Octopodes
An octopus can get through any opening larger than its beak.
What did I just say?
...
Recently I had the tremendous fortune of going to Seaworld for the first time in my adult life, if indeed it can be called that as I play with swords and get ready to move into what it, essentially, a fort.
I spent plenty of time with my cephalopod friend. I saw a Giant Pacific Octopus and a school of cuttlefish and nautliuses. It was the shit. It was a fantastic day, and really got me in a good mood which, thanks to my generally brooding nature and inability to separate emotions from blind attraction had not been the case of late. However, I think I've managed to turn a corner and am now nothing if not a burden to my fellow employees who are forced to deal with my manic happiness on the daily. Scrubbers.
Less than a week now until we begin the move into the new house, and I'm still not really sure how I'm going to get all this shit out of here and into there. I'm not even sure where to start packing some of this stuff. I get images of boxes, and of original packaging, and then I try to visualize those things in the truck and the whole concept squirts out of my mind's grasp like some kind of be-tentacled invertebrate. Too hard to grasp, too hard to contain.
The only moment of real maudlinism that I've been through in the past couple weeks or so actually occured the night of the Seaworld trip, out with the squights and the surrogate falconer who is on a rotating schedule of squighthood. We were at a Mexican joint called Fred's (perhaps you've heard of it... I ain't), and were having a whale of a time. A killer time. A killer whale of a time.
So we're sitting, talking, enjoying our relatively simple lives, when my phone rings with a private number. I always answer my phone, reasoning that hanging up on a telemarketer is not so much of an inconvenience as to warrant me ignoring a family member calling me, stranded, from the side of the road or the like. So I answer it, and of course it's the ex, and of course she has to know if I'm okay since I'm not going to that class anymore. She asks if I'm fine, if anything happened to me. I say I'm fine, nothing's wrong. She says that initially she though, 'Good, maybe he got hit by a truck. But then I felt guilty.' And of course I don't cuss her out, I don't tell her not to call me anymore, I don't tell her that I haven't thought about her at all until, strangely, that day when I wondered what she must think since I stopped going to that class. Instead?
"Yeah, no, I'm fine."
I tell her I'm in San Diego. Before she goes, she says if I go any further south that I shouldn't drink the water.
Shut the fuck up.
Who are you? It's 11:00 at night and I'm actually enjoying my life. I finally get this shit working right and she has to fucking call me and let me know that she hasn't quite faded away into the dark deep recessed of my memory. I want her to be what all my other exes are, just these things that I went through, and nothing so active and twanging in my brain. Why didn't I just hang up? Why didn't I tell her to leave me alone? To let me be happy?
Because the first thing that I thought to ask her was, "Are you still with Roland?"
Jesus. That's unexpected. And pathetic. In my heart of hearts I know I'm over her. I've moved on, I don't think about her, I'm my own man again, which I hadn't been for a long time. It's been a couple of months now that I've actually been okay on my own, and despite the whole Katie debacle I'm perfectly fine with myself, and now I have to deal with this. With my own head telling me these things that I desperately don't want to think, just for the questions that I have to ask myself after I think them.
Everyone loves me. I make friends wherever I go. Why do I care at all what this woman, who treated me so dirt-and-lowdown, thinks? Why should I even want a connection with her? Is it almost out of habit? Just some reflex action that makes me want to make sure everyone's in love with me all the time? And I have to deal with Erik and Nick and anyone else who has the ability to go after these women when there's someone like me right next to them? Why can't I feel as good as I feel sometimes all the time? Why can't I remember myself always?
Why do I forget.
One of these days, I'm going to wrap my arms around the world and squeeze until it stops kicking.
Then, when it's still, I'll start to bite.
What did I just say?
...
Recently I had the tremendous fortune of going to Seaworld for the first time in my adult life, if indeed it can be called that as I play with swords and get ready to move into what it, essentially, a fort.
I spent plenty of time with my cephalopod friend. I saw a Giant Pacific Octopus and a school of cuttlefish and nautliuses. It was the shit. It was a fantastic day, and really got me in a good mood which, thanks to my generally brooding nature and inability to separate emotions from blind attraction had not been the case of late. However, I think I've managed to turn a corner and am now nothing if not a burden to my fellow employees who are forced to deal with my manic happiness on the daily. Scrubbers.
Less than a week now until we begin the move into the new house, and I'm still not really sure how I'm going to get all this shit out of here and into there. I'm not even sure where to start packing some of this stuff. I get images of boxes, and of original packaging, and then I try to visualize those things in the truck and the whole concept squirts out of my mind's grasp like some kind of be-tentacled invertebrate. Too hard to grasp, too hard to contain.
The only moment of real maudlinism that I've been through in the past couple weeks or so actually occured the night of the Seaworld trip, out with the squights and the surrogate falconer who is on a rotating schedule of squighthood. We were at a Mexican joint called Fred's (perhaps you've heard of it... I ain't), and were having a whale of a time. A killer time. A killer whale of a time.
So we're sitting, talking, enjoying our relatively simple lives, when my phone rings with a private number. I always answer my phone, reasoning that hanging up on a telemarketer is not so much of an inconvenience as to warrant me ignoring a family member calling me, stranded, from the side of the road or the like. So I answer it, and of course it's the ex, and of course she has to know if I'm okay since I'm not going to that class anymore. She asks if I'm fine, if anything happened to me. I say I'm fine, nothing's wrong. She says that initially she though, 'Good, maybe he got hit by a truck. But then I felt guilty.' And of course I don't cuss her out, I don't tell her not to call me anymore, I don't tell her that I haven't thought about her at all until, strangely, that day when I wondered what she must think since I stopped going to that class. Instead?
"Yeah, no, I'm fine."
I tell her I'm in San Diego. Before she goes, she says if I go any further south that I shouldn't drink the water.
Shut the fuck up.
Who are you? It's 11:00 at night and I'm actually enjoying my life. I finally get this shit working right and she has to fucking call me and let me know that she hasn't quite faded away into the dark deep recessed of my memory. I want her to be what all my other exes are, just these things that I went through, and nothing so active and twanging in my brain. Why didn't I just hang up? Why didn't I tell her to leave me alone? To let me be happy?
Because the first thing that I thought to ask her was, "Are you still with Roland?"
Jesus. That's unexpected. And pathetic. In my heart of hearts I know I'm over her. I've moved on, I don't think about her, I'm my own man again, which I hadn't been for a long time. It's been a couple of months now that I've actually been okay on my own, and despite the whole Katie debacle I'm perfectly fine with myself, and now I have to deal with this. With my own head telling me these things that I desperately don't want to think, just for the questions that I have to ask myself after I think them.
Everyone loves me. I make friends wherever I go. Why do I care at all what this woman, who treated me so dirt-and-lowdown, thinks? Why should I even want a connection with her? Is it almost out of habit? Just some reflex action that makes me want to make sure everyone's in love with me all the time? And I have to deal with Erik and Nick and anyone else who has the ability to go after these women when there's someone like me right next to them? Why can't I feel as good as I feel sometimes all the time? Why can't I remember myself always?
Why do I forget.
One of these days, I'm going to wrap my arms around the world and squeeze until it stops kicking.
Then, when it's still, I'll start to bite.
Nothing hurts anymore. But the stitches haven't dropped out.
posted by DeadLanguage at 4:34 AM
3 comments
