Dearest:

Sometimes, I think that
silences keep us warm, clothe
us in assumptions.


I'm okay with that.

--Doomed

Shoeless Shawty,

"Once you can drink legally, you won't want to do it anymore."

Well, that's not true. And if you were thinking of telling me that once I actually can hang out with professors in social contexts that I won't want to do that either, you're once again wrong. Even as a freshman, part of my drive to get through the undergraduate step and press on to graduate school was the hope that someday, the professors would accept me as one of their own and invite me to poker night, and to play pool at dive bars. The former hasn't happened, but the latter has. I don't think it's the kind of thing to make a habit of, but it certainly inspires warmth. As I bought everyone their second round of beers, I felt so warm: my veins were twinkling strands of Christmas lights.

Now, of course, it's different. It's an occasional and welcome treat, rather than a pressing need. I no longer spend hours on the internet, plumbing its depths for clues to the identities of rock-stars-turned-neuroscientists, or IM-harass professors who dine on entrees of infant. Nor, interestingly, do I watch reruns of my favorite television shows over, and over, and over, and over... You think there's a connection between those two dwindling interests?

I do. I think it's partially because I miss you, Shawty. I'm realizing that there is something to this whole human interaction thing...

We cycle, you and I. For months, it's all calls and emails and mutual creativity. And then for months more, most of my updates come courtesy of your cryptic status updates on the Great Allah of Social Networking. When I read them, I wonder: what could you possibly be referring to when you mention forks and prostitution? Surely it's something big. Surely, huge things are happening in your life. I'd like to know what they are, lover.

I envy your fores to India, to tropical isles, to bustling Canadian cities... You've said before that your impulse to travel to such places feels like you're running, but surely you've gained some unique insights into the state of the world through those endeavors, even if they were only incidental to your goal to get out of this place or that one... At this point, I think that if I ever experience such places, it'll only be incidental to my goal of following this person or that one out of this wicked little town.

See you soon.

I hope your holiday is full of twinkling lights and eggnog.

--Old Saint Nomad

My Hungry Ghost,

"Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us: it's our hour of triumph that brings the void." --W. James

That's objectively true, right? Isn't it times like the one you're describing that bring out the best in us? The times when you feel like you might stop breathing at any moment? The times when academia, friends, family, lovers, pull you apart in so many directions that it just doesn't feel like enough molecules comprise your body? The times when you feel like simultaneous implosion and explosion is imminent? Of course--it's only "the best" in retrospect. I think James probably knew that when he penned that particular quote. I don't think he was so naive as to think that "need and struggle" are actually enjoyable--but they are the times that we reflect on with pride and fondness in some strange, masochistic way.

trans⋅par⋅en⋅cy
–noun, plural -cies.

1. the quality or state of being transparent.
2. something transparent, esp. a picture, design, or the like on glass or some translucent substance, made visible by light shining through from behind.
3. Photography.
a. the proportion of the light that is passed through the emulsion on an area of a photographic image.
b. a photographic print on a clear base for viewing by transmitted light.

I feel like that sometimes--only sometimes, and with some people. Like a photographic print on a clear base, constructed specifically to be viewed by transmitted light. Like I have to be held at the correct angle with respect to the sun in order to be seen correctly and fully. Like not many people know what angle that is. Like I'm glad that they don't. Like I think maybe you do, and I can think of maybe two others (maybe. barely.). Like I think I'm glad that it's only a few that can see through these awkward mannerisms, and inappropriate facial expressions and beyond to what's creating them.

I think I have a new (or at least new to me) metaphor for you, and I think it's a little more accurate, a little more precise than the others: LOVE IS DESTRUCTION, which can translate to LOVE IS FALLING, LOVE IS INFECTION, LOVE IS INSANITY. I especially like thinking in terms of infection... Love/infatuation as an illness that needs to be cured. Like you have some infection that's making you incredibly feverish and irrational, and you just want to shake it so that you can start to see life and people through a clearer lens? Through the lens you used to use? Objectivity is such a need for me. To have my objective skills bound like this is intolerable. My pro/con lists feel useless. Everything feels like it's happening outside of me and my experience. This thing, this infection, has taken a life of its own, and I'm not sure what it's doing, where it's heading, what organs it's shut down, which tissues it's planning to invade next. I'm not sure how close I am to death.

(Have I taken the metaphor too far yet?)

It's not just "social" infatuation that does this either, I'm including "parasocial" infatuation as a possible catalyst too. It too can blind you, distort your priorities, change your self-concept in ways that are disproportionate. House made me forget that sociality is important to people for a reason. Rube (Dead Like Me) made me forget that I'm alive. Paul (In Treatment) made me forget that I rejected Freud long ago, and that I don't blame my parents for every neurosis that plagues me. Each infatuation infected me severely (I think that you, unlike some others, will not judge me for talking about television in these terms--I think you understand), and I'll never be the same because of them.

I miss you, lover. I'd like to talk soon. I'd like to take turns holding each other up to the light.

--M. Curie.

My perfect complimentary self,
Life often seems to sneak up on me when I feel I’m most prepared to divide and conquer its ranks of deadlines and demands. Before I know it, I’m up to my eyeballs in a stagnating stew of uncertainty and doubt. The days seem to be getting shorter & shorter all the while and there just aren’t enough hours in the day anymore.
Then there are the occasional breaks of deep contemplative insight or the like. I catch a glimpse of what I’m grasping for in the darkness. I remember how beautiful it can be when the goal is in sight. The unadulterated bliss of motivation fuels my will to endure; implicit motivation, of course. I’m struggling to find that. I’m just reaching a point in the semester when there appears to be a fine focusing of relevance/revelation. Graduation is now a more attainable goal. I put a lot on my plate and tend to juggle so many little things; I lose sight of the longer-term goals.

Also, lately I’m realizing that I have such an abundance of love letters to ex’s. Or, more specifically “dear john” letters. The kind you write to get it all out in hopes that you’ll feel better after; In hopes that you’ll feel some kind of solid closure. Except, in most cases, the “other man” I’d found was myself. Most of them never leave my computer after their initial drafts. I wouldn’t really consider many of them “done” or ready for sending. I typically only write enough to feel I’ve purged the unrequited feelings adequately.

To merge those two unrelated ideas with another seemingly random segue way, nothing is so encouraging or motivating as a letter from you, my love. They are, in many ways the opposite of these letters I seem to collect. I feel understood and acknowledged. You’ve got a knack for soothing my fears and reassuring (or at least entertaining) my hopes. I only hope I can do the same for you.

Infatuation is quite a funny beast.

I have a couple of Steven Pinker books I keep meaning to mine.
I remember hearing once a couple of years ago (and perhaps I’ve told you this already) that we developed our humanness from the particular proteins of cooked meat. The details and source of this theory have become increasingly fuzzy over the years; So much so that I’m not sure if I dreamed it up in a National Geographic special. The basic idea though, is that fire changed the composition of meat in a way that (over some time) changed the way our brain was structured and functioned. It has stuck with me for quite a while and I’m content that there’s at least some connection there. We are, after all, the only animals that cook our meat; or decide to become vegetarians, decide to eat only kosher, decide not to eat at all from sunrise to sunset or decide that a cow is too holy to even consider eating. We are the only creatures that really seem to decide anything, because we do what we want. This includes thinking abstractly/in metaphors, just generally being anomalies and becoming infatuated.

I wonder what Pinker would have to say about the origin of our gods. That would certainly seem to be the biggest metaphor of all. A mirror of ourselves, reflecting back all of our imperfections and inadequacies. Our ultimate collective critic.

More specifically than just being easily infatuated, I’m more concerned with my collection (again with the collecting) of parasocial relationships. Although, I guess most of them wouldn’t actually be parasocial; I mean, most of them know about me. I have quite a few “friends” on a certain networking site. There are many who I’ve never met in person, but many more who I only know in passing, having met only once or twice. It isn’t the actual person I’m having a relationship with, however, but the person who is presented in the “about me” and “interests” and “movies” and so on. In this way, we get along quite nicely in the memories I make up for us in my head. They are the most perfect friends because my assumptions of them are always correct & they always live up to my expectations. I promise it really isn’t as bad/pathetic as it sounds. All this happens without me putting too much thought into it. I haven’t had any imaginary (or real) tea parties with these hypothetical friends. Yet.

I really rather like this idea that Pinker presents, though. How could we live in a world composed of anything less than metaphors? When I really think about it, I can see the association with love and falling. Metaphorically, of course. If you think about literally falling, you are usually quite vulnerable after a fall. You’re on the ground, possibly hurt or disoriented, cursing whatever it was that made you fall. In that sense, you are not so much yourself. Your “self” being the enduring qualities you think of as uniquely “yours.” You are operating on more adrenaline and more raw human chemicals. So, I guess in that sense, you’re a lot more human even though not so much the unique human you’ve been conditioned to recognize. I’ve always liked the analogy of love with being on a merry go round (the kind you spin around on in parks) for the same reasons. It makes you dizzy/disoriented, you can fall off and hurt yourself, but it feels really good if you do it right or at least while it lasts. In this case, falling WOULD be the heartbreak.

--Vertigo

My Strange Bedfellow,

We're warned that watched pots never boil, and yet people still sit around watching grass grow. If this continues, we'll soon be living in a brown, dry world. All the same--I understand. Presumably, the hungry man wants nothing more than to see that first pocket of steam break the otherwise serene surface, while Walt Whitman has nothing better to do than watch things that will necessarily elude his perception. It's apples and oranges.

Funny, lover, when infatuation creeps up at the most unlikely of times, and from the most unlikely people. And by the latter, I don't mean the people that you never think about, but rather the people that you have often pondered as the opposite of infatuable. (That's my word. I just made it up. Do you like it? I hope Merriam and Webster do.)

I've been slowly making my way through a Steven Pinker book over the last couple of months. He suggests that human intelligence has cropped up because of our ability to think in metaphors. According to him (or whomever he was citing), the first emergence of metaphorical/abstract thinking was probably for problem-solving (e.g., I can use sticks for retrieving tasty bugs which are out of my reach in very small ground holes; fruit is also out of my reach; I'll bet I could retrieve it by hitting it with a stick). But then it exploded, and we started conceptualizing the entire world in terms of metaphor. At this point, nearly all of our thought is metaphorical, even when we don't realize it: "speeding through the day" and "time crawling by" refer to LIFE IS A JOURNEY; "impenetrable logic" and "barrage of questions" refer to ARGUMENT IS WAR.

(By the way--did you notice the metaphor in the second paragraph? INFATUATION IS A PREDATOR.)

But one metaphor that I've been trying to figure out is "LOVE [or infatuation] IS FALLING." E.g., "I fell for you so hard [or fast]." If we're to humor the idea that LIFE IS A JOURNEY, why is the image for infatuation falling? Is it like falling? It isn't, right? It's more like deviating. Life is a journey, and hopefully you can see at least a few paces in front of you. Infatuation is like leaving that beaten path and striking out into thicket so dense that you can barely see your hand in front of your face. Is that, perhaps, when falling becomes imminent?

But in that case, isn't it the heartbreak that is falling?

Everything in metaphor, lover. Everything in metaphors and etymologies.

I like you like a fish likes water; I need you like a wave needs sand; I miss you like Keanu misses Patrick.

--Icarus

My Partner in Nudity,

It's good to hear this note of optimism from you. I think living alone will do that to you, no? Something about not taking social interaction (even the superficial and sometimes unpleasant kind that you can get from roommates) for granted. It motivates you to pursue. (Pursue what? I don't know.)

And I like your Freudian analysis of your need to collect possessions. I think I do the opposite, but for the same reasons as you. My mother hoarded when I was growing up. We were surrounded by too much. It was often suffocating. I think that's part of the reason that even at four or five, I was trying to move out of the house and live a simpler existence (my first attempt at this was trying to build a house for myself in the backyard, made of old timbers and mud--epic fail). So now, I periodically do the cleansing that I never felt able to do as a child. I sell, I donate, I release. I minimize.

Another school year is starting for us both. I miss college--I miss being thrilled about the start of a new round of classes and people and experiences. Today is the first official day of our semester, and were I still College Lindsey, I would have been up three hours ago, showered, and ready to head to campus and meet the day. As it is, I'm making my way through too many cups of coffee and far too many cigarettes, and putting off my morning grooming rituals in some futile attempt to postpone the world from moving forward. I will fail at this attempt (you know, because it's futile). In fact, I already have. Not even eight hours into Day One, and I'm already behind on two writing projects. Soon, my students will be contacting me, needing me to answer questions that I won't be equipped to answer. And now that I'm a fourth year student, the incoming graduate class will turn to me for advice. They will expect me to have great insights for them (I know they will, because that's how I felt about the fourth years when I arrived). How do I tell them I have none? More to the point--why don't I have special insights? Shouldn't I? After being here this long?

On Friday, I went to a social event for all the faculty and students in my area. It was at my professor's house. And suddenly, I was right back where I was nearly four years ago: a visiting undergraduate, overwhelmed by the seemingly simple tasks of graciously receiving food, of being socially appropriate, of fulfilling the role of "guest." Not that my hosts weren't kind and gracious--they were. But five minutes into the ordeal, I found myself wanting to make like Kafka and turn into a bug (a small one, though), and perch in some corner, and watch but not be watched. I couldn't, though, so instead I held my friends' baby. I've never wanted children, lover, but that moment...made everything else not matter. Can we have lots of babies together? I'll bet, lover, that your lover would approve.

I can't postpone the day any longer. But before I go: it's nice to have this haven with you in the vast, confusing land of the Interwebz.

--Miss Sir Galahad

My secret sun-soaked salamander,
I just found this letter on a thumb drive amidst notes on the American culture war. Not really related, but somehow seemingly fitting. I thought it was rather appropriate considering my newly gained freedom. Which, I should add, has been pretty blissfully bitchin. Unbeknownst to noone, I have accumulated entirely too much stuff, but the more I put away and organize, the more the walls seem to close in around me. Would it seem bigger if there were less stuff? My guess is no, just less lived-in; less like a cozy home with a heart and soul.
I'd like to explore why I have so much crap and insist on clinging to certain things that have no obvious value or practical use. I'm sure it stems from my childhood experience of living like a nomad and possessing little more than I could carry in both arms.

Written around early March:
"My spicy burrito baby,
I confess: I’m slipping into old habits and my lax response time is simply unacceptable. I admit my delay is not unrelated to my recent romantic developments. It consumes my thoughts more than those substances which previously controlled my mind.
Last night, I had a late dinner of spicy Jambalaya and was actually more excited than worried of what horrible doomed nightmares would come. Instead, I had a strange jumbled dream of a sort of informal gathering. The setting was combinations of rooms & spaces around picayune & the characters were mostly old friends & acquaintances from highschool. I remember climbing in and out of a window onto the top of a bunkbed that sometimes doubled as a tree-fort.
My ex was there sort of distractedly, the way ex’s seem to sometimes float around parties. We successfully avoided conversation for a while without seeming like we were trying to, until later on, when he came and sat next to me on the top bunk. I don’t remember exactly what was said, but I think the consensus was that we were both happy & agreed it was silly that we could just decide like that and make happiness for one another after all the confusion, anger, loathing and sadness. Then again, this all happened in my head… soo… who knows. I did wake up with more calm & reassured, thinking about him, than I have in a while. It was a feeling comparable to closure & I only hope that whatever he dreams he had last night left the same impression.
In the same mindfulness of closure, I decided to draft a letter to another ex to brave the waters that have long since been calmed with the passage of time. In doing so, I realized how difficult it was to just get the trapped thoughts out without feeling like there were some expectations attached. The truth is, I don’t want anything but to get it out there.
Upon waking to the harsh reality of lazy and perpetually drugged roommates, I found a mountain of disgusting dishes and the fact that the liquid clothes detergent had fallen into open container of cat food put me over the edge. I went to rinse out the food container in the inaccessible sink; I instead brought the broad plastic bottom down hard into the sink, breaking a plate & a few wine glasses. In my most recent visit to my therapist, a familiar update sheet asked me how well I’d been getting along in all the important areas of life: academic, social, familial, etc. I mentioned a strong urge to harm someone else in regard to those horrible people I live with. All of my free thoughts are consumed with how blissful living alone will be and how much happier my life will be when this is reality. Being realistic, all of the worst troubles I face currently center on an unsatisfactory home life. I like the house okay & the location is wonderful, the trouble is just sharing it with two really repulsive people I barely perceive as being human. I’m conflicted because I know they mean well & really want nothing more than for my absolute happiness. I know they don’t realize what makes them so irresponsible in my eyes; the way children can’t understand why their actions are sometimes socially unacceptable. Comparing them to children only goes so far, because the fact is they are adults. Adults with poorly developed superegos, but fully grown adults, nonetheless.
I know my anger is misplaced & it’s not fair to get so angry about things they do if they don’t know there’s a problem. It doesn’t change anything and it certainly doesn’t help me cope better, but damn it felt good. Almost immediately I felt some relief for all that had built up. The more I am out of the house, the worse it gets when I get home."

Since then, my thoughts are consumed less with my intimate engagement, while my beloved and our relationship is more important than ever. Since I am no longer so burdened with room mates, I don't look past myself for an escape.
My recent birthday brought me full circle, back to the people and places that I knew and occupied in my past life. I saw a lot of the people from the dream, still doing their old thing and being rather content with the degree of change in their life. At first, I felt so removed from this old scenario that I started to realize how much I was completely changed by my experiences. We opened the window to the past, but I was unable to fit through it, nor was I sure I'd want to. Not only was I so far from this past in which I really didn't like who I was, but through the window, it looked mostly unchanged. After a while of settling in and remembering what it was really like without thinking or doing anything, my two selves merged and it felt like one of those unrealistic "if I only knew then what I know now" scenarios.Not surprisingly, my ex was not there. Even less surprisingly, I never sent that letter I drafter to the earlier ex. About a week after I started it, I found we were no longer "friends" on a particular networking site. I doubt I will ever send it for fear that it will illicit laughter and disgust.
Ironically, a few weeks ago, I saw the ex who was at the dream party outside of the coffee shop. He casually said "Hey," which I answered with an "..." Later, I got a text from him suggesting we 'do coffee sometime,' which is obviously a euphemism since neither of us drink coffee, really. Nice thought, but the last text he ever sent was literally "you're dead to me." While less deeply offended and hurt than just plain amused, it made an impression and stuck. A friend and I agreed, no response would be the best response as anything else would open up the lines/wounds.
I thought of the letter I began drafting to the other ex. What if my reaction was similar to what his would be? Would that be so awful? Would no response to an attempt be better than not making the attempt..?? Is getting it out there and rejected better than keeping it in with an implied rejection??
Does anyone know or care to know the answers to these questions?
The entrails of my mind are tangled around the affections I feel for the world.
My heart is on fire with it's death and desire. Who knew that wicked bitch mother nature could be so forgiving?

Confidently growing in the direction of the sun,
Anacoe Narcissus