Foucault = Inspiration

What do I want to write? I know I'd like to write some sort of edgy novel ... a bit of science fiction / fantasy that indulges my dark side. But is it in me to write that today? Probably not. I want to run away with Foucault's idea that we believe in so much that boils down to rhetoric. Do I KNOW that there are billions of people in the world from personal experience? No. I haven't counted. But it seems logical and WHY WOULD THEY LIE?? so I believe it. Do I know that the world is round because I have sailed around the globe? No. But the argument has been made well and I have been raised to believe in it, so I have no reason to question it. But it seems to me that many opportunities for fiction lie in the questioning of these assumptions. Do I know that the stars above me at night are actually there? No. But I have been taught to believe that they are so I do.

Furthermore, can I really be sure that characters in a work of fiction do not exist? I suppose it is the work of an author to convince his audience that the possibility exists. Fiction's role, rather than to confine the mind to an idea from childhood, is to allow it to accept a reality outside of these confines. It holds the task of setting up confines that are, oftentimes, contrary to those of reality. An author must confine his reader in the span of a few hundred pages, rather than the time allowed by a society (a lifetime).

I love rhetoric.

pissed off with no other forum

okay so here i am trapping myself into the box of WORD OF THE DAY and i can't seem to find any inspiration. and i tell myself, hey, maybe i need a different format so i try something trite but still engaging - iambic pentameter. yes, i'm rusty but it gives me some ground underneath my feet to start from. but i fail at that - and not just because the words are overused and overplayed....but because i have no inspiration. and then my roommate's puppy wakes up downstairs and climbs all the way upstairs and whines and whines and i try to turn my music up louder but that just impedes the writing process because i cannot hear my thoughts. and then marley - the puppy - begins to bark louder and louder every second. and i can hear her over my music. so i yell. louder and louder every second. and i turn off the music thinking she's stopped. but she starts right back up. and i yell again to no avail. so i go downstairs and i yell at a stupid defenseless dog because she's getting older and she still pees and poops and whines and some part of me expects her to be an adult NOW. and i don't really know what cesar milan the dog whisperer would say about dog development but it's a legitimate need in my mind for this dog to shut the fuck up even if her biological clock hasn't quite made it past 3 o'clock. and somehow, after yelling at her to go back downstairs and slamming the door, i return to the silence i've been craving. but coming back up the stairs to my room and my computer i realize i cannot calm down enough to stick to a structured piece of crap poem ... no i want to hear the furious cracking of my fingers upon the keyboard. part of me wants to break the keyboard by typing too loud because everything is piling up. and then my phone makes it's doodly-doo sound that is so ironic in my current mood and i embrace my anger. i need to acknowledge the fact that i'm mad. it's not just a little dog because i know for a fact that the first thing i wanted to do when i woke up this morning was let her out and cuddle her before i went to school. (don't really know why i didn't to be honest - probably a time issue). i'm mad at my friends, my job, the irritating blending of the two. i'm mad at money problems. i'm mad at the economy. i'm mad at the fact that i wasted (though in a better mood i would talk that away - say some crap about the time teaching me something and making me a better person) three years of my life studying a subject i had no interest in aside from the fact that i could do it with my eyes closed. i'm mad that i wasted four or five (i don't really know for sure and to go back and reason out the timeline would interrupt my rant) years of my life with a man that i full well knew was no good for me, forsaking my family and cutting off ties that HE told me to - even if he didn't always vocalize it he was a manipulating bastard. and i'm mad at myself for even bringing this into the post, as the real issue right now is the fact that stupid immature idiotic people at work are making life a living hell for a woman who is my second mother. a damn girl who i was at one point dumb enough to let into my life and call my roommate is a conniving bitch and she and her propaganda machine are trying their damndest to get my Carol kicked out of a job she's held for five years without any complaints from customers or associates anywhere. and then all the sudden this shit hits the fan and she's at the brink of tears because she's so depressed with the situation and the sudden turn of events. and she cannot stand to be there unless i'm the head cashier on duty because everyone else is just two-faced and backstabbing. and now i'm crying because i'm probably on the brink of my period (TMI? IDFC!!) and i can't find my inner voice and i can't find my chi i can't calm down because i can't fucking handle the machinations of this world and i don't know where i'm going here. i've got an awesome fiance (it's amazing how much the wrong guy will teach you about the right one) and he knows the parties involved (allies, enemies, bullshit, etc.) and he's mad too. but he didn't see her bottom lip tremble. he didn't see the tears welling up in her eyes. he didn't see this damn place crumble to the ground when the morals that held it up were torn out from underneath it. this place used to be home.

paused

my voice is gone; my thoughts have flown away.
i find my mind devoid of things to say,
and yet the interest still exists in me
to set afire the words i cannot see.
but how - i ask - can one open a cage?
and how can one read from an empty page?
i try too hard and yet i see the truth:
i've lost the flow'r that sprouted in my youth.
what once was watered each and every day
has been allowed to wither and decay.
perhaps if i endure my grating style,
resolve to make my phrases more worthwhile,
lock insecurities outside the gate,
i'll return to younger self at later date.

June 1999

In her eyes, the inclement weather was particularly propitious. The dark clouds had scared away her impending knell.

For today.

The swirling masses were irascible, threatening to rain down lightning, should she leave the safety of her home. It regaled her to pick up the telephone and make that call.

“I regret that we cannot meet tonight.” She attempted to keep from sounding mordant.

“Do you really regret it, miss?” His acumen was exceeded only by his courtesy.

“Matthew, of course I do. You know how I await our meetings agog.” She feigned ebbulience, shifting in the span of a breath to something quite the opposite. “Do you dare call my integrity into question? Does your captious mind attack my anguish like a bandog?”

He was quick to respond: “Oh, miss, I do pray I have not offended you. I bathe in virtu, and your beauty is the finest art ever created. It is the oasis in a desert of the most severe aestival heat, and I beg you to allow me access to your waters.”

The flowers of his proclamation could not hide the emotionless delivery of the bouquet, suggesting that the gamut of her theatrics was less cogent than she would have wished. Perhaps she realized this: she absconded from the conversation, placing the phone back in place.

She turned to the open window, feeling as strongly as she felt the biting wind that the telephone would not ring again. The window seat became her throne as she watched water collect on the windowsill, reminding her of taws from her youth. Only alone would she rule her world; only alone would her heart remain as cold as the moon, as protected as a redoubt.

Yet even she, in her chichi apartment, was beneath the moon. She thought about it often, the pains of being a sublunary subject to the queen of the tides. Somewhere between avoiding her past and evading her future, her desultory mind sometimes amused itself with dreams of sending scions to challenge the queen’s rule. But the kobolds of her mind denied her this dream, convincing her that any progeny would choose the land or sea over the space beyond, finding his passion in vexillology or finding office among a political quorum.

It all seemed so wretched, this structured life. She would much have preferred an anarchist son or – at very least – the leader of a junta. Why live at all if you only swim with the current?

The phone.

She picked it up in silence, hearing bells in the distance. Had her time arrived?

“You mustn’t tease him that way.”

She had nothing to say.

“Don’t you see how perfect it would be? You already know his parents. And I could introduce you to the aunts and uncles well before the wedding. I’m sure even if you don’t like Aunt Sarah you’ll surely like Uncle Michael.” She chuckled to herself. “We’re quite the multifarious group, you see.”

“Arbitrage.” She had found a single word.

“What?” Apparently her lexicon did not stretch so far.

“You sold me.” She grumbled.

“Whatever that means.” The voice on the other line responded with a sigh. “Just stop being a slugabed and come over here. He paces the hall waiting for you.”

Silence.

“Hannah.”

A small voice crept out from her trembling lips. “Did you ever love me?”

A long sigh erupts from the phone. “You know I love you.” A pause. “Just like Mama loves you. Just like Papa loves you. Just like little Lil-”

A crescendo: “Did you - ever? just once? - think about me? HOW COULD I wear white and walk across an aisle,” she blinked away tears and wiped her nose with her sleeve as her voice faded away again. “To…to someone else?”

“Oh, my Hannah.” Three little words. The world was no longer broken and the clouds were-

A firm voice erupted from the phone, “Hannah. It was never like that between us. It’s sick to suggest such a thing. I don’t know where you’re getting thi-”

She set the phone down on the table, and turned back to the window. A tinny voice continued from the handset, becoming more forceful with every step she took. She reached the cold panes of glass and pressed her cheek against them, giving away the warmth her body had no right to possess. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a faint glimmer of silver moon shining through the dispersing clouds. The voice on the phone no longer mattered. She was worshipping her queen.

May 1999

At the beginning, she was nothing more than a name on a paycheck. I cannot reliably say how many times Miss Ana Valdis collected her enolument at my mahogany desk. For the longest time, my senses were not attuned to her soft whispers of acknowledgement and downcast eyes. In my nescience, I surrounded myself with gewgaws - women whose physical effulgence served, if only temporarily, to conceal the exiguity of their character. I attracted them with my luxurious lifestyle and we shared every pleasure possible for two travelers whose paths intersect. I never had desire nor need to change my path to fit theirs', finding pleasure in the company of many women seriatim.

Upon the dissolution of one such relationship, I sought out a bivouac with one from the same fiber, yet something hindered the alchemy of my anatomy, the thaumaturgy of her thighs.



...I regret to say that I have misplaced the completion of this post, scribbled on lined notebook paper. I do not know which bothers me more - the fact that all that time and effort was in vain or that someone at my workplace found it ... considering the direction it was headed. Hrm.

Brevity is not my forte.

Sometimes I amuse myself with surfing over to dictionary.com and choosing a month of "word of the day" entries. I take these words and arrange them into a bit of creative writing. A short story, a blurb about life in general, whatever feels right. Perhaps it's a bit too structured for creative writing ... but it exercises my brain and gets my words flowing. I may go back every so often to rewrite the piece with less obscure words ... after all, one only uses words like "quotidian" and "bivouac" if they're showing off. ...Or maybe I'll keep them as they are and adopt this style of writing in the Next Great American Novel. (It seemed worthy of capitalization.) Delusions of grandeur, anyone?