I watched a drunk girl dance with a couple of guys last night.

It was a little like anebriated pinball...the men stood as two rubber bumpers, one in front of her and one behind, and she dully bounced between them like a pinball might if it had a few too many and turned to Jell-O. (There's a mixed metaphor if I've ever seen one). Her eyes were 70% closed the whole time, and she had the half-smile of a dental patient just before he succumbs the anesthetic cocktail. It was that look...that face that got me. It was a spooky mix of distance and relief, and I suspect that the former caused the latter.

Please don't hear this as a judgement thing...I have spent many nights in just such a state, and I enjoyed most of them. It's just that...for whatever reason, as I stood next to a couple of my friends at a tavern last night, I noticed this trio, and I felt bad. I didn't feel pity for them...I didn't feel like I needed to throw a Bible at their heads and offer them saving grace right there next to the subbed-out speakers blaring Eminem. I felt bad that, lots of the time, this feels like the best that things can get.

Our salon commercials talk about "escape." Our vacation packages are called "getaways." Our bath bottles advertise that with their products you can "slip away" into a bubbly abyss. It seems that the best thing we can hope for is to not be where we are. We want to get out of our heads...to get out of our bodies...to feel less...to be lighter, to diminish.

What are we escaping from? Why have we been created to inhabit our bodies and carry about our brains, only to wish nothing more than to relieve ourselves of each? Why do I want the same thing?

I want more for our species than to hope for non-existence. Though that may be our end, it bothers me that escape...numbness...seems to be a highly desireable and heavily marketed quality. I want to hope for a true consciousness marked by presence, not by absence.

Do you remember that scene in Fight Club where Tyler pours lye on Jack's hand...and forces him to keep present to the pain? I wonder if this is where they were headed with that.

Peace,
Justin

Sometimes it's the art that gets me, and sometimes it's the palette.

I don't know if you ever have these palette wonder experiences...but I imagine all of us do...and I love them. I was sitting in my living room yesterday, remarkably underwhelmed, and zoning out to what I remember as "Nanny 911," but what may well have been some other banal waste of my time, such as "Meet Your New Mommy," "Survivor: Vanuatu," or "Cold Case." As my brain steam-bathed luxiuriously in its color-stim stew, a commercial for shampoo came on. A blond woman hocking the latest innovation in personal home hair solutions used the word "soothing." I love that word. It is an emotional onomatopoeia...its very sound makes me feel what it denotes. The word is thick like whole milk, and warm like tomato soup. I wore it as a sweater for a second or two, and then marveled at its effect on me. And then I realized...that was just the one word.

Here's where I'm headed with this: we have many, many, many words. My delight in the word "soothing" was pleasant, but the palette wonder came in the overwhelming reality that I have so many more words to choose from. Did you ever go down into your grandma's basement and find that ancient stack of National Geographics? Did you pick one out (probably from the middle), and open it to find a beautiful, exotic photo on the page before you? That was the art. Then, did you step back and realize that each of those yellow magazine spines with black print sitting in front of you meant another whole collection of such beauty? That was the palette. I love that feeling...it's overwhelming...it's immersive...and it feels reverent.

It works in libraries for me. It works with colors. It works with music. I love that feeling.

It's nice to post again.

Peace,
Justin

I haven't had much to say lately...

...it's one of the most written-about topics by novelists, columnists and, in time I imagine, bloggers. It's that feeling that, regardless of how much is going on in your head, on your radio, in your life...that you've got no way to get it down on paper. Writer's block.

Fortunately, I have no deadlines, no fans, no J. Jonah Jamieson standing over me barking, "Where's that copy I asked you for?"

Which is nice.

I look forward to having more to write about.

Peace,
Justin