My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

My friend, Ziztur, is a spectacular photographer, and last night while experimenting with night-time photographic techniques she…

…wrote my name in LED light. I’m pretty flattered.

Awhile back Jeff VanderMeer was good enough to send me City of Saints and Madmen in eBook form. I immediately got hooked on his writing with Veniss Underground, but City of Saints and Madmen hooked me all over again. The book is a collection stories and historical guides that center around the city of Ambergris, a city of religious fervor and political corruption. It’s home to eccentric artists and strange creatures. It’s a city that brims with life, and so much death. None of the stories are tied together in a linear fashion, the first story doesn’t flow into the second. I think each piece of writing easily stands alone, but as a whole they create a fully realized world.

Jeff’s use of his craft is absolutely amazing. His words form sentences that create life. I feel like I’ve spent a month in Ambergris, walking its cobblestones, barricading the door to my hostel, praying to avoid the chaos and death that shrouds the Festival of the Freshwater Squid. So few have the skill to write bizarre twisted worlds and make them so real, with such vivid characters. He sees the power of the written word and completely knows how to wield it.

One story, The Strange Case of X, is about an author locked in a mental hospital who thinks he’s in our world, writing Ambergris into existence. It’s a brilliant examination of what it is to be a writer, to be utterly devoted to something so solitary. It’s definitely one of my favorites.

City of Saints and Madmen is completely unique and astonishingly written. I totally recommend it.

So, after I decided to quit the Ativan, I pretty much quit sleeping entirely. Seeing the clock tick 7 AM three days in a row really was not good, not good at all. A fellow starts to have shaky, unpleasant thoughts between 3 and 7 AM, odd waking dreams. I felt like I should be chain-smoking in some shit-hole diner, muttering nothings and ordering cups of black coffee. No sleep is a bad place. I kept thinking about one of my favorite scenes from Stay. Sam (Ewan McGregor) is talking to a strung out Beth (Janeane Garofalo). She’s just had a nervous breakdown and has taken a liking to liquor and pills. Sam sees her table-top pharmacy and says, “you can’t drink while you’re taking these,” to which she notes, “apparently, I can.” He drags her into the bathroom for a shower she needs, but doesn’t want, she looks absolutely exhausted. She says, “I need to sleep, please.” I kept seeing that scene while not sleeping.

Last night, however, I re-introduced myself to Ativan and actually fell asleep before seeing the sun. I definitely can’t stay on the Ativan forever, but until I get something else, it’ll do.

Last night, with the upcoming trache change and all, I decided to go for my thirteenth tattoo. I’m really into Elliott Smith, I think his music is some of the truest, most honest music ever written. Astonishingly sad, but honest. I’d wanted an Elliott Smith tattoo for some time, I just needed a proper idea. The idea came to me after Pitseleh came up in my shuffle a few weeks ago…

The song is perfect, and it describes exactly how I feel about myself. I fucked things up with Sara, can’t change it, can’t go back. I just totally fucked up, and I wanted to note my mistake, wanted something to externalize it. So, here we are…

So, in the morning I’m going for my monthly trache change, and I feel oddly indifferent. I’m not nervous right now, which could change, but for the moment I’m just indifferent. I feel really weird not talking to Sara, not before, or after, provided that there is an after. I mean, there usually is, but nothing’s particularly certain. It’s odd letting go of her, more odd than letting go of my voice, or the hot cocoa I used to sip so fondly. It’s odd wanting other things too.

I also got my thirteenth tattoo tonight, which I’ll write of tomorrow, unless something stupid happens.

So, I’ve picked up more new art… My friend, Sarah, actually painted it. Not Sara, but Sarah.

It’s probably best that I can’t talk, as all that I would utter of late is random swearing and non-sequiturs.

Well, I’m bidding farewell to Ativan, and possibly greeting once again my former lover, Insomnia. The Ativan is starting to, as expected, lose its effectiveness. It could also be adding to my spectacular depression.

So, I’m going to save my drug fixes for trache changes and find a better way to sleep.

The place is awash in dull-red and sickly-yellow light. A confederate flag is tacked to the ceiling, unimaginative lingerie hangs on a wire above the bar, bras of black and white. It’s loud, music you hate, so loud you can hardly hear the little voice in your head telling you you’d be happier leaving. The woman behind the bar has long hair, dirty-blonde, dressed in faded jeans and a white half-shirt. She’d almost be pretty, if she were really there, if her pale-blue eyes really saw you. You order a drink, a Cape Cod. It’s a classy drink for such a classless place. The woman, in fact, has to ask you what it is before sliding it to you in a cheap plastic cup. It’s mostly ice and cranberry juice, the vodka merely an after-thought. 

You sip your shiny red attempted alcohol, hoping to feel something rather than nothing. Johnny Cash begins to sing about one tragedy or another, you’ve heard them all and you don’t care. However, as the man in black tells you his troubles, the woman in white takes to dancing on the scuffed wood bar. You look up, she’s all motion and no life. She’s an illusion of sex, no heat, no kisses that feel like bites, or bites that feel like kisses. She’s a golem, a machine set to task. Her black leather boots slam and skitter, scratch and further scuff the pitiful bar, home to so many weak drinks.

You leave your still-born Cape Cod, barely touched, but it barely touched you, which seems fitting. The surrounding emptiness is too much, the golem too sad to watch. Lifeless life, stopping when the music stops. You leave your cash on the bar, probably too much, but enough to get you somewhere else. You don’t know where you belong these days, but you know it’s not here. You leave and don’t look back.

The night air is cold on your face, cold like you, through and through.

I have some new wall-art that I rather enjoy. I’ve been chatting with a fellow blogger who’s also an excellent artist, so I picked up a few of her prints from her deviant art gallery.

Lisa, Seated

Lampshade

Crystals 3

I think they fit the melancholy of the room nicely.