barbecue

Posted on April 8, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

i’m just not waking up today. caffeine feels it’s dragging me from point A to point B, but nothing more than that.

in this morning’s dream, i was back in my old loft, except it was much wider, and so much quieter. although right outside my window, some people were having a barbecue. i couldn’t see them, but i could see their white pick-up truck which was blasting r&b music. it didn’t seem to bother me.

i hope i wake up today, for the sake of everybody.

i’ve been reading The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, which all of these people in Brooklyn were reading when I visited over the holidays. reading it on the train, this one passage caught me by surprise in my half-awake state:

“I certainly believe we all suffer damage, one way or another. How could we not, except in a world of perfect parents, siblings, neighbours, companions? And then there is the question on which so much depends, of how we react to the damage: whether we admit it or repress it, and how this affects our dealings with others. Some admit the damage, and try to mitigate it; some spend their lives trying to help others who are damaged; and there are those whose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves, at whatever cost.  And those are the ones who are ruthless, and the ones to be careful of.”

 

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inadvertent haiku

Posted on April 5, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

i’d much prefer to

engage with the world rather

than analyze it

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relishing

Posted on April 5, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

at an art opening tonight. i always run into people who i see maybe once or twice each decade. and now that so many decades have accumulated, it seems as if i see these people all of the time.

usually, they will ask me, “so what have you been up to these days?” and usually, i am bewildered since you might know by now that i have absolutely no sense of time. and with so many days that have accumulated since we last saw each other, how can i decide which one to start off with in describing, if i am thinking chronologically?

but some time ago, when asked that very same question at an opening, i’d feel obliged or internally pressured to come up with something to say, something about some project i might be working on. one must say something about something.

but tonight it was easy. i simply said, “i am living” because that is the only authentic answer that springs to mind. i didn’t mean to sound snide, arrogant, or to make anyone uncomfortable, such as this one guy who responded, “yes, it’s true. at our age, not everyone can say that.”

before i could say, “no, no. that’s totally the total the opposite of what i meant,” he had already moved on to the next conversation.

i really hate to think that i made him feel uncomfortable. but it’s really true.  as far as i know, i am living. and i relish it. i savor it.  what more can there be to say than that?

 

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blob

Posted on April 2, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

my acupuncturist asked me today, “how was your weekend?” And I said “What?!!” I really could not come up with answer. I had to think about it. For quite a while. Eventually I admitted that I could not grasp the concept of a weekend because the days all blur together and time itself is one big gelatinous blob. She said she liked the way I said “gelatinous,” which made me blush.

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armadillo dream

Posted on April 1, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

i’m so groggy this morning since awakening from a strange dream, some time between 6:20 and 7:10 a.m. I can’t recall all of the details, but it involved the mayor, Rahm Emanuel and an armadillo.

I was being driven around by Emanuel (who was just as arrogant as I imagined), perhaps scouting for movie locations on streets that vaguely reminded me of the South Loop. And it ended on a front porch of someone’s house where an armadillo walked into the dining room. And then the owners (perhaps the mayor and his wife) were trying to decide whether to keep the armadillo as a pet.

There was also a  woman in a green dress riding a chariot, driven by a flying rhinoceros. And, I think they may have dueling with some sort of dinosaur in a distant field.

But it was the armadillo that unsettled me the most. It kind of creeped me out.

And now I’m drinking coffee

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the return of the hat

Posted on April 1, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

i was walking about in my new hat today. i’m fairly convinced i’ve written about my hat at least once or twice in the past year. but it still seems foreign. this thing on top of me that calls attention to the thing below it. my hat and i are not really in sync.

or maybe i am just resenting all of the attention my hat is getting. well, resenting is the wrong word. the hat is getting noticed in ways that make a wallflower such as i uncomfortable, or less anonymous.  just today, there was the “greeter” at the apple store, some gang kids on the street corner, and homeless man who nearly broke my heart, asking for food or money or a cigarette. anything. and i had nothing to offer but this hat. and as i was walking past, he called out, “god bless you! and I like your hat!”

some might say, you can’t hide under that hat forever. but i actually am supposed to hide under that hat forever, after my brush with skin cancer last summer.  and now that winter is leaving me, hiding under that hat isn’t really that much of a choice. since i choose to remain alive.

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plunging

Posted on March 28, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

i haven’t been here in quite a while. i’ve been practicing piano a lot, but it’s not really practicing in the usual sense of practicing towards progress and improvement. because it’s more of a practice to plunge deeper into a space that becomes more and more unfathomable. it’s a steady plunge. does plunging count as practice?

although Fred’s (my piano teacher’s) wife, who is a drummer came out of the kitchen at the end of my last lesson to tell me how much i had improved. i have no idea what to make of things when someone praises me. it’s pretty unfathomable to contemplate.

but lately it also feels like i am practicing piano to avoid writing. i have felt such deep sadness these days. and i fear that if i tell you how i have been feeling and what i have been thinking you may not like me anymore. maybe the less that tell you, the more you will like me.

and it’s really essential to me that you like me. i don’t know where i’d be if you didn’t.

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an open door

Posted on March 19, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

such strange dreams lately i have had. even though i only sleep a few hours each night, those hours are loaded with mystery.

early this morning, i was found wandering naked on a residential street in Brooklyn. i was trying my hardest not to be noticed–which is eerily similar to how I function 40 hours/week at my job. but this was in Brooklyn. on a block that is home to some of my friends. i think i was just trying to find an open door, a safe haven from my exposure.

which reminds me that maybe this is a good time to not be reading Kafka.

and in another work related dream the other night. I decided to play hooky from my day job and return to the night job i held before I took on the day job. But for some reason,  I ended up in somewhere in sprawling soulless mall’ish Republican suburb, where I found the 2 people who used to supervise me (I am still desperately in need of supervision). But it was now 5:00 in the afternoon, and somehow I had to make it back to the city, through 25 miles of rush hour traffic. And it was not looking good, logistically speaking.

There must be a word for this dilemma… some simple term to describe situations where people play hooky from one job in order to work at another job they will never arrive at on time.  But I can’t think of that word right now.

Fortunately, neither of my supervisors took this very seriously. They laughed it off,  and told me not to worry.

And then they both disappeared. And I found myself at a restaurant chain owned by football star.  I ordered a turkey sandwich and when the waitress served it, she told me it would be $97. Of course I told her that there was no way I could pay for that. She begrudgingly said that she’d give it to me for $42. When I asked her why it was so expensive, she said that it took a long time to prepare, and that next time I should order it
further in advance. And then she threw the sandwich in the garbage.

This partially explains why sleep sometimes requires a certain boldness, a certain courage. one cannot always tread into sleep too lightly.

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Mikrokosmos 14

Posted on March 18, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

I feel like I am almost on the verge of playing music. Somehow I’ve reached the 14th of the Mikrocosmos. Even if I only progress by one infinitesimal mikro-mikrocosmo per month, it must mean something. The 14th is called Question and Answer, and I just noticed upon my 14th attempt at playing it that there are lyrics. I’ve been so focused on guessing the notes that I somehow almost missed them. But I think the 14th is the 1st with lyrics. And there is much to contemplate within them:

“Could you, would you, let me share your rake so fine?

“No, sir, go sir, don’t you know this rake is mine?”

“I would trade you apples from my tree.”

“Ne-ver! My fine rake is just for me.”

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the eraser

Posted on March 16, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

i guess it must be true: one never knows what one never knows. or if one truly does know, how is one to know it?

for example

i have spent the past week trying to transcend my techno ignorance in editing a new video, using iMovie. I run into obstacle after obstacle. One computer crash after another. Finding and losing footage. In this urgency to complete this piece and send it out to the universe, I neglect to remind myself that it might be a good idea for me to learn how to use the software. I just don’t have the patience for it. But this impatience may turn out to be my ruin.

That sounded way over dramatic. I am so good at being patient with so many other things, no matter what is churning within–except when it comes to editing video. I get impatient because I expect magic. Magic is the great eraser of my mistakes.

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winter is still leaving me, despite all of my protestations

Posted on March 10, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

It’s that time of year again. the end of winter. the season i live for is fading out. it didn’t last nearly long enough. most people would think i am insane for feeling this way, and i would tell them: it’s not like i have anything against the other seasons, but i just find so much more peace and beauty in frozen, dark climates. i am not a dark person. but i am a lighter person when there is darkness around me. i am just one of those people whose spirits lift when the sun sets.  it’s even a palpable, physical, visceral sensation. and i am so much happier when there is stillness.  and there is more stillness when the world is dark and frozen. i can’t tell you how much i love that. i live for it. and the joy it gives me will hopefully last me through the autumn. and i hopefully i can reciprocate. 

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Posted on March 7, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

I am not quite sure what happened. But I could not sleep at all last night. I should not be blogging in a daze, but why not try it out? Except that I can barely keep my eyes open.

 

I just added 2 paragraphs which I immediately deleted. I was trying to capture the essence of something, but it just is not there.

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replicating

Posted on March 4, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

ok… the very last word on the situation with my new therapist. i was trying to explain to her how it felt more comfortable for me to see a therapist who made me feel uncomfortable than it feels to see a therapist who makes me feel comfortable. a concept so convoluted, i don’t know how anyone could ever grasp it, including myself who uttered it.  But you know what? She totally totally got it. I was shocked. So now I really do have to continue with her, at least while I’m still in town.

It really is such a strange strange thing. to feel more comfortable being around people who make you feel uncomfortable than with the people who make you feel comfortable. i realize i just replicated from the previous paragraph.

because maybe if I keep typing it over and over again, it will begin to make sense to me. although then it will lose its mystery and elusiveness, which are the very things i thrive upon.

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the equation

Posted on February 28, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

sigh…

i did it. i actually did it. i disclosed my infatuation with my therapist to my therapist.

she seemed unaffected by it. unfazed. what i felt as profound embarrassment, she saw as “transference” which she said was very normal. i said i did not know that much about transference beyond what I saw on TV, like in The Sopranos or In Treatment, but i did not think those dramatic scenarios would ever apply to me because that kind of transference is such a cliché, which might be the one thing i probably am not. because i am not the transference kind. or, i don’t do transference. at least not very well.

actually, let me take that back. i am totally the transference kind. everything i see, think, do or feel is a transference. i can’t think of anything that is not transferable.

i told her that this was very uncomfortable for me because i could only imagine how uncomfortable she must be because if i were in her shoes, i would feel very uncomfortable. To which she responded, “well what if one of your students admitted something similar to you?” i could not fathom that ever happening, since i do not really teach.

but it is true that in those instances where a friend reveals an infatuation with me which is not at all mutual, i feel very uncomfortable being around that person. Of course, I maintain the friendship, but from a distance, maybe in more subtle ways. Because self-consciousness creeps in… I become almost vigilant in not giving off anything that might be read by that friend as a sign of hope for my change of heart.

and that is the only lens, the only framework i have for imagining, speculating how my therapist must feel.

finally, she said “we only have 2 minutes left tonight. what will you do after this?” i said i would probably grab dinner somewhere.

It turns out she was not being literal. She simply wanted me to tell her how I would feel when the session ended.

Shamed? Humiliated? Scorned? Disgraced beyond redemption? The object of ridicule for every LCSW in the metropolitan area?

As i was putting on my coat while walking out the door, i added, “i guess i’d like to make sure that i am not making you uncomfortable.”

“So it sounds like you’d like my reassurance?,” she asked.

“i guess so.”

but she would not offer any reassurance because i think her job is to help me understand me, which means taking herself out of the equation. now i just have to figure out a way to take myself out of the equation too.

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uh-oh

Posted on February 27, 2014 by The Lost Pedestrian

something really awful has happened. i can’t even admit it to myself. so i will admit it to you instead. i seem to have developed an infatuation with my new(est) therapist. the one i thought was perfect for a creature of my disposition. and now i fear that i’m about to ruin everything. i can easily not deal with this at all and just wait for it to pass. i know i can be very resourceful at finding lots of things to talk about that evade this dilemma… but fortunately and unfortunately she is too astute to not pick up on signs i inadvertently give off from time to time.

such as Monday. we touched upon my issues with envy. yes, i can be envious at times. i never talk about it. i never write about it. i’d rather not acknowledge it at all, but it’s there. and somehow it came up in our conversation. I said, “Gosh, I must sound like a terrible person. Do I sound like a terrible person?” She answered that I am not a terrible person, but I am somebody who is very self-aware, which a lot of people are not.

But I realized afterward that part of the reason I feared I was coming across as a terrible person was because, in many ways, I am seeking her approval–but in a way of seeking approval from someone you are trying to impress. Such as someone you might be infatuated with, but you know that admitting that runs the risk of ruining something unique and important.

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