some days i feel myself losing my mind. today. tonight. i could not find my keys. my voice, evaporating into a hiss, pleaded with impunity “Where could they be? They have to be here. This is impossible. How did I get into the building? I am here, the keys have to be here, too.” And then I feel the gut clench, and the exorcism of a spiritual miasma. I started imagining far-fetched scenarios in which i left the keys in the lock of the front door. i have, in fact, done this. one time someone kindly rang my doorbell and scurried off. at first i didn’t understand why but then i noticed that the ring of keys was still in the lock, and the passing neighbor just wanted to let me know. nice of him. this time, though, i imagined that if i had left the keys in door, then this could be bad, because the keys were gone. not in the door. i imagined an asshole blogger neighbor seeing the keys in the door, stealinng them, then holding a stethascope to the wall so s/he could hear my hissing complaints and blog about the hilarity. as exasperated as this half-hour drama was i never seriously imagined that something so strange as that had actually happened.
the keys finally turned up, or under. they were under a dishrag. i felt stupid, but more sinisterly i felt like my sanity was in the lurch, flailing out there with my sense of reason.
…..
the new project is well underway, motivating me to catch up on other projects as well. i ordered some cheap but necessary new gear, and have ideas now for the bigger picture. it’s neat. strange. interesting. a lot of work to go, though. not that i mind. i may have to give up on quarters and start using calling cards or credit cards.
i was all over LIC today, checking in on old familiar places and getting some decent photos with a trusty shoint & poot camera.
i am using the android device to type. part of the new project includes the fact that i do not carry the cell phone device around. this is the first time i’ve taken the cell phone out of the apartment all week. i have no relgiosity about this. i have not abruptly chosen to go neo-luddite as some statement — although i do find that cell phonery is generally unneeded — i just like to travel light, and the absence of GPS and useless restaurant reviews has proven to be no loss to me. of course i am newly single, and no one really needs to reach me with any urgency anyway, so the lack of responsibility is something to take advantage of.
travelling light makes me feel like it’s 1991 again. in those days i carried little more than a few dollars, keys, and that’s about it. today i got by for several hours with keys, dollars, credit cards, and a point & shoot camera. oh, and a pocket full of quarters, for the new project. and i’ve survived just peacably without the cell phone. of course i have limited responsibilities, so i can do this easier than most.
i think sometimes that i have a philosophical objection to responsibility. that sounds like a tenet of the surrealists, or the fluxists. loathsome responsibility, loathsome professionalism.
or maybe the Marxists.
i gotta get my philosophies straightened out.
i should drive. drive a car somewhere. i got a new laptop that is too heavy to carry, but with wheels and a trunk i could take that phat monster to useful places. i’ve had desires to drive again for a while, but i don’t know if i even remember how to do it. it is a burden. a responsibility. and if i am going to move from point a to b i would really like for someone else to drive.
someone mentioned cheap flights from LaGuardia to Milwaukee the other day. maybe i’ll go there. payphone hunting in Milwaukee. but i’d have to walk once i get there.
i wanted to go up to Valhalla, to see Kensico Cemetery, but it looks inhospitable to pedestrians up there. i wrote to the cemetery to ask if they knew which hotels/motels were within walking distance, but they ignored me. waaah. on account of that i got the boneyard blues.
thinking of fire. fire from the voice. fire from the gaslight of my emotional oven.
killer drunk just checked in… thinks this is a gay bar… think i’m his conquest for the night. sort of thing that used to make me ill at east but now i don’t much regard the circumstances.
i found some exciting payphones today. well, not found. they are not new to me. but they seemed exciting today. they work, for one thing, and that’s always a thrill ride into the boxy sound of the landline.
