[c]

It verges on 1 AM. These last 24 hours, as all other 24 hours before it, have passed by in a retrospective instant. I can choose whether to reflect on that instant or leave it be for as long as the sand castle decides to collapse and rebuild.

And so I write.

This flicker was considerably different from the others, in a positive way. Oblong Tagalong, the band I'm in, released its first track. We're all very ecstatic over how well people have been responding to it. Stream/free download below:



After we got all excited, we had an impromptu practice to pen some more tracks, but to no avail. The energy was there, and the inspiration was there, and we couldn't even begin to organize all our ideas. In any case, I came up with a thought afterwards. This is that thought (as I suddenly feel a ringing in my ear):

The ringing's gone.

I'm going to film one or maybe two videos tomorrow; school cancellation is imminent; it's snowing considerably right now; it's April.

And Anomie Family Brain on the 11th.

~-~

Portrait[B]

"You have often seen the sand on the seashore. How fine are its tiny grains! And how many of those tiny little grains go to make up the small handful which a child grasps in its play. Now imagine a mountain of that sand, a million miles high, reaching from the earth to the farthest heavens, and a million miles broad, extending to remotest space, and a million miles in thickness: and imagine such an enormous mass of countless particles of sand multiplied as often as there are leaves in the forest, drops of water in the mighty ocean, feathers on birds, scales on fish, hairs on animals, atoms in the vast expanse of the air: and imagine that at the end of every million years a little bird came to that mountain and carried away in its beak a tiny grain of that sand. How many millions upon millions of centuries would pass before that bird had carried away even a square foot of that mountain, how many eons upon eons of ages before it had carried away all. Yet at the end of that immense stretch of time not even one instant of eternity could have been said to have ended. At the end of all those billions and trillions of years eternity would have scarcely begun. And if that mountain rose again after it had been all carried away and if the bird came again and carried it all away again grain by grain: and if it so rose and sank as many times as there are stars in the sky, atoms in the air, drops of water in the sea, leaves on the trees, feathers upon birds, scales upon fish, hairs upon animals, at the end of all those innumerable risings and sinkings of that immeasurably vast mountain not one single instant of eternity could be said to have ended; even then, at the end of such a period, after that eon of time the mere thought of which makes our very brain reel dizzily, eternity would have scarcely begun." (Joyce, 94)

---

~-~

Future Self-Portrait[A]

A bearded runner trudges along through my periphery on my way home. He moves at a deliberate and steady pace, his form clumsy. And yet he is vanished as soon as I'm aware he exists. I see him once more before he turns left forever, blending in with the rapidly evaporating turquoise and pine green light.

~-~

A Me Am Bar In Fly I I On
Barn I I I A Me Am Fly On
Brain I I A Me Am Fly On
Brain Aim I A Me Fly On
Brain Aim I Me Flay On
Brain Anime Im Flay O
Brain Anomie Im Flay
Brain Anomie Family
Anomie Family Brain.
<2wks

Standing At The Station.

Snapshot.

I shake my dad's hand, he walks away to head back home. I to New York City. Not first in line, instead about 15th or maybe 10th in line. I try to keep cool about things, act natural, but I fumble. I am clearly new to this. For one, I'm exhibiting nervous habits. I chew my nails, I tap my feet. I'm nervous. I want to board and evaporate into my bus seat. For another, I'm not attached to my phone as everyone else is. Everyone is attached to their phones. I would soon be guilty of that, logging over 100 texts to various people during my 4 hour bus ride down to the city. For the moment though, I have nothing out, leaving observation as my only source of entertainment to pass the time until the Megabus at Dock 12 boards at 11:00 AM.

My eyes glance from the guy behind me, who I assume is a bitter man until he breaks out his phone and starts speaking lovingly to his wife, to someone ahead of me. Some snarky businessman in the process of taking several overconfident bites out of his apple. The guy at the front of the line is talking to a Chinese counterpart in simplified English, as she responds steadily with fractured fluency. At the dock adjacent to ours, dock 11 bound for Taunton, there are but two people in line, 1/12.5th of the people currently in my line. The two future occupants of this lonely bus are a mother and her son. Her son, probably 5 or 6, sports spiky hair. The mother sports anger. She chastises her son for the littlest things, and all I can think is that that child will grow up to be angry. I was witnessing the breeding of an enraged spirit. I could feel it. It hurt.

Everyone in line is wired. Everyone in line is connected. Everyone has something in their ear, everyone has something at their fingertips. And, with nothing attached to me other than the backpack that's causing my shoulders to slope from the uneven weight, I start to feel as though I am a social anomaly. Or at least a technological one. I'm always connected to the Internet or to some type of screen, but these people seem to lack control of it. Maybe I just haven't experienced enough incessant connectivity yet to be one with them. Maybe I'm not ready to take a journey of this caliber yet. Maybe I'm not dependent/independent enough. Maybe I haven't lived/unlived enough. And do I know?

Maybe the city will answer.

~-~

New York Cares.

I don't know. One day I'm in my hometown, the next I'm in the heart of New York City sitting next to her while she studies for her Japanese midterm. I wake up at 7:30, catch a 9:00 bus to Boston that arrives at South Station at 10:15, and from there I take a bus down to New York City that arrives at 2:50, about 25 minutes ahead of the projected time. Bobina has to hurry from the subway down to the bus stop. She arrives two minutes ahead of me. We meet up, hug, and then start walking.

Which is when anxiety sets in, natch. I'm a townie, always have been a townie, always will be a townie, so there is invariably some degree of culture shock when I go into the city. So as we're walking to her dorm complex in the freezing cold, I feel a single bead of sweat tear down my forehead. I feel my pace quickening, I feel my breath becoming more laborious. She mocks me and jokes about it, and I laugh along while remaining on edge.

Anxiety sets in. This time I'm immersing myself in the mecca of all cities, NYC, from tonight until Sunday morning. She attempts to assuage me; she knows that these streets are harmless. Regardless, they still hold a level of danger in my eyes. Pickpocketing happens all the time, says my family. People get beat up, maimed, brutalized, and murdered in the city, says the media. Lies, lies, lies, says Bobina.

And except for the guy who was screaming bloody murder behind us as we walked back from Times Square, she was right. People are, well, strangely normal in the city. People have their destinations, and if someone gets in their way, the hell with them. It's almost as if everyone that roams the streets of NYC have read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and adhere to its objectivist principles. Which is fine, because they're too busy worrying about themselves to worry about me. Realizing this, my fears are quelled. Finally.

I still don't like being brutally surrounded by buildings, which is why I'll never adjust to cities. I still feel a strange mixture of claustrophobia and agoraphobia (claustroagoraphobia?) when I look at skyscrapers, and I think that'll remain permanent. On the same hand, buildings everywhere provide you with limitless opportunity. Today alone I a) nearly picked up a pack of Pokemon cards at the big Toys R Us b) got a quarter pound of M&Ms at the three-level M&Ms store c) ate the best chicken ever from a food cart called "The Halal Guys" and d) walked down to a Salvation Army, located atop an apartment building. Tomorrow, I'm going to a Marnie Stern/Tera Melos concert which is bound to be spectacular.

But there's still something, other than the buildings, that prevents me from falling in love with NYC. I'm not sure what it is. I don't know.

~-~