My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

So I take a different path, different than I planned, different than I wanted. Neither path particularly easy, but the one from which I lost my way felt warmer, with pleasant scenery and the occasional comfortable place to rest. I miss that path, took it for granted.

Travel is never easy for we who travel, but it’s all we really know. It’s not in us to stop, we seek something unique to ourselves and cannot be at peace until we find it. Some of us wander forever, never to find that path that leads home, to that thing we need.

The paths, you see, are tricky, clever and ever-changing. They revel under the footfalls of a lost travelers. Without the traveler, a path has no purpose, they know it and they fear it. So they shift and change, distract us with shiny things when they sense we’re weak. They know us, and they hate us. They hate us, because they need us. We know this, but we need them.

I lost my way in an opiate fog, all turned around and glad to be so. I drank from a river of apple brandy, all my thoughts burned in liquor. It happened so quickly, what felt like an instant.

I wander now, nothing familiar, under a cold and indifferent night sky. Tired and weary, lost and lonely. The path is happy to hear my sorrows, a sadistic lover who keeps me and despises me.

In my continuing effort to create a Halloween costume faithful to my subject, today I had my hair dyed dirty-blonde. It’s actually almost my natural color.

I’ve also quit shaving, but I honestly don’t know how well that will go.

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.