my nemeses

I have a new nemesis, oh, Japhey where have you gone?

I find it strange how some people can seriously hate me for simply floating through life. In B-town a few years ago I can think of a couple people who legitmately hated me, perhaps more than anybody on the face of the earth, and I don't know if I ever said more than two dozen words to either of them.

Anyway, back in the old days, Japhey was my nemesis, while of the two he probably hated me the less, he was better nemesis material largely because he cloaked his hatred in vague humour... like he'd make fun of the way I spoke or the shoes I wore. His own strange behaviour added to the absurdity: day dreams of delousing lions in San Diego and a captivation with the great divide which only the most well fashioned of hiking boots could ever dream to conquer.

The other character was much more vile and insidious, I swear he'd get off by feeding you his steam. Nothing humourous here.

Do not get me wrong I am not at all lamenting this, on the contrary the fact that I was hated made cultivating my desired distance easier. Rather I am commenting on the absurdity of hatred. There doesn't have to be any tangible reason for it, it just is, exuding from the pores of the misreable bodies that animate this universe.

This new guy argues with everything I say, even if I'm not talking to him. At times, I can feel that he's so angry at me, I swear if he hadn't convinced himself of some idealized notion of human civility he'd punch me right in the nose. It's not even that he cares enough about me, or any other person for that matter, not to punch me in the nose, it's because he'd feel guilty if he did... it was always all about him. I tell you, you gotta watch out for guys like that.

So anyway, I don't know why this guy hates me so much... my only idea is that he thinks I'm a fraud (which by the way is correct about but neither is he exempt from the charge) and because we're a part of the same bureaucratic construction this is somehow an affront to him; he wants to hold onto the high value of his position, a position that in his eyes I taint. I don't know, it's a guess, but one thing that's for certain the scene is getting stranger, his hatred is getting more and more active, while it used to be restricted and reactive only to the sound of my voice it's now provoked by the mere sight of me. Ah, you may think I'm paranoid but as sure that ball of stinky steam in Boulder hated me, which can be objectively verified, so does this guy.

I don't get it... but as I said, you know, it's not keeping me up at nights, it's just that I don't get it, I mean, what's the incentive? Where's the energy come from? Other than the fact that it might be animating energy itself I do not know.

Ahh, I say bring back Japhey, at least he wore his absurdity on his sleeve, which as a general category I can at least partially relate to. But there's noting absurd about the disdain here, it all feels more clodly calculated. Yes, Japhey was a more interesting specimen, and less violent.

a winter nap

Naps are wonderful. But one thing about napping, when you're not used to it, or poor at it (say, napping too long), is that it can really scramble your brains, which, incidentally, along with the rest is why they're wonderful.

Though, as it goes, I'm neither very used to naps nor good at them, I nap too long. I've had a couple really long naps over the past few days. The reason for these naps is partly rooted in the dark coldness of the January air and my new found love of rum (which is odd because I generally don't enjoy sugary things, chocolate, for instance). Anyway, as I had said, a nice long nap can scramble your brains, especially in the winter time when a nap can significantly cut into the amount of experienced daylight hours.

So, when I woke up a few hours ago, all stumbly and incoherent, the world seemed a much sharper, colder and uncaring place than I had immediately remembered it being before dozing off. And, in this, I found it a clear reminder of the utter loneliness of existence, the loneliness that a steadily conscious or regulated mind works so hard to forget, or to deceive you as to its non-existence. And, I think the reality of this matter is beyond perspective or remedy, it's something that neither the night, occupation, nor company of any sort can ever take away. I tell you, there's nothing wrong with a nap.

'the coal black sea, waits for me, me, me, the coal black sea waits forever'

I do not understand my own mind, and this frightens me.

I laid awake last night watching my mind roll from thought to thought and as I lay there I wondered, amazed, who's driving this thing ? So, what was I thinking of, or not thinking of, well there were images, flashes of light, sad memories, wishes, weather patterns, the dead, lightening a thoroughly random list. All of these scenes kept rolling, real fast like, speedy, and the moment I tried to zero in on one thing the whole of reality came crashing in around me, the moment I tried to focus on any one thing I was suddenly made aware of my room, the cracking heat pipes, the smell of stale cigarettes, the sight of my blanket, a blanket I had taken from Jess so many years ago (you won't use this I said, what the fuck was the matter with me, I mean, christ, you know I said that only because I wanted the thing for myself, utterly embarrassing, a blanket Jesus man, I disgust myself).

Anyway, as you can read, the crashing reality was quite boring, uncomfortable even, so I practiced being unfocussed for a very long time, and I must have gotten quite good at it, because for what was likely a couple of hours I was nowhere. At about 5:oo am I was startled by a neighbour leaving for work and once back into reality sleep came easy.

A few hours later, waking up, I wondered just how the space of that mental nowhere somehow manages to shape itself into a boy, into me? And, I don't know at all how to answer this, but one thing that's starting to seem more and more clear to me is that it's not natural at all, this person, this waking body, is not natural. I mean when would I say I'm natural? Well, I probably would never say that, it's a bad question, but, say, if I were asked the question, when do things seem to come natural to me? When I'm at rest, comfortable, not putting on 'a face to meet the faces that you meet' as T.S. would say, etc. Ah, but isn't this still an illusion of comfort I've created for myself? How can it be anything else? I think I hold onto my mind because it's comfortable, or uncomfortable, or familiar, or whatever, but certainly not beacuse it's real. I think that maybe the truer mental state is in those with Alzheimers, or those diagnosed as 'insane,' raw synapses working to keep the heart beating. So what do I think I'll find here while holding onto this illustion? Nothing I haven't thought of already, and that, it seems to me, is the biggest joke of them all.

There's a strange house on my block

There's an old house across the street from my mother's place, so old in fact that some years ago it was turned into a museum - a souvenir of colonial Nova Scotia. One of the stories told about the place was that a servant who had worked for the master of the household was murdered one early nineteenth century evening. The killer(s) then sunk his body into the pond that lies just inside the iron gates, which at the time had skirted the property. Evidentally, so it goes, the spirit or whatever life remained of the murdered man was not at all pleased with his fate and he grew quite restless and since his physical death has continued to torment late night visitors to the property, whether they were welcome or not.

From my mother's living room window you can see right into the pond, however this time of year the pond itself indiscernible from the surrounding hills - it's all a vacant white. So one night my sister and I had stayed up retelling the various versions of the story we had heard in our childhood, and one of the versions my sister had told me sounded unmistably similar to the legend of sleepy hollow, when I had pointed this out to her she took to calling the murdered man the hessian. And, he remained the hessian for us.

Once our allegedly factual stories had run dry we then started creating our own mythology about this ancient individual. And at some point during these fictional renditions of the hessian's life and after life my sister began associating the stories with reality. By the time it came for her to nod off, she was legitimately concerned that the hessian might come to haunt her in her sleep. So when she did fade away for the night her boyfriend and I had rolled out the snowman, with the hope that he might serve as her's, as our, watchful protector.

hola

'Hola Amigos... I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya...' Ah, I wish I could take credit for that wonderful opening line. As my family has gadgets I was able to post a picture of jo-seuppe, otherwise known as the scare-hessian. The gadget itself, of course, can take pictures but can do very little to help with the quality. More on the scare-hessian later, I promise -- though it well doubtless be of interest to no one but myself, ah well I'm self-absorbed if you didn't know.