Peeling in Public.

One deft movement had a tight knot of deep, burgundy spirals unfurled and loosely falling around creamy, freckled cheeks and all the way down to the middle of a long, attenuated back.  She's tall and leggy.  Thin and defined.  Her cheekbones and jawline are strong, pronounced, and imbued with a quality that demands a visual listening.  She was sitting next to me, her long winter-paled fingers resting on my forearm. 
"I'm sorry.  I'm trying to impress you right now."  She admitted.  "I catch myself doing things like that all the time.  I'm realizing that I'm always trying to make people smile, or laugh, or say what I think they want or need to hear.  Sometimes I even catch myself making up answers to their questions...."
I caught myself staring.  She was stunning.  I felt stunned.  Her capacity to be that raw and vulnerable sent my head into a tizzy.  How did she know?  We had only chatted a handful of times before...
She met my gaze for a moment.  Then got up to head to the tub where she had drawn herself a bath.  She stopped just before the door.  "It feels really good to know that I'm lovable, even without the fluff."

Well, I should be going now.

It's amazing really, the distance between we human beings.  A simple automated greeting, a few words, perhaps a question, maybe two (albeit nothing to provoke long-winded responses), a feverishly paced wave goodbye, and then that last awkward moment where the person who initiated the farewell checks in to be sure he didn't leave anything out on the social obligation chit chat check list.
So weightless our connection to our friends, family, communities... and any other human life we encounter throughout the coarse of our work-a-day lives.  Heads down, production up.  Hearts are emotional train wrecks that need to be constantly monitored so that they don't over take the rhyme and rhythm of our regimented lives.  Who knows how we would ever keep our positions, let alone build up our careers, if we took a day off every time we started questioning the meaning of it all.  Lord knows those questions are like viruses, spreading from one thought to another, infecting our perceptions and our abilities to cope with that small feeling, located on the edge of all our lives, that this isn't what we really want, is it?


Today I lay with my lover on a soft, velvet comforter, fully clothed and riddled with premenstrual angst and the stirrings of oncoming cramps.  He held me so close that I could feel the wiry bristles of his lynx-inspired ginger chops lightly stroke my face.  I heard his breath, and listened while he sank deeper into the rhythm of sleep.  Although I never followed his lead, I did feel how my whole body slowly released its tension and angst, how the premenstrual chaos of both my mind and body smoothed out and then settled, and how peaceful it was to experience the medicine of intimate human contact.

Tinder bundles and water collection.

I woke up this morning, poured of cup of dangerously dark french press, and sat down to watch Democracy Now with my lover.  Shit has been crazy lately.  I was never one to pay attention to politics or the news, in fact I put in a concerted effort to avoid hearing or talking about either of them.  I figured focusing locally was more important, and therefore engaged in a form of denial about things outside of my immediate intake parameters.  Somehow, in the last year, that's all changed.  I've become quite informed, so to speak, even though in reality I probably only scrape the surface with my knowledge.  Either way, as far as I am concerned, this last few weeks has been pivotal in international news...  riots, protesting... today an 8.9 earthquake and tsunami hit Tokyo and threatened to also affect a large portion of the Pacific Basin...  Wisconsin just had their right to bargain removed after 25 days of protesters sleeping in the capital building....
I feel a little stunned... I sip my coffee, goddamn it's good.

Are human muzzles a good idea?

Once I was asked:
"How was your trip to Asia?"
I thought about saying,
"It was nice."
But instead, this came out,
"Picture 66 million people packed into a relatively small country, plus at least another million in tourists indulging in a slothful, drunken manner everyday.  Add in a full 6 week dose of digestive uncertainty and pain, a few close calls with war and bombings, formaldehyde in the beer, white sugar in EVERYTHING, and a perpetual wave of shit stench EVERYWHERE you go.  Sprinkle that with one good sleep each over the entire trip, and cook at 35 degrees and humid with diesel in your face everyday."