Days in the Dust

I begin this blog in an effort to chew my nails far less and type far more. I've been thinking about blogging for a while now. I sometimes try to forget about the world inside this machine but it glows ever brightly beneath the hum of the outside world. I sat today in the City Cafe, drinking a watered down Iced Latte, arguing about whether or not there is a maximum terminal length for hair (there is) and behind me a few people sat, alone, looking into their computer screens. Somewhere, beneath the deep contemplation about the genetic differences between people's hair, I thought about moving through places with a portable machine and having a totally different life inside that machine. I'd been reading the Beatbots message board and thinking about possible responses but never posting any. I'd been reading Andre Fluette's blog about living in Antarctica (http://mcpenguin.livejournal.com/) and was so stricken by how much you can know about someone by reading their thoughts and also by how important it is to write down your thoughts. I've been thinking about Geoff scribbling a letter to me beneath the tall, antiquated ceilings of The Library of Congress and of all the gorgeous letters he's sent me lately. I've been thinking about a letter to write back and a letter to write to Rob, a letter to Megan for her birthday and finishing George Barnes with Sulima. It seems just on the tip of my tongue.

And I haven't simply written, without thinking, written long lines of things, scattered them across the page in sequence, slipping in and out of rhythm but always maintaining a theme. And I figured, what better place to come and simply put down in writing what is in your mind. And of knowing myself by seeing my words the same way I know others by reading theirs. I need to find words everywhere instead of hiding beneath the shadow of them.

I suppose I've known for some time the importance of what is now called a "blog" but what used to be simply a diary, a small book hidden beneath a mattress. I had a blog in college where I posted lots of my dreams, brief absurd babble and more Bob Dylan references than anything else. I never described my days but in quick silly sentences or short snippets of sadness, all full of quotes. And then, later, I composed letter after letter to someone specific: Sulima, Julian, Geoff, Rob. We wrote letters from Fernando, Anna, Miguel. We shall return to them soon.

I'm drinking Cahors and watching Carnivale. There are many secrets being uncovered. The wine changes with each small glassfull. I swirl it lightly and it opens up floats off and then the glass is refilled and I am deep beneath the earth again, tasting the speed at which the vines broke through the soil . I can almost taste the underbrush; I imagine the ground, damp and muddy and I feel that viscosity and the tartness on my tongue. I wonder how Geoff liked his Chateauneuf-du-Pape and whether it was any good or not.

Oh, yes, I'd also been reading waiterrant.net and knowing that fellow in such a vague but deeply personalized way, knowing him as just this character who moves through things and sighs afterwards. Everyone in life is a character to someone else, I suppose.