YOU WERE HERE

I know years are linear
but rather than timelines, I find you
in maps, on curious topographies
and crossing lines. You were here,
I am reminded by blue
interstates stretching, or a bold X,
or anonymous planes between
coasts; you are both place
and placeless. The memory
of you has a shape, a terrain
of lakes and fissures that makes
days inconsequential.

And now this place is you,
yours; I will disappear in time
first to haunt walls, an attic,
a crawlspace the blueprints do
not reveal. Will you later find
me in maps and legends, plot
coordinates when you look to a past
that swallows not you but the space
around you, classifies it into grids?
Or do you hold that nothing lasts,
plates shift, and, irrespective of place
or time, know only you were here?

On my way to pick up some lunch, I came upon five women kneeling in a circle, digging in the lot on the corner of Wilson St. and Cameron Ave. Three were bald and wearing orange and purple.

A little later, they all whizzed by me on their bikes.

I gave Miss Kitty some Savory Salmon Feast tonight, and she better freaking enjoy it, because this whole house smells like Savory Salmon Feast. Upstairs and down. The place is probably 85 degrees upstairs; I turned the AC off when I discovered that the insulation on one of the outside pipes had busted and it was caked in ice. I poured cool water over the pipe, which slowly melted off the outside ice, and left the unit off a few hours in hopes that whatever’s inside would melt. No dice. Will leave it off all night.

In this moment of suburban pathos, “Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta” just came on the mp3 queue. Ugh.

I have my first appointment with a psychiatrist tomorrow. I’m tired of feeling like shit all the time. My officemate Duff convinced me to go to this guy, drawing the analogy that if I felt like crap and suspected I was diabetic, I would go to the doctor and get insulin rather than trying to tough it out. God bless Duff Coburn.

Actually, in a kind of weird way, Dyna Moe’s journal has as much to do with my impetus towards being a normal person again. God bless Dyna Moe’s journal, and by extension, Dyna Moe.

Richard Gardner, who owns ComedyWorx, told me last night that he plans to see a Cagematch when he goes to Chicago in a few weeks. He was surfing around the net after the AC4, researching longform, and found the rules. He told me that Meat Lodge and Dual Exhaust convinced him that we should be doing this stuff. So, all of the sudden, the casual inquiry a few days ago in the improv forum is a lot more formal. (Sadly, only one person responded to that after 100 views, and it was Dan from Meat Lodge.)

WHOO-HOO! Come to Raleigh, longform, come to Raleigh.

I will most assuredly dream of Savory Salmon Feast.