Well, my anonymous subscriber responded in email (for obvious reasons). The general gist is that he (‘he’ used simply because I think ‘ze’ and ‘hir’ are too pretentious) doesn’t want to draw attention to himself. Duh.

There was also something in there about people feeling duty-bound to reciprocate the subscription, and an admonishment: “Do you write to express yourself or for the eProps?”

So firstly, I’m totally cool with having anonymous subscribers. I’ve got anonymous readers who aren’t subscribed; should that send me into a tizzy?

Secondly, motivation: I think it’s true that I write to express myself, but I also think that writing, particularly ‘blogging on Xanga, creates the pathway for a two-way communication. I don’t write for eProps, but comments help keep the inspiration level high. Reciprocation isn’t a duty but a pleasure, and a way to return the inspiration.

I haven’t been thanking folks for subscribing. I really appreciate the attention, and hope all you folks get something out of it, even if I end up being an example of how not to live your life. Like the man said, ‘In a good way.’ (I’ll have to blog about that man sometime, but I can’t for another 8 months.)

But I still don’t understand anonymous subscribers, ya know? There’s something strange about it; I mean, I’m flattered, but at the same time, I want to know who it is, so I can read what they have to say. In fact it doesn’t really make a lot of sense that there *is* an anonymous option, but there you go.

Skating

In Houston, Texas, there’s a section of town called the museum district. It shares a sort of conceptual overlap with a section called the university district. In these sections of town, there are a lot of really big houses, a lot of really rich people, a lot of really good bars, and very well-paved streets, since the rich people live there. Also, the street lights are a little less obvious there, for some reason. I guess the rich people don’t like bathing their front yards in unceasing light.

All of these factors create what is known as a Perfect Skating Scenario. Strap some Rollerblades on your feet, pad up, and head for North Street at 2am. Wear a blinkie light.


There’s a chhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The sound doesn’t end until you stop, it merely ebbs and flows as you pick up one foot to push off with, then the other. There’s the occasional chTNK as you glide over an expansion joint. The chhhhh takes on a different tone depending on the specific surface causing it; blacktop has a mellower tone while concrete is harsh.

You feel the vibrations throughout your body. If you’re doing it right. If you only feel it in your feet, then you’re what’s known as a ‘penguin.’ You need to bend your knees and lean forward. Your whole body is skating, not just your feet. Your whole body is in contact with the pavement.

You’re from a middle-class family and you’re skating by the homes of some of the richest people in the world. The oil that made the asphalt you’re skating on was sold to the city by these people. You’re skating by George Bush’s house. Really. Former President George Bush. Lives in that house right there. ChhhhhhhhhChhhhhhhhChhhhhh.

Streetlamps glide by. Your shadow shrinks from behind you and grows in front of you. It’s an intoxicating rhythm, if you can watch it happen. Between streetlamps, there’s confusion as your shadows sort out which light has dominion.

No cars. No police. No traffic of any kind. Chhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Cross Sunset Boulevard, think of that movie. Cross University Boulevard, wonder why Rice University has the owl as a mascot. Never mind, you’re on the campus now, it doesn’t matter.

Shoot past the new concert hall where you went with your dad to hear chamber music. Shoot past the stadium. Shoot past the auditorium where you recorded Paul English and Tom Bacon doing that crazy piano-French horn duet. Touch the memories of the Kurosawa retrospective at the Media Center, where you dutifully went twice a week for two months. Touch the memories of Alicia’s graduation.

It’s dark and the gates are closed on the other side of the campus but you don’t care. Just duck under. No problem.

Head west. You’re at the Gingerman, buying an ale. You get carded, because you always get carded. Half the people look at you strange because you’re wearing skates and padding; the other half smile knowingly.

If you ever listen to anything over the web, listen to this:

Ruby: Galactic Gumshoe

Sexy, spiritual, sci-fi radio noir.

Hover, Part 2

He’s 11 or 12, that kid. He has perfected the art of hovering. He’s in junior high school, and hates it, predictably.

When he dreams, he dreams that he can levitate. Most people he talks to about it say, “Yeah, I have flying dreams, too,” which underscores his alienation. He’s not flying in these dreams, he’s levitating. He never has flying dreams. He has to concentrate in his dreams, in order to sort of bounce, like he was walking on the moon. Even in bouncing, there are obstacles; power lines, tree branches, low-flying airplanes, birds.

In these dreams, his neighborhood is sometimes a post-apocalyptic ruin. Like Ronald Reagan finally pressed the button, and he’s the only one left. He desperately bounces around, trying to get a new perspective, brought back to the ground through the gravity of his own inability to fly.

At this point in his life, he has two modes of existence: Pleasing others at his own expense, and getting picked on and beaten up by schoolmates. So while he’s perfected the art of hovering, it’s not terribly effective.

He doesn’t attend the school where he skipped class a few years back, since he graduated up to junior high. But he revisits that school, because it’s near where he lives. His new perfected form of hovering is to climb on the roof of the building after hours and pretend to be Spiderman. He knows he can’t swing by a web or jump off and land safely, but the physics of the situation have never interrupted his fantasies before, so they don’t do so now.

He’s on the roof of the school. There’s an easy way to get up there that involves a little upper body strength; it’s relatively safe, too. The way down is safer, it’s just not as easy a way up. He’s in no real danger, but he knows that no one else would ever, ever see it that way.

He’s looking out across the neighborhood, an upper-middle-class neighborhood devoid of any external life. To look at it, it might as well be empty of people. They’re all indoors, watching TV or something. Or they’re in cars, driving on the arterial that runs by the school. He could be on the roof of the school doing a jig and no one would notice, since he’s not a traffic hazard.

Being up there teaches him that lesson. Being strange has its advantages, and the apathy of others is one of them. If you just put a tiny bit of effort into not being overtly offensive, you’ll have no problem. Just don’t stand in the street when you’re being a freak.

Once, he climbed down the front of the building, using the letters on the wall that spell out the name of the school as hand-holds. He expected a crowd of people and a SWAT team to surround him when he got to the bottom; Spiderman UNMASKED! But no one noticed. His parents never found out. They never found out about any of it.

Later, though, he would learn how to stand in the street and be a freak.

I’m of the opinion that Thanksgiving will, henceforth, not be Thanksgiving unless there’s a mammoth drum circle playing in the next room. And not just any drum circle, but actual *good* drummers, and people who have spent the last few years, if not their whole lives, learning the dances that go along with the rythms.

Happy Manifest Destiny Day!

I’m thinking about thanksgiving.

There’s that Poi Dog Pondering song I blogged about before: Thanksgiving for every wrong move. Everything that got screwed up, only it wasn’t the thing itself that was screwed up, it was my preconceived notions of what should have happened. Thanks for that stuff.

There’s this Buddhist doctrine, at least in the Vajrayana sect.. I’m not sure about the others. It says that samsara is nirvana, and nirvana is samsara. It’s a bit like saying that curses are blessings, and blessings are curses. If you give thanks for the blessings, you’re giving thanks for curses, too. Everyone’s got shame and despair; along with contentment and hope they make life into what it is. Life’s a journey in a cave. The floor is hope, the roof is despair, and you can only go forward or backward, either way into darkness. Hope guides one way, despair another. Or maybe both lead the same place.

So I give thanks that there’s a cave to explore.

Hover

He’s 7 or 8, that kid. He has a game he likes to play, called hovering. It’s a game you can almost play alone.

What you do is- you go somewhere where you’re alone, but you can watch people. Then you sit and be baffled by your situation, and how you won’t ever fit in. You hover there. He’s still too young to understand it, so he hovers.

He’s hovering. He skipped school, but instead of doing what other kids would do if they skipped school, he hovers on the banks of the creek that runs behind the school’s property line. He’s peeking in the windows of his class. He’s trying not to be seen, not because he’s scared of the consequences, but because it’s a fun game. It makes him feel like a hero in a spy movie.

Why would he skip school only to watch school happen from the outside?

It’s raining. He’s wearing his yellow rain slicker, and he’s got a red backpack that has all his homework, the homework he’d be turning in right now if he were in class, a few books, a packed lunch which was eaten shortly after the decision was made to skip. Why is a kid, skipping school, hunkering behind a grassy knoll trying not to be seen, peering in at his classmates, in the rain?

He’s hovering. He knows he can become invisible; it’s happened before. No one can see him, such is his loneliness. He doesn’t want to be seen, either, because that would ruin the fun.

His mom thinks he’s relatively happy. She says he’s having some rough times, what with the two hospitalizations this year and the sexual predator in that very same school playground where he now lurks, trying to remain unseen. But she wants him to be happy, because if he weren’t, she’d be a bad mom.

Across the creek, there’s a shopping center. As they say, a ‘strip mall.’ He likes to go there. He can go into the drug store and be fascinated by all the products, the array of products, the maze of displayed products. He has a disorder that makes it so he can’t learn how to ‘do’ culture, so he latches on to the easily-digestible culture of advertising and merchandise. Status objects are easier markers than real social navigation. The people on packages always look so content and happy, having purchased their way through the social heirarchy.

He doesn’t understand any of that. He just likes to see the products in their packaging. That’s how he sees it. He’s 7 or 8; he doesn’t understand the irony of it. Yet.

He’s gone from the schoolyard to the drugstore. He likes the orderedness of the store layout. Even rows, recessed flourescent lighting, magazines always in one place, toys always in another. Candy bars. Weird hygiene products. ‘As Seen On TV.’

He’s caught. A clerk at the drugstore was bright enough to realize that a 7 or 8 year old kid shouldn’t be there alone. The school is alerted. The boy is carted off to school where he spends fifteen minutes in class before the school day is over.

I have some really good news.

Marco has a ‘blog!