gut response, cloud nine dialogue

:Mommy, wont you save the dance?

:I'll dance with you dear when your daddy isn't home.

:Why doesnt Daddy, Daddy like to dance?

:Because its silly and special, I'll cut strawberries for it.

:Yes, lets leave him out.

:Heres your sugar, Sugar.

theory

I want to prove that "to understand" is the same as "to love." With my whole life I am afraid I will never be able to create or build something wonderful; I will only be able to understand and acknowledge wonderful things. And if this understanding is the same thing as love, if theory really means "passionate sympathetic contemplation," as some Greek once connotated, than perhaps I can strive and reach success through this avenue. Otherwise I am doomed to forever behold brilliance but never reflect it.

shifting topography, disconcerting

I got online this morning before classes to check the weather. I have a riding lesson this afternoon, and just as I suspected: thunderstorms continuing at a 70% chance through the night. I left that weather channel window (channel, window) to open and print some reading. When I clicked the bar at the bottom where this weather channel window was saved, a new window appeared in its place. IF YOU HAVE NEVER HAD A DUI YOU ARE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR AUTO INSURANCE. The weather channel window was subsumed.

book learnin

When I was small and read the books,

I found adventures and hiding nooks

Golden fish, paths to the sea

Swaddles of pillows bishops and kings

I heard a Good Voice that makes the constant word

but now I'm old, troubled, absurd.

The books have changed and ganged up on me

I fell in line from threats of monsters and witches,

now I fall from

They're not the same and neither am I--

I see them around corners armed with swords and knives

When I see them its bad, when I dont its worse

I once played at Knowlege's feet;

now I'm afraid to look him in the eye.

peter pan

I should be working on my homework. I really should. But instead I am watching Peter Pan on vhs-- "he can fly, he can fly, he flew!"

Interesting observations:

Mr. Darling, the patriarch of the family, becomes annoyed when his sons listen to Wendy's stories. He banishes her out of the nursery the same night he sends Nana, the nursedog, out of the nursery and into the garden. Nana's eliciting sympathy from the mother and children of the family cause Mr. Darling's jealousy. His worry over his sons "practical"-ness at the hands of Wendy's fancies combined with jealousy of the nurse cause Mr. Darling to enforce a certain "geography of containment" over his home. And in this way, one may have insights into sexism from a cartoon stereotype.

Words and reality take on a special meaning in Peter Pan. It is not clear from the beginning of the movie who came first-- the stories about Peter Pan , or Pan himself. There is a seamless transition to stories about Peter Pan to his sudden appearance. This pattern happens again when the children think of happy thoughts in order to fly: "a mermaid lagoon," says Wendy "Indians," "a pirate ship," say John and Michael. And as the Darlings arrive at Neverland, each of these places and people come to exist. Do their words create, or merely catalogue, reality?

Hmm is it something about the costume? -- Both Peter Pan and Robin Hood dawn similar garb to all ladies' devastation. What is it about green tights with a matching smock? Maybe its the little triangle hat with the red feather... or the similar devil-may-care, jolly attitudes of the two characters. What ever it is, oooh dah-lally!

a praise poem

Oh hallowed youth whom to you
summer days lend out
timeshares of warmth, a smiling sun
On your beauty and fun
and only playful pouts
grace your mouths
on the lake, on your decks
grilling out, eating in
You make every day bright
Every evening memorable

And when the school year begins
You waste no time to switch,
pick up your books, adopt a wise look
and the halls of college sing of your return
Computers whiz and blink with light
to give you screens filled with scholarly delight
The books, they know you need them less,
they attend in solomne reverence and readiness
And there is no reticence to bring you
whatever it is you need-- perhaps a coffee
flavored sweet to suit your similar taste

Ah, your footsteps bring Rainbows
where ever you pass
Sperry's sing from the trees
lining the student walk way
Nike's form lacks and so yearns

for your smiles that adorn

yet are never put up for display.

Every gym short,

a new bright color
Every t-shirt,
you casually acquire

So no matter the strife, the replaced carpet
the soririty clash, the DUI, the debt, the
beer, the rumor, the conquest, the credit card,
the debit card, the gift card,

the big game--

And no matter the unfair exam,
the workload, the stress, you will be you,

this stuff of class is put there to stay

it is not for life or your course of a day

when you hear of problems outside your world--

Christ, what are other people for?

We all deserve what we have.

Remember: Don't sweat the small stuff.
Live laugh learn. Life is good.

Above all,
We are just glad to see that you have tanned well.

strangers

I am at the fair walking around. Cecilia and I look rather stoic and aloof in our sunglasses and I like that image. This woman grabs her daughter's hand and says, "you better take my hand, there are strangers everywhere."

Which, when you think about it, is a funny thing to say. What else would they be? Did the mother come to the carnival thinking that three hundred of her closest friends and relatives would be riding the spaceship or stumbling through the mardi gras fun house?

"Honey, do you want to run out to the grocery store with me?"

"No I better not, there could be strangers there."

And the word "strangers." It must feel alarming to look at a crowd of people and just see the word stranger flashing over and over. I guess there are only two kinds of people in the world afterall: strangers and non-strangers.

It makes me think though-- to most people, I am a stranger. And if its numbers that count, my overwhelming identity would be that of stranger. Its not too hard to be a stranger; most people are really good at it with out exuding effort or becoming self-concious in their attempts. Sure there are anamolies, like occasional friendships and kin, but overwhelmingly, we stay strangers.

Whats the in-between of a stranger and a friend? Often, friends make good strangers. We are all in a state of flux becoming more or less like strangers as we move around or dont move around. Yesterday there was a man in front of me in line dressed like a woman. She had breasts and teased hair, but big sad boy eyes, even with the eyeliner. She turned around to face me and said, "Sometimes you get what you're looking for, sometimes you dont," which sounds about right. I think it was a prophesy.

She was buying a book, a book that was one of the first books my mother read a loud to me. Little House in the Big Woods. Which seems significant: we are little dots in a big place, shifting on a gray scale of strangeness.

a short meditation on playwriting

Sometimes if I am very very lucky, when I first turn on my airconditioning, the initial burst of stale air causes my car to smell like a Disney World ride. And that is a great great day.

As I am working on this playwriting project, I think I have encountered a valuable lesson. The characters must not fully have a handle on their world or their problems. That sounds like a given, but it is a really crucial thing to perfect. The characters cant fully comprehend the nature of their conflict. Which should be in the playwright's ability: to be so honest about their issues that they push (both themselves and the play) to the ends of thier know-how problem solving. Sort of like John Donne poetry, or my favorite movie, Broadcast News... both these things, the movie and the poetry, have unbearable conflict in common. John Donne's narrator as well as Holly Hunter's character absolutely are up to their neck in angst, one siding up in the protestant/ catholic rift, the other choosing between love and values. And they dont let themselves off the hook of the struggle, consequently the audience/reader have no clue how its all going to end up just as the character does not know.

Thats how you play it, thats how you write it, thats how you read it, watch it. Narratives... education... they just serve a purpose and take you down a road that exposes you to everything you dont know and dont understand.