Exchange*

What's the exchange rate these days? There's high-tech, high-profile, high-exposure rates of communication zooming past us at the rate of an old hang-over....and it all gets mushed up. In the fibers of everything I don't want other people's opinions on, or the new dialogues that feel like relaxing finally. I have to retrace the verbatim quotes, and the word-for-word phrases that once created some wonderful reaction. Last night or last year, going up and down 83, 495, 50/301, and 702. 

We try to capture the words spoken outside one's own mind. 

"...talk is rich, even when it sounds cheap: a mighty means of measuring and asserting power, of confirming one's place in the scheme of things" (Ben Bratley, NY times issue 10/24/08, pg C6) 

So maybe that's it-the rich blanket-phrase of "the scheme of things", the "it" in life, that keeps speech exchanging. The currency equivalency changing, the trains running, the tires spinning, the traffic lights flickering, and the people trying for....something. 

But then sometimes I'd like a pause. I'd like a sign painted across my very clothing reading: "", (like the saturday afternoon hiding in a perfect corner in Starbucks, headphone-clad, hot cocoa in hand, and paper spread about the tiny round table. Do not disturb-you're ruining my mellow creepy old men). 

And I'm wondering, walking away, ...what prompts someone to pick up a "how are you?", a friendship, a project, a book, or a phone? Is it the need to hear someone's voice and response (nearby through w/e mode), or is it a cheaper substitution for real touch? Real feel?

What matters more--the kindred souls, or kindred hands? 

The friends you create with, or the friends you remember with, or the friends you play with?

Exchange. Exchange for me the money poorly spent, for the priceless penniless things. Exchange the mistakes, for the times of proven correctness. Exchange the silence for speech. Exchange words for...active quiet. 

Still this weekend (sorry i've been slacking on these lately): 

-"The Crucible" at TU, see drama website for times . I hear it's well worth the $7 cost for student tickets ($12 otherwise)

- Sat. Oct 25th - sold out Pepper show at the Recher

Daily headphones: Ingrid Michealson's "Way I am". Warning: it will stay in your head for hours after one play. And local fellas the Hint's "Things we do in the Dark". In response to multiple questions- this song and cd IS on itunes, buy it. 

(400w essay-"Still")

To a certain group of nautical friends, and a certain place... <3  

Still

On rare nights the fog hangs still by the Bay, making everything drip and crawl like a weathered rope.
It clogged thick the trees, the bugs, and the rusty fan on a chipped wood ceiling above.
Underneath my borrowed shorts the old picnic tabletop was soft with something like dew.
I leaned back on my hands carefully and stretched a little.
It didn’t help; the heat was still gross, and enough to hate.
So I counted mosquito bites on my legs. I’m allergic and there were enough to worry. But each was a war wound from a previous night; a cooler night spent debating, drinking, and stargazing by the water’s edge.

Surrounding me, the outdoor wood pavilion was littered with picnic tables of old childhood friends. The same friends who stole into the shadows of trees, or the sanctuary of the pavilion, on the nights we came together.
No one tried to compete with the fog, the approaching waves, or the music from two guitars and a ukulele.

I fidgeted every now and then.


Just a few feet away an unseen wave spoke like another friend, catching between concrete rocks. I turned, leaned, and tried to see where the night sky met the Bay. It was hopeless. But I could still feel it there.
I could even smell it there.
A guitar string went “piink” and snapped. Someone groaned and the music paused. Some others shifted.
“so going swimming later”.
I wanted to imagine splashing into the water that I couldn’t see, I wanted to see who would agree.
No one spoke.

The three musical friends resumed their song.
Some of the girls watched, and some of the guys drank.

A friend’s cell phone said the time. Hours ago my parents expected me at home instead. It was midweek; I had work at noon. There were more mosquito bites on my skin.

I peered around at our scattered crew, each in chosen places. I had missed their company, and the time away was ready to be made up for.
I liked the idea that it always came back to these waters, and these rolling friendships.
I even liked the fog, the darkness, and the song being played by a tempting voice. I pretended it was about me.

Ultimately, someone would stir and nod goodnight, heading to parent’s boats for sleep. Sometimes in a pair.
So I’d listen to flip flops crunch the gravel across the back lot, reach the first pier plank, and vanish.
Still I waited to depart. There might be possibilities afloat.

It was the thickest night I could remember. It made the hours slow.
An odd feeling, of immobility and imagined chances.
Like imagined romance.
Alone and stepping lightly the next morning, the deck ropes were wet below my feet. I tried to wipe the heat from heavy eyelids, tried to shake the stillness from my muscles.
Already I missed my couch bed on the sailboat. Already, I couldn’t wait for the workday ahead to be over.
I couldn’t wait to return here on Friday. It was like camp. Like a home, and a few stolen spots only some can value.
I put the windows down in my car.
The pavilion looked bare, the fog was slinking back.

A Million Places

There are a million places to be at any moment. And you have to pick just one. There's a million opportunities, a million risks to take, a million options for giggles, a million protective barriers. And we can only pick just one at a time. 

One atmosphere, one spot, one goodnight at a time. 

......It feels a little like being cheated; of all the things that can't be done, and all the cities left uninhabited. All the sentences I could have spoken, the thought made sad with all the liqueur-filled stomach turns. 

Yet something grows rejuvenated. Growing, in the veins of highway lanes new to tires. 

Refreshed, though the wind suddenly hurts outside the parties. 

But none of it matters-my throat can hurt, and my muscles can cramp. 

Some are meant to sustain the cold. 

And we're all frantic somehow. Studying. Declaring. Looking. Spreading out from Baltimore in all directions across every map; no matter where home is, or once was. 

I feel the intimidating presence of dear persons in my life being in so many places away. So many places I can't be all at once. It aches a little, but it means they're all destinations. 

They're all still somewhere to be found, and reunited with.

Destinations to one another's presence.

So let's get on with that squealing sound, and start to celebrate hitting the town-if we happen to be in the same spot. 

Besides, for the time between there's plenty of work and more work, and procrastinating and nagging.

Daily headphones: David Cook's "Light On" is actually worth sampling. And Ray Charles's classic "Mess Around" will instantly boost a mood and start accidental toe-tapping. Mess around!

Playing cards

Last week I went to see the student-directed production of "Zoo Story", and like any good play, its stuck with me days later. But in this case, it wasn't really the ending (which I won't reveal i promise!)...it's the idea of unplanned events, and sensations. 

We all indulge in routines, obscure/validated, with the files of every past day hovering in our own shadows. Hovering inside dreams that go forgotten with the annoying alarm buzz, or dreams that we label and put on a shelf to accomplish, or, the dreams we always remember--of nights/days we have lived. These are the ones that lurk, whether in a chuckle from jokes impossible to retell, or a cold breeze that somehow reminds of an old touch, an old love, or an outfit worn on an old self. 

"when you're a kid you use the cards as a substitute for a real experience, and when you're older you use real experience as a substitute for the fantasy. But I imagine you'd rather hear about what happened at the zoo."(Zoo Story) 

....so what's more satisfying? or rather, what's more adult? what's more artistic? 

In the time we spend to walk to class, read a book outside, or just keep to whatever routine makes us feel secure...memories bubble up evil ghosts of ourselves---or righteous tales too often unwritten/unphotographed/unexplained. 

    Today I doodled instead of studying for the millionth hour, parked in a different lot...and as I drove home the long way blasting a song I know someone likes, a new trumpet man began playing outside the gallery that sometimes shows my work. 

Towsonites were going about their Mondays-but just ever so slightly there was the unexpected. 

So what's that say? - to embrace the things that feel like fantasy; like they're part of dreams you wake from in the too-early mornings...all the while knowing that the past tidal-waves up and follows you forever along? you tell me 

Daily headphones: "Galvanize" by the Chemical Brothers goes with the absurdity of 8Odegree October days, and offers relief from the mind-numbing of too much midterm studying.

Watch and plan

I've been talking recently about unique tales of homeless people, and scary reports of bus passengers. 

Going over ridiculous aspects of things a little unfamiliar. 

Brought to us by huddled oddities - the same in New York and Baltimore, the same anywhere else that the feet travel and the newspapers clutter pavements.

           And ever, ever so slightly, the feeling of being watched. The feeling of strangers, in the very heart of familiar walks or bus rides up&back.

It challenges a sense of reckless abandon, it sends a trickling form of giggles up the spine...making home warm, welcoming, and catastrophically hard to detach from. Resting a head on something smooth. 

        Then there's the exposure, and the exchange of it...passing new conversations on a parking lot spot, chatting in quiter tones at breakfast by the stairs before class. Awkward jokes, new reasons. 

The over-walking of nights so collectively past, with an evermore overlapping/second-guessing/re-configuring of new things.  Minor travels double-booked atop hometown commitments and faces. I reach and grow tired and amused. Run down the gas tank, catch up on sleep, go for options 3 or 4 or...?  BOO!  Where's the leap? Journeys of miniscule distance go post-poned, re-arranged, over-looked. 

Newspapers fall in piles, & people watch. They watch.

They reason.

Plans guessed, and projects put off an hour longer- for a sense of giggles and movements and memory. Tingles. Restlessly filling in the odd. And preparing the Halloween masks :)

Daily headphones: 

The Scene, " 'Last' Weekend" (400w)

In honor of concert nights recently past/ahead, here's an updated&carved up version of a creative essay I wrote for a class last sem....

Standing immersed inside a growing line, outside, and below a glowing venue sign. Under a concrete-yellow roaring highway, dreaming up adventures in my heavy sighs – mingling with the steam from a nearby street vent; reminder of the cold that dirties everyone near.
We’re waiting in the Baltimore nighttime.
While just above the dyed heads and juveniles, are floating ideas for coming hours; hours wasting time before a blinding, misty dawn. So clear the feeling, I can almost catch someone else’s floating by with an ungloved hand.

And it’s like a routine of racing tires. Between the interrupted sense of volume; with ringing ears and dark makeup. Between the calm collaborated days of work, are dives into a local scene.

I know a few of the faces, a few of the back doors, and a few of the show-night traditions. Everyone knows someone here. Everyone watches.

While I listen inside a "time machine" van to warm-ups and chords. And listen for the words to describe the weekends that I find. 

The comings-together of inspired, hungry artists.
The invites and penciled in reminders; that long for themselves to happen, that long with increasing passion for solidified follow-ups.
                Exclusions from the norm; the elite within an outside circle. Losers of high-class, rock stars of the underground.


But time passes in-between the homecoming/tour-leaving/CD releasing/reunion events. The bands tour and morph, the music changes, the faces wrinkle. With too few photographs to notice the differences.
With crumpled stacks of small show flyers, free demos, screentshirts, and ticket stubs-- weighted down with three bottle caps and a leave-behind guitar pic.
Weighted with the hazy memories of great sets, great line-ups, and great after-parties.

So we wait. We wait at the desks of our bosses, the desks of our draining lecture rooms, and the desks of our own offices for creativity. Remembering the papered doors of favorite venues. The bands that play them, the people that promote them, and all the anticipation on the nights we live within them.
Meanwhile there’s articles being written about these Baltimore ways, away from the heads that know a few of the real stories, the real lingo, and the real price for it all.
Someone out there is about to document it.

And you’ll find me there, waiting in line. Waiting with heavy sighs of steam vents and cigarettes, for the plot lines and lost descriptions of dreamt-up adventures. Held in an ungloved hand the friends up there onstage; horrific jolly jokes of all-night chases, and fashionable people.

Daily headphones: Silent Film's last CD "The Scene is Dead" (best of luck in future endeavors to this local band).