Monday, July 30, 2007

my last days as a flâneur..

Is it true? Hardly. However, the last few days I have been paralyzed. Suddenly, all my momentum towards all these things I want to read, do, write, see, came to a halt due to my sudden inability to do anything. I stare at my computer screen but nothing comes out. I am forgetful. I read and fall asleep. What is happening!?
Partially, I think I have suddenly become overwhelmed with everything I have put myself up to doing. I feel as though I am suffocating underneath a stack of books and to-do lists. On the other hand though I have suspected that it might have to do with my social life. While in school or after a lengthy amount of time of reading and studying I feel like one’s speech is often times improved. Big words and clear sentences emit from your mouth. Slang suddenly disappears. However, when one is going out the bar almost every night, screaming at someone about really nothing over loud music and thick smoke(yes still legal in Oregon)…your speech(and thoughts for that matter) become less coherent and clear. I think it makes me uninspired too.
I told my roommate the other day I don’t think I like a majority of my friends in this town. This isn’t true per se…however, I have come to realize that while I do enjoy and like a majority of the people I know here; there are only a few who I actually like keeping regular company with. Unfortunately, it is almost entirely impossible since hanging out with them almost always means hanging out with the entire lot.
Furthermore, I have found myself enjoying staying at home all day and being a curmudgeon. I had three days off in a row last week and the entire time, I read and drank tea with my cats. Being only 23, I highly doubt I could say that my days as a socialite are over. No, I still enjoy shaking my ass, talking loudly at bars or starting a dance floor at shitty house parties way too much. However, I do see myself winding down a bit. Perhaps those 4 vodka tonics can be reduced. Getting to bed early and staying in might be just what I need to get “re-motivated”. Truely, however, I am sure that Summer is the culprit.
And tomorrow August appears.
August is a computer screen half empty, a tired mind, an unfinished novel, an uninspired day of reading, sitting on the window sill, drinking water and being culpable for the malaise, the empty mind, the unproductivity of words, the empty bottles of whiskey and beer amassing and decomposing through salty condensation and advertisement labels peeling at the edges of clear brown glass next to the trashcan of his kitchen. It's waking up late and wet, two hour of rest on the couch in the mid-afternoon after doing absolutely nothing, lukewarm tea cups scattered across tables forming rings and collecting ash decorated by crumbs of crust off of warm, frail sandwiches, cracked skin, hard toes, shortness of breath and stubborn lungs. It's spiders on the wall, hissing of moths and bees hiding in trampled grass and groomed hedges, the acidic smell of rotten fruit and vinegar of trashcans bothering the nostrils.
Oh August! I am overwhelmed with the congested imminence to the fluids of life that it forced upon me once a year during this month. Everything is damp and slamming into the senses.
Across the room in shades of grey Anna Karina smoked a cigarette facing an old man in a Parisian café, “I’d like to live without talking”.

Doesn’t everyone in August?


Truely....I blame summer.
More later I promise…


le grand flâneur....Monsieur Baudelaire

1 comment:

The Grizzle said...

The "August is" sentence really was a beautiful piece of writing.

Dude. You would been so proud of my Jukebox set at Footsie's in Highland Park last night. Brian Eno, Faces, Pretenders, Feist, Neil Young, and finished off with Prince. Awww yeah.