I stay the same.

Which makes me wonder what it is that makes us uniquely us. I don’t really believe in a soul, exactly, but I do think it’s the closest term for our ‘me’.

It probably doesn’t matter what we call it though.
Much.

Everyone probably has a bit of a list of what makes up their self. Character. Brains. Humor. Looks. Some people probably wouldn’t count looks. Some people think we have a soul that lives both before and after our physical bodies. Some think it’s only here while we’re alive, and then goes off into some sort of after life. Some people don’t think we have a soul at all, but there’s still clearly something there that makes us all individuals. What?

My theory is that it’s just part of the bio-chemical soup that makes us up. “Just” being immensely complicated, and pretty miraculous and unlikely. The whole universe seems sort of unlikely to me. Unlikely in a way that’s explained by a Creation theory? No. Unlikely in a way that defies either a religious or chaos theory of creation. I have no idea how we got here. Why there are dogs. Why poppies have furry stems. Evolution, sure. But that each of us ended up just exactly like we are? I don’t think it could have been planned.

Of course, this has nothing at all to do with the way I have trouble recognizing the concept of enough. Does it?

I certainly don’t recognize when I’ve gone beyond the limits of a possibly allowable tangent and right onto some other topic entirely.

Well. I start out wondering about something. Then I wonder about something else. Eventually I am a long way from where I started and sometimes there isn’t a way back.

Will I edit?

Will I stop?

One thing I know I won’t do is have a shot of tequila. For once, I recognize that I have already had enough tequila this week.

Huh. Maybe I am capable of learning after all…

Out walking, I was looking around at the new leaves on the trees, and the flowers popping out, and smelling newly cut grass. As I passed underneath a tree, birds were singing so loudly I almost had to cover my ears. When I stopped to listen for a minute, they quieted down. So I started walking again.

They cheered my departure with another burst of song.

Bastards.