(The Good Kind of) Unstoppable Force

I was up early today, got dressed and ready for the all day job I would have and felt nervous about, then received an email that it was cancelled. I'm grateful for being able to, instead, be paid to FaceTime with a friend, take off all of my work clothes and get into just an oversized t-shirt for bit, and eat bagels before getting dressed again and heading out.

I keep thinking about how one's life can change in the course of a few weeks.

I'm experiencing that fairly profoundly right now.

Everything in its right place, indeed.

Things feel good and the doors that I have discovered and passed through, even better.


(pause)

Last night involved a conversation about Tanizaki, Dazai, Bataille, and Murakami. It was exactly what was needed.  It also involved the utterance of the perhaps accidentally profound declaration:  

"I've learned to keep things decent."






Be well; be loved,

k.

(photo: Thomas van der Zaag via untrustyou tumblr)

Citrus Kisses, or, How Your Glasses Sliding Down Your Nose as You Look at Me Will Always Be Entirely Charming

It's a quarter to midnight, and I am eating mandarin oranges out of a tin can.  Growing up, they always felt like such an exquisite and rare dessert. Of course, that may have been because we were always hiding from our father growing up, and home wasn't exactly a meal spot, let alone a dessert bar, but still: Opening that tin can felt like I was unveiling orange jewels from a golden case.
Why is it that most mandarin orange cans are gold instead of the usual silver tin, anyway?

It's been a long day:  Good, productive, multi-directional, but good.

A sweet someone informed me that today was the queen's 90th birthday.  I informed this sweet person that it was the season 8 finale of Rupaul's Drag Race.  A celebration of queens, all around. It is nice to have this atypical cultural exchange.

Earlier today, I talked with Z for quite a while. We laughed about the people we ask for life advice from being people who exist more or less entirely outside of life. Like asking for stock investment advice from the Baron in the Trees or something. It's laughable and amazing all at once.  I am proud of the people who are in my life.

(pause)

I've been happy in life as of late. Content. Productive. Excited for what I am building. Who knew that life could be so fun, even when it's tiring?

Note to self: It feels good to have positive people in my life. People who are intelligent and wise, loving and funny, creative and a step or five outside of the anticipated trajectory.

And so we travel, together.



For now, to bed with me: Another day is about to arrive. 


be well; be loved,

k.
(image via 130186 tumblr)

Significance and Steamed Windows

Your words, I admit, were kind. Nevertheless, I fear that you did not give sufficient thought to what you were saying. And even less to what I was saying. You should always listen carefully, Max, to what women say while they're being fucked. If they don't speak, fine, there's nothing to listen to, and you'll probably have nothing to think about, but if they do, even if it's only a murmur, listen to their words and think about them, think about their meanings, think about what they express and leave unexpressed, try to understand what it is they really signify. 

--from Murdering Whores by Roberto Bolaño


It's roughly 10:25 am, and I am laying on a bed holding a mug of coffee steady in between my knees (at 90 degree angles, on their sides) as I type.  Fiction has been good to me lately.  Reality, perhaps more so.

There are a number of plots and plans that I have simmering on the proverbial stove, and the mixture and direction of their scents seem to be in profound agreement as of late. Step by step and with an eye on everything at once can both sharpen the senses as well as leave you inspired to bring on more to the mix.  Patience and a steady eye, however, seems to be the winning combination.

These days I am excited by the balance of the step by step plan: The satisfaction involved in putting a solid, inked line through a task written down on a To Do list.  Watching the ink spread into the paper makes me more attentive to the air that hovers just above and upon the nape of my neck. The patterned click clop click of heels making their unquestioned way across academic tile (we all know that corporate has long since switched out to be a disappointing industrial grade carpet).

I will see you soon, and with measured steps.



k.

(image: Richard Serra, To Lift, 1967.)