My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

Well, tonight I had some plans, plans that would have been quite fun, but they fell apart at the absolute last minute. Now, in such situations, I often try to think up drastic alternate plans, the polar opposite of staying home. So, I went to Starbucks for a cup of orange blossom tea. Oh, and then, I went to get my nose pierced.

Apparently, piercers are in short supply on Thursdays, but after three stops the folks at 1603 Tattoo & Piercing Co. were good enough to stab me in the face. They were totally cool.

Today I finished reading The Labyrinth by Catherynne M. Valente. I’ve had the book for quite some time, but focus hasn’t been my friend of late. However, once I actually started reading, I couldn’t stop. I went cover-to-cover in two days.

The Labyrinth is very difficult to describe in a little review. It’s a dark and twisted fairy-tale. It’s a bizarre love story of sorts. It’s strange and beautiful. Ultimately, it’s a surreal journey into madness and a fascinating look into the futility of human existence. Valente’s prose are absolutely gorgeous, she perfectly captures the essence of insanity as her heroine walks endlessly through The Labyrinth, not knowing if escape is possible and desperately afraid to hope for such.

It’s a brilliant novel, one of the best I’ve read in awhile.

This could possibly give away much of my Halloween costume, but today I found a spectacular little black slip and a tiara at a vintage clothing store. I actually wore the tiara around Ybor City. I’m amazed at how many homeless people know me by name. العاب وجوائز مالية حقيقية

I’ve quit many things, sitting up, breathing without machines, various narcotics, talking. Really, none of it terribly difficult overall, not compared to, say, quitting people. I mean, physical losses are pretty easy. I cannot talk, that’s just a fact. There are other ways to communicate, one adapts. It’s difficult at first, but facts are facts. A fellow can’t expect to live on narcotics either, just watch Most High or A Scanner Darkly and it’s obvious to see where that road ends. So, fine, narcotics, done.

However, quitting people, or a person you honestly love more than any drug, more than your own voice, it’s something I just don’t know how to do, and might never know. That idea is a little frightening. Quitting a person’s so entirely different, there’s no way, that I’m aware, to intellectualize or rationalize it. I mean, I know it’s been done, and that sometimes there’s absolutely no way around it. That’s a very rational line of thought. Still, when looking up at a clear night sky and thinking about that person, rationality jumps from a little metaphorical window and says, “fuck you,” on the way out.

He’s been on the road for so long, tired and weary. He travels, what seems to him, endlessly. It all looks the same after awhile, the road, the dreary sky, no matter where he is, everything gray. The people especially, gray, dull, empty. He stops from time to time, tries to fit into places, with people, but the world’s a puzzle and he’s a mismatched piece.

He remembers home, and he wants to go back. He misses home, but he can’t go back. The road is cold and lonely, as is he. He travels to forget, but he probably can’t. He might be dead, the road his Purgatory, but he really doesn’t know. He may never know, as is the nature of such travel. So he goes, his home far away, but never gone.

Tonight I saw Quarantine, a film of zombies and claustrophobia. Now, anyone who hated the way Cloverfield was filmed should quit reading. However, those who enjoy the first-person shaky camera should stay right here.

Quarantine revolves around an L.A. tv reporter and her camera-man as they’re shooting an evening with the L.A. fire-department. The entire film takes place through the lens of said camera. It all begins as a typical and rather dull evening at the firehouse, until a call comes in, at which point things get interesting. It’s supposed to be a routine call, a possible medical emergency at an apartment building, an old woman screaming for no apparent reason. When our reporter and fire-crew arrive on scene, they find the woman disoriented, moaning and bleeding from the mouth. They, of course, try to help her, but she’s not so cooperative. Rather than take a little ride to the hospital, she bites out the throat of the nearest available fireman. From here, things go astonishingly bad, as teams of government agents seal off the entire building without explanation. No one in, no one out.

I haven’t enjoyed a horror movie in a very long time, until Quarantine. It doesn’t tell a brilliant story with rich characters, but that doesn’t matter. The story is solid enough, the characters real enough. Quarantine is really a film of tone, atmosphere, and stylish violence, a film one enjoys on a visceral level. I’m a fan of the first-person shaky camera, to me it adds a certain level of intimacy and intensity. Watching, one can’t help but feel trapped in that building, terrified with its tenants.

Quarantine is such an intimately intense and well-paced zombie movie, I couldn’t have been more pleased with the experience.

So, last night some friends and I went to a late night double-feature, Appaloosa and The Duchess.

While it was definitely nice to see Jeremy Irons in something other than a spectacularly bad fantasy movie, it was unfortunate to see him in an astonishingly dull Western. A Western needs either brilliant dialogue, or amazing violence. Appaloosa had neither. The plot was boring. The characters were uninteresting. Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen gave absolutely flat performances. I don’t feel like it’s worth writing more. Just don’t see it.

The Duchess, however, was stunning. It was visually gorgeous, brilliantly acted and emotionally powerful. An excellent period film.

I know, I’m getting a little lazy about my reviews. I’ll step things up next time.

Sometimes, I’d like to just let everything go. I’d like to get on a bus without a word and end up in Wyoming, somewhere big and empty. I wouldn’t know anybody, nobody would know me. It’d be a fresh start, no pressure or expectation. This is stupid to think about, but I think about it anyway.

Water so hot, your entire body screams. Every inch of your skin burns white hot, then falls silent, numb. You can hear your own heart beating, loud and strong between your ears. Your chest rises and falls surrounded by steam. The feeling returns to your skin, conscious again from the initial shock. You lie back and close your eyes, heart pounding, thinking of her.

You remember her skin against yours, the heat and sweat. You remember the pain, the pleasure, the pleasurable pain. Bites and kisses, nails dug in and gentle caresses, sinking into scalding water. The line between ecstasy and agony is gone, burned away, there’s no difference between the two. You’re both dominant and submissive in turn, both knowing exactly how to play one another.

You don’t speak, and neither does she, not with words. You know other each on a visceral level, her breath on your face says I love you, I want you, take me, fuck me. Your eyes speak the same to her. She knows that you can’t stand much more, neither can she. She wants to see the look of release wash over your face. She takes you how she wants you, you can’t stop her. She won’t stop and you know it. You have no choices. She touches you beneath the hot water, slowly, then ever faster. You know what’s about to happen, your lack of choice doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, save for her touch and the look in her eyes. Beautiful, sinful, perfect.

You open your eyes and she’s gone. Your skin feels warm and alive with lingering pain. You remember her. You feel alive in the heat.

Maybe Sting has the right of it. He’s not as good as, say, Bono, or Jesus, but maybe he really knows something. Maybe De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da is exactly the right thing to say. Yes, I may, no, should, no, will try it on the next woman I fancy. It’s so stupid it’s brilliant.