Wednesday, August 30, 2006

tamarindus indica

a few weeks ago, ryan heindl gave me a copy of tom wolfe's the kool-aid acid test. i haven't really had time to read it since then, but i took it with me on the trip, and am almost knee-deep in the thing now. it's crazed, drug-addled, mad -- so much that it might help to be a little fucked-up yourself when you read it. i, however, am not, and the damned thing is only good for me in small doses. it's holding my attention, though, which is more than i can say for any other book i've started in the last year.

i raise my window shade halfway and look out over the soft tops of clouds. it's cold on the plane. i've been cold a lot, lately -- unspoiled by a life without air conditioning. texan sun is perfect, hot but not humid, and usually on its own in a blue-eye-blue sky, with clouds for neighbors rather than enemies. the soft sea of white outside my window has broken into big, friendly puffs of cotton, casting fluffy shadows on a dry, desert floor as they shuffle by.

it's the reading that has me writing, i'm sure of it. one can't be in my life without the other, and both have been absent for a long time. wolfe's manic prose has me probing through this cobwebbed brain for better words and more poetic punctuation than i'm used to using. not poetic, that's not the word. it's the word i want to use, but not one i trust myself to back up. not anymore, or at least not yet. not yet.

i'm also partially inspired by this exotic-looking woman sitting at the window seat opposite mine. she's writing in a journal with a design on its cover that reminds me of the dress rachel was wearing when i saw her last. this girl reminds me of rachel, too, the tone of her skin and shape of her face. she's curled up, cold too, against her window, the pale skin on her arms showing through to tiny, purple veins, working to keep her small body warm. i wonder what she sees out of her window -- nothing, now. her eyesed are closed. asleep? i wonder if she's dreaming.. outside my window, the cotton puffs are giving way to wide, open stretches of sky. the brown, texas earth lies still below.

her dress sparkles -- the way she moves, so fluidly. she might be an alien. a beautiful alien.


some nonsense notebook rabble i wrote on the plane from austin to phoenix. san francisco's been really nice, kinda chillly, but carissa and emily have been wonderful. i'm working on stretching $40 over three days, and so far, it's been a successful challenge. more on that, them, and california, after i spend some quiet time with carissa's new mix and this cup of coffee.

sigh?

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