Christmas, my friends. As a non-Christian in a house of non-Christians and as the youngest-now-former resident, somehow still less than thirty years old, Christmas was hardly even a token celebration. My mother did prepare stockings full of goodies and socks (understand, in Charlottesville I have only three pairs of socks). One such goody is a promise of a watch so I can spend less of my time getting to places too early. Christmas with the family did have its positive effects on my psyche. What, after all, would I have done in Charlottesville on Christmas except be depressed about my present miserable situation in relation to the better times of the even fairly recent past.
There are paths we may no longer walk. Where once were pleasant fields Full of flowers Are the walls and borders Of the settlers of the farmland Of the thieves of the place I once had.
Josh Furr again wanted me to come visit for the purpose of advancing music as it is now known. But he couldn't wait for my scheduled 2:30pm arrival and drove out to my place, bringing with him presents such as oranges and fudge. From Hoagie (my mother), my Dad had received a big folding hunting knife for Christmas, and she proudly showed it to him. Josh just assumed the knife was for dealing with human enemies, and he suggested a better defense would be pepper spray. It never crossed his mind that my Dad intends to use the knife to unearth tubers and root systems in the forest for the CAUSE OF SCIENCE. I rendezvoused with Josh at his place after first giving Hoagie a one-minute MS-DOS tutorial such that she can operate some primitive braille software. Again we drank the Beast and smoked harsh and seedy blue-collar man's pot. We watched another Pantera video and then played for awhile. My ability to sing and play guitar simultaneously steadlily improves, though I notice I have difficulty coming up with spontaneous lyrics when I have to pay attention to what I'm doing on the guitar. It seems I need to have a few lyrics rehearsed or I'm more or less hopeless. About the only lyrics I know are little snatches of "I Think This Once" and some of the poetry paragrams for my paintings. I returned to my house in time for the feast. It was now a little past 4pm. The food included such nice traditional things as green beans, dressing, cranberry sauce, corn muffins, baked potatos and dead chickens. After eating much of this, it was time for a nap. As I slept I experienced a strange series of dreams. In one such dream, I was with my parents on the edge of a sandy river. For some reason a number of teenage girls were there, and for some reason I decided to sit next to one of the girls even though I didn't know her at all. I fell asleep there in the sand and the next thing I knew was the girl was kissing me in the shy and sloppy style of a twelve year old. My mother apparently saw this and was upset. She kept distracting me from the girl with only partially veiled references to the impropriety of what I was doing. By this point for some reason the girl's breasts were clearly exposed, though I wasn't responsible for that. Later in the dream I returned to the sandy river's edge and found cash (lots of one dollar bills) and marijuana in little transparent plastic envelopes. But a homeless lady had appeared upon the scene and demanded her cut. So I gave her $3. She was pleading for more as I took my leave. I was awaken from my dreams by feast-induced thirst. Josh had been calling all evening with news that Timmy was at his house visiting and that Don and I should come over. Timmy is one of Josh's big heroes for some reason, though in truth he is a mildly retarded old-school bicycle geek and convicted child molestor. Normally Josh doesn't like Don to come over because he fears Don will let in all the bad guys he fears might turn up. But with Timmy there, Josh feels more secure. He feels Timmy would have enough sense not to let bad guys in. (I should note at this point that I have my doubts that Don could open Josh's outer doors even if he wanted to; they feature many redundant locks and latches and even crude bent-nail door catches.) In the evening I listened to a tape made on October 23rd by Josh and me. Amidst his mostly chaotic and unhelpful drumming my guitar is actually pretty good, and in combination with my singing it seems to work for some stretches. It's very experimental and disorganized. But you must understand, with the exception of some practiced guitar parts, it was completely spontaneous. Now I find myself rewinding through it to hear it again and again. Either I'm shamelessly narcisistic (probably true) or there's a little good stuff to be had in that thicket. |
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The Freedom of Island Life
I once put in a window
I once put in a window
Is this art or opportunity
Once I had me a window
One night she came through my window
Is this murder is this art
Well I'm a person my thoughts are human
So I walled up the window
Now you want a window
Is freedom extinction too?
If I gave you a window
I won't give you that window
Well I'm an animal my thoughts are criminal |