2004-09-25 - 8:44 p.m.
dispatch from the front
lake with rose. and then there's the dream I just had where I was bitten by a three fanged spider. is there any such thing as a three fanged spider??
so yom kippur. sun setting between two downtown oakland buildings seen from across lake merrit. rose and I discussing our years as the day comes to an end, the holiest light of the year finding a slit between the buildings and casting itself in a shimmering line across the water before lightly touching us. clouds above the buildings that combine with the trees and shape of the lake to suggest a giant eye. I've been caught up in some kind of upheaval. three of my close friends have recently had surgery and or chemo/radiation for cancer. we have a new roommate. I just cleaned the carpets in my room. our bathroom has been repainted. our roof is being redone. we have no time to sleep. we are restless with plans. I've fallen into a large and active social group here. every weekend is someones housewarming or going away or birthday party. sometimes three or four.
tumult
screaming through my broken window, oakland, -35 dollars in my bank account
lets go get drunk in the city! or at joes warehouse!
we are somewhat like a large and loosely connected family. a feeling of warmth and support. when our friends started coming down with cancer people organized rides to hospitals, people to cook meals. last wednesday I spent money I do not have to make vegetarian sushi for jean on the day of her chemo.
something to be proud of.
SUSHI RECIPES
vegan imitation cream cheese, toasted cashews (buy raw and toast in a pan) and basil leaves
tempeh marinated in rice vinegar, sugar and water. dash of soy sauce and mae ploy sweet chili.
soak cucumbers and carrots (cut into long thin strips) in rice vinegar, sugar and water.
avocado, of course. sesame seeds.
pickled ginger, wasabi, etc.
the basil, fake cream cheese and cashew rolls are really good by themselves, but almost any combination of the above ingredients will work.
sean just came in and told me breakfast is ready. on the roof the hammers pound something not quite like a samba rhythm.
(1 breakfast later)
so in the 15 minutes I was away from the computer one of my friends has cut her hand badly enough to need a trip to the emergency room or at least some immediate care type place, and another is violently ill from food poisoning. mornings here the phone rings continuously, this morning with sos's, sometimes with chatty reminders about yard sales and rockshows. and someone is always waiting to use it while it rings. the drummer in jeffs band cut the tip of his finger off. in short things are spinning a bit out of control. what about me, if anything, is like a silent grey owl perched somewhere on a tree limb, out of shot? is air directorial? do we have the correct lens for this light? where, in this maze of smokestacks, is the sweet sphere of air that will amaze us and present us with a salad of sunsets and rooftop heirlooms? answers all here all yes or no all correct/incorrect rose and I refuted the linearity of time again. based on nietzches doctrine of eternal return and a passage discussing the aforementioned from milan kundera's "the unbearable lightness of being" we constructed a halo-like argument for the significance of all actions. and I concluded that since we are entities which must at some point have done something roughly like choosing to exist, and since we exist in this form, this form must be the best we have arrived at to experience reality with. and thus happiness. at burning man I took pure mdma after coming down from a minor coke binge and whiskey. I immediately passed out and slept for about ten minutes. then woke up and staggered around for about thirty seconds, passed out again, woke up 20 minutes later, walked out into the desert in my polar bear costume and slippers with dave sarah and jin, and had the most blissful, warm, happy ecstasy "trip" of my life. sitting in a tent full of soft fuzzy everything I cured jin's headache with a cyclic pressure point technique. chemicals.can/can't control.you. and dichotomies have not been resolved, nor do they need to be
