"bookends"
2002-09-03 6:39 p.m.

fall arrived. today was too cold. long pants and my heaviest sweater. and i still shivered underneath them. i wore all brown. i felt like a mannequin in a thrift store window display. haphazardly dressed, just in time for autumn.

ben and i go to see coldplay on friday. with ash. and i think it might rain. ben says that coldplay would be his guilty pleasure if they weren't as good as they are... too good to induce guilt, i guess. the new album is really very beautiful. um. did i mention ash is opening. come on jackie chan.

classes are growing smaller. i managed to get into ancient philosophy. and i decided to stay in wittgenstein and drop heidegger. i like wittgenstein. i like that he carried the tractatus around in his knapsack as a p.o.w. i like that he gave away his inherited fortune. i like that, after he decided that he'd solved all philosophical problems, he chose to teach elementary school. i like that he thought himself failure at it. i wonder what kind of standards he held himself to.

i don't think he would have felt the slightest degree of accomplishment at having sent in tabs for that bright eyes site. and i don't either. but the difference is that the mere possibility of that is not an insult to me. do you know? i learned today that i have no first order projects, it seems. aside from maybe attention to weight.

still, its hard to think of my life as a waste. naming it a waste implies that it could have had value...if only. if only i had done this instead of that. if only i had made different choices. but really, it couldn't have. there is no secret specialness hiding in me, waiting for an ideal circumstance to expose itself as my gift. i'm plain, open, clear. a thorough memory, a slow intellect, a love of tragedy, and a collection of desires, to be forever unsatisfied. precisely the reason why those particular desires belong to me. i suppose.

if only i wasn't me. sigh. the if onlys. kinds of statements you hear on the racetrack. if only i'd bet across the board. if only the filly's post position was better. race track enthusiasts hold a beautiful relationship with the past. it seems they have an acute awareness of time as it passes and moments as they grow unchangeable. i think i'm going to marry a bookie.

i spent hours yesterday writing a single page paper. it was challenge of concision.

it was an activity to occupy myself with, to lessen my awareness of time as it passes and moments as they grow unchangeable.

i haven't heard from micah in nearly four days. his mother hasn't either. she's called both his commander and the red cross. this means that she is supposed to be notified, should he return to base. she also calls the base daily.

when i spoke to him last, he was planning to travel back to baumholder to "turn himself in." he'd checked out of his hotel in frankfurt, after a good amount of cash was stolen from his room. he needed to take a train to some place, and then a cab to another. it was early evening. i got a short email the following morning saying that he'd made it to baumholder and that he'd contact whomever he was supposed to, eventually. and i haven't heard from him.

i don't know how to go about existing right now. everything is just suspended. temporarily. indefinitely.

i wonder what he is doing. if his days are full of regret. or resentment. i don't think it even occurs to him to resent me. he is always very kind in his thoughts. i can't really know that, of course. but he always seems to react with kindness.

he likes morrissey and soccer. the violent femmes and chess and root beer. simon and garfunkel. peanutbutter and cheese sandwiches. he spurred my interest in philosophy. i remember asking him long ago how to pronounce descartes. "day-kart". he had me read the myth of sisyphus by camus. i do not know if he imagined sisyphus to be happy. i don't think he did.

its been a long time since he and i have talked warmly, casually about things, the way stable and secure and happy people do. but there was a time we did.

i miss that so.

time it was, and what a time it was, it was
a time of innocence,
a time of confidences.

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