That’s the price for TPT, if I continue posting at the appallingly intermittent rate of 2011. I have a few premiums, though, if you call now, provided by local restaurants and businesses who also accept my special “fringe benefits” card, if you know what I mean and I think you do. Private self-indulgent blogging needs your support!

It’s pledge drive time on KCRW, always a reason to tune out, when I’m not listening with the public radio equivalent of rubber-necking at a tragic accident. The forced cheer, the feigned mirth, the good natured jesting and collegiality, and the perfume of insincerity mixed with sickly sweet smell of real fear is (courtesy the smell-o-radio in my otherwise unremarkable car) rather compelling. First of the month but not first of the year, so deep in obligations that ever smaller accomplishments are beginning to seem ever bigger, because I don’t think I can (convincingly) get there from here. I’m not sure what it looks like to phone in a large public lecture, but I (or rather, the public) may well find out.

“I said is this contagious. / You said just drink it up….I thought the past would last me / but the darkness got that too.” It’s a fucking amazing song, Leonard’s Darkness from the new/old Old Ideas. But the rest of the album doesn’t measure up, which is a shame. It’s an OK album, but some of the “old ideas” are perhaps not as old as this idea, which trots out the darkness at the center alongside getting old and passing time and caring and feigning and loving tied up neatly with a sweet organ solo and a backing chorus.

Back to my red wine and my n+1 (though I’m annoyed that the guy who didn’t hire me a decade ago, for a job I wasn’t qualified for and didn’t really want at an institution I don’t respect, cowrote a piece. Between McGurl on zombies and now the digital humanities zombies on [whatever the fuck it is they're on about - haven't read it yet], my cherished sense of “in”ness from reading n+1 in 2006…well…I liked them when….owned the first album/issue….may have to stop wearing the t-shirt. Sigh.

Despite my resolve to bring in the new year with jazz, I find myself listening to ever more obscure (by my standards, which isn’t saying much) indie bands. Despite my resolve to catch some live jazz, to make going to see new or excititing or just foundational gigs central to my life, instead, 3 weeks in to the year, I’m closer to heading to the echo and the troubadour and the venues of bands that aren’t jazz.

Yesterday’s resolve of confidence upheld, to a certain extent, but moderated by the changed responsibilities of being he who has rather than he who wants. Making those outside feel welcome, and that they have a place, even if it’s not all the way in. Making those adjacent feel valued, a tiny bit less contingent, even though they’ll always be contingent precisely because they’re a little less valued, not quite esteemed in the same way. The reminder, basically, that being right is less important than being a good person sometimes. That being bold from within the establishment isn’t necessarily boldness, but can be rude, ruthless, careless, or cruel. Trying too hard, perhaps, is one read of the confidence of yesterday’s and yesteryear’s nothing to lose. But there’s plenty left to risk and plenty to lose, and plenty to lose by not risking loss.

Damn. Still planning on renewing the site’s registration next month, though. A nominal fee to keep nostalgia that extra bit accessible. A day of the trivial but time consuming, today, 7 hours of informal tutorials, meetings, supplemental obligations. And the realization, at the vey end, that I lack confidence. Now, reader(?s), I realize this sounds unlikely, uncharacteristic, perhaps even impossible. But, I assure you, it’s true. I lack the irrational, excessive, overblown confidence I once had. The confidence (or, dead can dance style, dangerous-ness) of a man with nothing to lose. And, more importantly, everything to gain. And there, with nothing and the promise of everything, I was unstoppable. But I got the girl and I got the job and suddenly I had everything to lose. And somehow it wasn’t until this evening (that I can recall, in my mushy slushy alcohol-soaked middle age) that I realized I missed that fearlessness. Not the passion, as I imagined it and was delectably disillusioned by an old friend reminding me that I’d never felt passion for aught but success on my own terms. But, the conviction. A chat about Geoffrey, of all of the unlikely authors, and his politics and the disconnect of said politics from his parentage. A simple point, really, the individual vs. the collective past. But suddenly one that came with the fuck-it-I’m-making-this-point-without-reservation-and-without-hesitation-and-without apology-or-compromise resolve of yesteryear, of a life dimming everywhere but around the edges given the magnitude of that which might be lost. Not living in fear, exactly, but certainly living on the defensive. Fuck that. Bored now. Bored for a while, actually, but I think I found a focus. Maybe this time.

me, that is. Unsober (I can barely type. deal). Overfed (it is fuckingl Thanksgiving. deal). Re-watching the adult sequel to a movie I’ve watched too many times, a movie I’ve watched too many times, and imminently to bed (see entry under drunk,overfed.) And, you know what? I’m very me, at the moment. That balance of agonizingly sharp desire, my inability to enjoy what I have and my impossible keen enjoyment of what is to come, that delicate balance between hating humanity and enjoying the possibility of what might come next? Yeah, that’s me. Fuck all y’all, I want my life back. I want not just the quiet between the deadlines, but the peace at the bottom of a deep, deep, amber-filled glass.

Narratives colliding, intersecting, entangling, disentangling. Simplicity from the wrong side of it looks empty rather than the foundation of possibility. Disentangling unimaginable, even as twenty years of time suddenly becomes something else entirely. And it’s not him, the strangest thing, the man who was guaranteed to go first. Baggage is the popular euphemism, but narrative trajectory might be a better frame. I once promised it wouldn’t be, that I didn’t do, tragedy. And it wasn’t and I didn’t, with all of the Proustian horror that accompanies loving once, loving again. I didn’t even bring something to write in up to the Bay the other week. It wasn’t a trip that was going to be conducive for that, really, but I used to live my life _around_ writing, whereas now it’s something I avoid except when I can’t any longer, something I try to remember to dig deep to find the time to do in the few, pathetically few, moments where I allow myself to be allowed to want again. I don’t think I would have found the time, or made it, or had it, or verbed it, though it was observed that I verbed her, all those years ago, until a second opinion over hipster coffee suggested it wasn’t her but him, a manic splenetic once-idol lying deeply buried at the bottom of the drip castle story. An unusual, boozy evening, the rhythms of (this) writing quite alien to the regimented and footnoted agonizing march of prose, finally off my desk (though it will return again). But this isn’t about work, and isn’t about that writing, and isn’t about who I didn’t know I might once have thought I wanted to be while becoming the person (man!) I’ve become, am, am wondering about. The bony shoulder was strong, at first, as I could always listen and find something to say, but didn’t have a voice. And then I found my voice and the shoulder diminished, because, voice, songs, bodies. But the helplessness of the ignorance, the innocence, that was the shoulder – it hovers on the horizon, not so distant, not so detached. Timing is everything, with the words that say nothing.

Not quite lost, I don’t think, but still feeling tenuous. There’s still more work (there’s always more work), the pleasures of transcribing, the unexpected satisfactions of some very lightweight editing. But that’s not what I’m thinking about. A note, from an AZ friend, listening to Morphine, on god-knows-what, but feeling the past keenly, feeling the rhythms of speech, of dialogue, of meaning, of a series of people he/I/we knew/know in/from college/now. That gulf grows ever larger, between present and past tense, but that, too, is not where I head. A journey next weekend, to a beloved city and area, largely though not quite entirely depopulated with beloved ones. A friend I last saw in London, I think, though whose flat in Rome YCTNW and I used on the moon that was honeyed, even as I dug through shoeboxes of notes on dance and drag and theory and marlboro lights. A journey, too, for geekery, a visit to Google’s campus to see if my disparate interests actually intersect with the conceptions of others as to where the point of intersection is. Another dear friend, who has, perhaps more than I realized, fixed the Bay for me, held it in stasis and made it meaningful even as time has gaspingly passed, a friend for whom the clock ticks, in the best possible way, before she heads east to begin the next phase of it all, the phase that I, inexorably, slowly, oh god it’s too fast too much too soon quickly, pass through.

I’m not sure when I became an adult. I’m not convinced I want to stay one, rather than throwing it off, moving backwards to a state, not of fewer responsibilities, but of the passion, the excess, the uncertainty. Not that it’s been replaced with certainty, but rather with contentment mixed with tiredness and a mild benevolence, and the mediocrity of that shit scares the living shit out of me. A trip to London in just under two months, the struggle to find a hotel for a handful of nights not because it’s difficult to find a hotel there, but because I find it incomprehensible, an appalling insult, that I don’t simply live there. New York was lovely, but London is home. And maybe that’s enough to Peter Pan my way through the next bits, knowing that things aren’t as they ought, and I’m not where I will, and that the pour me another, sister, need not only numb, but can sharpen, point, direct the go go go go need that got me here and isn’t empty yet. So, cheers, ‘Saac.

Like shadows who have offended at the end of the play? Or, wanting a life / to make more sense? Both, I suppose, as Zoe Keating plucks and bows in the background and my lightly-red-wine-sodden brain figures out the ways to tap my thoughts through this. I don’t know who or why the email went to the lot of us, but it did, and thus the Swell Season film downtown crossed my radar. And so we went. The film was mediocre, the music exquisite. Identifying with victim and victimizer, with the search and with the calm that can only come from denying the search, my mind and soul were busy for an hour and a half. I had amends to make, sure, but it’s been a while, really, and the forgiveness i never asked for around my ankle, the trespasses in translation, have rather diminished over the years. I recognize his relentless shuffle forward, to some degree. He’ll never unproblematically want what he has, and that i understand, the condemnation of desire attained. But the problematics run deeper, and release is complicated. And this I know, and it makes the rawness raw and the sorrows of knowledge obtained real. As I pick my way through a post-manuscript life, choosing music and films and having the rEading done long before class, I tap dance around the decisions I’ve never really wanted to make. The bay area calls and I brag of the future of the past that is past and must contribute to my future and wonder and wander and wonder what comes next. What book, what story, what visualization, is the next next of nextness?

If you know what I mean and I think you do? A list that gets ever stranger as the days pass, from checking for first citations to cautioning myself not to disagree with Ralph if I don’t have to bigger things, like those last, few, jewel-like sentences I hope to dash off and inscribe with great dignity at the end of the introduction. There will be not blood but changes still to come, more midnight oil to burn. But this is the bulk of it, I think – most everything will be mechanical, or will be reduced to the mechanical, from here. And thus, a sense of finality, tempered by the realization that, of course, it’s not really final, but also by the raw need for closure on this project.

A friend submitted just yesterday (though why I bother with anonymity when 1) no one reads this, and 2) if any one reads this, they know me, and each other, I don’t know). The strange techno-connection of skype, red bricks and green lawns and an impossible implausible summer day in late September Oxenford. Writing acknowledgements for publication is a strange endeavour. The heartfelt thank yous. The I met you at a conference once thank yous. The politically important, financially important thank yous. The thanking of family, who have everything and nothing to do with the work – (Thanks for fucking me up. All that anger really helped me get shit done over the years.). A bit of nostalgia, a bit of wonder, a strong desire for a wander, and mostly the simple tiredness of having gone to bed late and woken to early and talked for 4 hours with students in various degrees of interest and care. C’est la guerre. The milestones, they accrue, but also begin to resemble each other, to some extent. Only because there are more of them? Their scale, skewed by perspective? I suppose, after my fashion, my thanks are due to the Academy, for having a game to play that I’ve played well enough, so far. But, in the immortal words of the recently-submitted, “Fuck the boat. There is no boat.”

I’m so, so ready to be done. But, I’m not. Chapter 3 should be mostly down from here. Chapter 4 can be mildly improved with the insertion of some dramatic readings to serve as a pivot to a section that otherwise seems out of place, even though that doesn’t really address the ‘strangely introductory conclusions’. Or whatever. I’m so fucking ready to be done. SO I can think about anything else for a while – presumably just more job-related, will-i-won’t-i, self-indulgent anxieties, but that will be a change from trying to keep the entirety of the book in my brain, always. To smooth its trajectories within and across chapters, to add and subtract small details that make “it” (the book?) say more than it does, without saying more than it should or can. Keeping it all straight is taking about all that i have, and I’m TIRED of it. Oh well. 2 weeks. It gets done. Sigh.

(And, good luck tomorrow with your viva tomorrow, T. I am thinking of you, proud of you, and so sorry I can’t be there with champagne and single malt for a proper celebration.)

Nope. Not done yet, either. 3 weeks left, about half the prose totally rewritten, leaving, umm, the other half. The endgame gets less dramatic as I get older. Maybe just because I get tired more easily. Back to it.