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contours provocations
journal - 2002-1115 - fri 2100 I don't feel like coming up with a cutesy-pooh title, just read the entry! Another one of those evenings in which the neurons in my brain are running around bumping into each other. Each day since last Saturday, I've faithfully taken my daily dose of Biaxin. With each set of pills, I hoped that the side effects would diminish. Instead, they have grown: a lingering metallic taste, nausea, irritability, difficulty sleeping and mild headaches. Last night, I really began to wonder what was worse: the sinus problem or the side effects of the drug. Around 2, when I was still awake, I decided a command decision to stop taking the pills might be a wise move. Around 5 this morning, the cats, as usual, woke me. Athena was rattling the slats of the wooden blinds. It's the only time she does this, so I know she wants me to get up. Grae was butting me with his head, as if to say, "Why aren't you up?" And the others were engaged in a feline rendition of "The Anvil Chorus." I'll finally get up, grumbling and whining, and head for the kitchen. They scamper ahead. But if I stop, they'll come back. "Oh, did you get lost?" Once in the tiny kitchen, I'll sit on the floor, and explain that if we eat now, it will be many hours before another meal will be served. But they're far too busy jocking to be the first in line to pay much attention. I divide two cans of food among five bowls. Most times, they'll carefully survey the offerings, take a tentative bite, meander back and forth, and finally decide to nibble away. If they're really hungry, they'll hop up on the counter and start chowing down the nanosecond the can is opened. Although the number of cats and the number of bowls is a one-to-one relationship, there is still an incredible amount of jostling. Believe it or not, I've actually seen one grab a bowl from under someone else's nose. A paw goes up, catches the rim of a bowl and wisks it away. Once everybody has had their morning kippers, it's back to bed. Me and the cats. All that energy spent on squabbling has made them sleepy. When I got up to go to work this morning, it was raining. Thick drops slid across the pavement and swirled into the drains. By the time I arrived at work, it had stopped. But shortly thereafter, the world turned a dark gray, and the rain exploded against my window. But then again, it cleared. This was the pattern much of the day. Monsoon followed by calm. At 5:30, when I walked out of the building, the sky was overcast, and I could feel the micro-drops but not see them. All around me was the eerie sound of leaves clattering in the wind. As though the wind was trying to tune each tree. Producing a rattling, cackling-like sound. Unnerving, spooky and strangely hypnotic. A couple of times this week, I have had a dream about being at college. I'm aware of who I am in the present, but I've time travelled backwards. A search is on for a serial killer who has struck the campus. In one image, I've slipped out a narrow back door of a house and almost fallen into a large ornamental pond. Beyond the pond, I can see a dirt gully covered in dark brown leaves. A man in a flapping red-checkered cape-like coat is hurrying away. I can only see him from about sixty degrees behind his right side. He has on thick, dark-rimmed glasses. And a foppish hat, something like what Quentin Crisp would have worn. And I know he's the killer. And his eyes dart in my direction, but he does not turn his head. I realize he knows that I know he's the one. But it doesn't seem to matter. I don't care. I don't care that's he the killer. I stop and freeze. He continues on, never looking back, and vanishes around a curve in the gully. And everything fades. I have no idea what all this means. The imagery is all super bright like the set of a Kubrick movie. But I don't remember anything even remotely like the location. Or the events. I would guess that I don't care because my junior year was one of the worst of my life. It was my first time to be away from home, and my first encounter with homophobia. It was not so much that I was queer, for I had no idea what that meant, as it was that I was perceived to be queer. Somehow by not caring, I was allowing the killer to act as a surrogate avenger. I just has a very strange Fight-Club-like realization. Maybe I recognized that I was the killer. Yikes! And double yikes! That would explain the odd sense I had of treking back in time but knowing who I was in the present. Jesus! That is motherfucking creepy!!! Well, I told you my neurons were acting weird. PAX!
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