the glass
Why is the glass either half full or half empty? Why do we have to choose which? Why can’t it be either full, making us deleriously happy, or empty letting us know where we stand
Quitting smoking VI
State Street has hit a new low with this quitting smoking boring ass shit. However, the nicotine cravings come in short bursts lasting several minutes. The cravings block all thought except the desire for cigarettes. Of course, nicotine is one of the most addictive substances ever known. Nicotine controls the mind. Nicotine makes slaves of people. I should never have become a slave to nicotine in the first place.
I hate cigarettes. Fuck you, cigarettes. Leave me the fuck alone, cigarettes. I never want to see you again, fucking cigarettes. That gives you an idea of the mood I am in right now.
I have no idea why the cravings won’t leave me alone for just a little bit today. I just totally fucking hate the way I feel right now. Quitting smoking really hurts. I ain’t kidding either. Yes, this is another day when State Street is even more boring than usual, but dammit we are quitting smoking.
What tastes good?
Coffee, cigarettes, a chess set, and an annotated book of chess games: I am tempted to sit for hours this morning studying a couple of games. Then there are the Blitz games played against the chess program turned to maximum rating. The computer kicks my ass each time I play it. Does my chess brain grow muscles from the exercise or merely callouses?
My mind snaps a picture of me, somewhat lost and a little blue, sitting over a chess set. My chess is a symptom of undiagnosed and untreated maladies. Let’s lump the maladies together and call them melancholy, a melancholy that seems part of an hopeless romanticism.
I am not alone in starting the day like this. Chess players all over the world start their day sitting at their computers either at work or at home and contemplate the next move, or play a game or two of Blitz so they can get their chess fixes in. We share the excitement of making the first move of the day. Games will be one or lost, yet we are uncertain as to which ones.
The day is supposed to be warm again. I wonder who might be at the North Avenue chess pavilion along the lake today. I could take my set there. I could possibly play games all day, losing myself in them, not caring whether I win or lose.
As soon as I think about it, the desire fades because it contradicts something just below consciousness I cannot as yet discern. I have a feeling this will be a day dedicated to words. Whether they will be part of genuine work or more idle play I cannot tell.
The day wears on. The coffee and cigarettes taste good to me.
Conceit
Many narrators speak in Pamuk’s My Name Is Red. One of them is a picture of a horse. (Actually, more than one picture of a horse helps narrate the story, but the horse of whom I speak appears in Chapter 35, I Am a Horse.) Pamuk, a master, has this horse meditate on the Western art of perspective and realism versus the Eastern art of representing the ideal object. This gives rise to speculations on the will of Allah when it comes to art. What kind of art depicts Allah’s creation best? What sort of art tells us most about horses or anything else for that matter? Do artists glorify Allah’s creation or blaspheme it?
I read Pamuk and realize my desire to write is nothing except an egotistical pretentious conceit. That is not the scary part though. What other egotistical pretentious conceits of mine lie hidden from me and afflict me? We are who we think we ain’t. The search for the self must continue despite that. Perspective and reality sometimes brutalize us, yet we disregard them at peril.
I could sit here and write down my many conceits, but I expect everybody already sees those conceits better than I ever could. After all, we are mirrors reflecting each other’s souls.
Lies do not in themselves hurt. However, telling a lie restricts the options another person has available to them. Caring for someone comes with a certain amount of credulity and gullibility–the aftermath of trust.
I have a cramp in my leg from sitting too long in this chair today. I would like to have picture taken of my face right now. Would anybody know from looking at the picture that I have a cramp in my leg? Believing that someone would say, yes, that is a man with a cramp in his leg, seems an absurd assertion.
The truth of the matter remains; I am a man with a cramp in his leg who thinks about a picture of a horse meditating on and speaking about art, reality, and god.
The Beach Boys sing Wouldn’t It Be Nice on the radio. I need to hold V and kiss her right now.
Habit
I was going to read a few novels before continuing with Proust, but I quickly established a Proust habit once I started reading him again. The habit formed as quickly as my habit for V. One day I was riding in V’s van to Galena. After our return, I knew at least semiconsciously I needed to be with her as much as I could. Just as my reading desire requires Proust, my choice of company requires V to the exclusion of almost everyone else. I would have her every minute of each day for the rest of my life if I could.
Window
I read V this Carver poem while we were lying in bed the other evening.
The Window
A storm blew in last night and knocked out
the electricity. When I looked
through the window, the trees were translucent.
Bent and covered with rime. A vast calm
lay over the countryside.
I knew better. But at the moment
I felt I’d never in my life made any
false promises, nor committed
so much as one indecent act. My thoughts
were virtuous. Later on that morning,
of course, electricity was restored.
The sun moved from behind the clouds,
melting the hoarfrost.
And things stood as they had before.
We cause each other pain we eventually regret. We repair each other’s hearts as best we can. Our regrets seldom fall away unless a simple event takes them from us. That might be a melancholy thought, but it leaves me in awe of the universe. A spirit lies over me and inside me I cannot name. I can live with that.
A note on conundrums
Back home after spending a very special and somewhat crazy night with V, I feel attractive. Why not? If she wants me, I must have some redeeming value.
I smoke and meditate on our agreement. It comes in part A and part B.
Part A: We’ll love each other and have fun no matter the difference in our ages and what people think.
Part B: We’ll see other people if we want and neither one of us will make demands or ask questions. I cannot make demands or be jealous because my romance is doomed from the start. She should be meeting a proper man her age. The right man won’t be exactly like me, but he’ll be as good in a different way. Any man who meets her and is not immediately smitten by her is too stupid to have her in the first place. Last fall B. told me there were plenty of women dying to meet a man like me, and I should not get my heart broken. She’s right. I have met some dying to see more of me. On nights when V decides to spend her time with someone else, I will inevitably seek consolation and comfort. It’s not fair to the woman I’ll be with because I will be thinking of V instead. However, the area between consolation and desire is gray and murky anyway. We all tend to use each other for consolation sometimes.
I have noticed I almost fit into my clothes again. I have not been dieting or exercising. I suspect some unconscious process triggered by love has caused it. I wonder what other unconscious processes are at work I have not discovered.
At any rate, the journey with V has just begun. If it is anything like the past month, I am in for the time of my life. I’ll love her madly and everything else be damned.
Unresolved conjectures
I was writing this morning when the urge to pick up a mathematics text came over me. I almost did it. Maybe, I will before the day is over.
I have never correctly identified my continuing fascination with mathematics. I certainly don’t use it for anything. The challenge of learning some new math isn’t always pleasant. Understanding a new math theorem can take a long time, and even then I wonder if I understand it.
The only reason for the fascination must arise from the beauty and mystery of math–the two joined together. Some people see math as ugly and something to be learned and discarded once out of school. Some lucky people have an aesthetic sense for the subject. They internalize math and make it their own.
V combines beauty and mystery for me. I feel as if I can see beauty in her that no one else can. I want to possess her that way–inside me, where nobody else can see, my most private and significant place. Don’t get me wrong. The pleasure I have when I am with her astounds me. But if that is all it was, I doubt I would feel the way I do about her. I could study her mysteriousness forever and not discover the end of it; it’s infinite. I like gazing upon people and things who have this mysterious quality to them. Conjectures I can never resolve tempt me most. I desire the impossible. The desire magically fulfills me anyway.
In a world where everything has an end, knowing the infinite seems out of place and improbable. V is like that for me too. She is a reality I never would have imagined or discovered if I had not stumbled on it by blind chance. I have never gone looking for love. Love happens to me. I’ve been lucky too. I have had a lot of chances with good women, yet screwed it up. I have never been in love with a woman who was not worth it and who I was not worthy.
I like the secret things that transpire between two people–the code words, the gaze, the kiss, and the caress. As hard as one might objectively study what goes on between two people, we never get to the bottom of it when viewing it from nowhere. Desire and possession own their privacy at times.
I’ll go to my grave not knowing much about what I have always cared about most. I will die happy. I have traveled on journeys that pleased me and filled me to the brim. If my time with V ends tomorrow, the short time I spent with her would still be my best journey.
Up early
In bed by midnight; up by four AM. The silence of the city soothes if one cares to listen. The voice of a friend echoes from last night: don’t get hurt. I won’t, I say. I almost believe it, for I have friends who take care of me even if someone slam dunks me in front of god and everyone.
You cannot protect yourself at all times if you want something special, she says. She’s correct too. Even a chess game is a gamble if we care to admit it.
I cannot believe my day has started already. I would give a lot for another hour of sleep. Fuck it. I’m playing the black pieces, but I’m Lynn.
Endgame blues
I just resigned a chess game. I now own my sixth loss. I could have played on for a long time, but my endgame was hopeless. I wish I was better at resigning other hopeless endgames in my life. I never acquired the habit. My stubborn persistence always gets in the way. Not that persistence itself is bad. You have to know how to use it. My persistence is like a battering ram–no subtlety whatsoever.
On the other hand, I’ve already won a tournament game today that I badly needed. The player was lower ranked than me, so the win does compensate for a loss to a better player. My prospects are fair to good in my other games too if I can avoid hopeless endgames. One thing I know for sure; I will persist.
Suck
I spent the most perfect unexpected weekend with V. As close to perfect as you can get for me. Then I fucked it up by playing some stupid game where I was a pawn to be sacrificed and swept off the board. Alone, late at night, I think, protect yourself, Lynn. For once in your life, protect yourself. Respect yourself. Then I remember. I suck at doing that.
Terms of Endearment
I remember her sipping her martini last night at the benefit fund raiser. It was difficult to take my eyes off her. When she walks in the room, things go crazy inside me.
As for me, I’m back to looking like a refugee: long hair falling over my shoulders, ratty walking shoes, blue jeans, an old sweater with her scent on it, a notebook, pen, and book in my bag.
I hear an echo: dammit, Lynn, I hate you. I love hearing terms of endearment.
Lunar eclipse
We stood outside last night watching the lunar eclipse. I was the moon fading beneath her shadow.
Authentic
Several years ago I wrote the first draft of a novel the heart of which was about an older man falling in love with a younger woman as told mainly from the man’s point of view. Hemingway said all first drafts are shit. My manuscript is worse than that. However, I wrote it in thirty days while feeling white hot.
What the thing lacked most was a genuine and authentic voice that could tell the feeling of what happens. At the beginning of the year, I thought I would never attempt writing another novel. Now, I feel there is another novel in me. I hope I have the guts and voice to get it right this time.
I want it badly.
Garden of Eden
As I recall, and I’m not bothering to look it up, the fruit of two trees were forbidden to Adam and Eve. They ate the fruit from the tree of good and evil. God punished them for it. He said something like, I must banish them from the garden, for next they will eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge and become like gods.
When I am with V, I feel as though I am eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge. The knowledge defies logical and philosophical explanation. It’s like trying to describe a mystical religious experience–very hard to do.
All the same, when I’m with V, I get a sense of what the gods must know–wonders that lie beyond the boundaries of the world.
What she’s done to me
I could have done a nice hit and run last night, but passed up the chance. Damn, every nerve in my body is screaming for V today. Time crawls.
Secrets
Just before I fell for V, I concocted this plan. I would travel the world and play chess in cafes and bars. I’d pick up beautiful women at the end of the day and make love to them far into the night.
I cannot do it now, for I must have every precious moment I can with V. After she leaves me though, I will make that trip. I will need a strong balm for my heart.
I’ll send postcards to V during my travels. I’ll write subtle words that let her know that I still love her and care for her. Her picture will sit beside the postcards when I write them.
When I return, I will write a novel about my trip. The novel will contain secrets only V and I know. On days when her heart is heavy, she’ll open that novel and read for a spell. Her heart will grow lighter.
Main street stores
A mysterious stranger comes to town, but what town is it? A real main street runs through it cutting the town in two. An operating railroad station sits beside railroad tracks stretching across a plain. The town must be small I suspect and not of this time. Boarding a train meant more than it does these days.
What stores line main street? My head spins. The store decision paralyzes me. The story may depend on what happens in one of those stores. I should get it right from the beginning.
Blank pages stretch before me like train tracks running across the plain to the horizon.
Somebody else’s novel
I’ve been thinking about a novel for a long time. There’s a mother and her daughter in it. A mysterious stranger comes to town. They both fall in love with him. What I don’t know is their fates. Of course, their fates are my fate since they are products of my words. I won’t fool myself about that. Still, I like to think of them existing in some world not my own. There’s just no way to write their fate if I don’t think that way.
They’ll do normal things: fix a flat tire, eat fresh picked strawberries at the end of summer, exchange gifts at Christmas, pour coffee into cheap cups bought at the local Wal*Mart, and sit in a car and watch a movie at the drive-in. And of course, they’ll make passionate love the like they never experienced in their lives. Their hearts will soar like eagles and shatter to pieces. The strangeness of that contradictory phenomena always delights.
At the end, no matter what their joys and griefs, their lives will go on. That’s unavoidable.
In the dark
Past midnight. Sitting in the dark, at home, alone. I see those eyes staring at me. Right next to me, staring at me. Accuse me of anything you want, but never accuse me of not loving her.
If on a winter’s night
The books are strewn everywhere. They own the place now. Ghosts glide about the rooms, even my own ghost.
One book rests in my hands–If on a winter’s night a traveler by Calvino. I open it to the first page.
You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought.
What a perfectly charming way to begin a novel–the kind of thing I would never think of or if I did, never have the guts to write.
She loaned this book to me. Now, do you see why I love her?
On postcards
She says don’t feel obligated to write about me. I say, don’t worry, I’m just trying to capture the feeling of what happens and put it in a postcard or letter as best I can. She’s the entire of my life right now. What else would be on the postcard?
Cold hard February rain
I walked home in a cold hard February rain. She’ll never understand how that felt and how much I love her. She’ll never understand how I see the future and how it will hutrt me when it arrives.
I’m afraid; I’m alone with thaat fear.
