Target

With most of my friends away in Vegas or Cali I decided to spend the weekend home catching up on homework. On Friday night nothing got done because I spent all of my time watching movies, back to back to back. I kept saying, "after this one I'll start it" but that never happened. On Saturday night I realized that I wouldn't do any of the reading without a new bulb or just a new lamp altogether for by my bed. I have to have the exact right environment to work or else nothing gets done and the only place I like to read in my apartment is in bed. But I can't read with the normal lights because they are aimed in a different direction than the way that I lie when reading in bed so a lamp was a NECESSITY!

Where better to find a lamp than the Target down the block from me? What started as a task that should have taken at the longest, 30 minutes, turned into a 3 hour long ordeal. The first setback occurred when I realized that there was a PetSmart next to the Target. I took my first little detour into the store to watch mice run in and out of holes, iguanas freeze at the sight of me and fish scream their drowned voices to an uncomprehending me. I thought about getting an iguana but they looked so scared of me that I felt bad for them. Plus I thought of the crickets that I would have to constantly buy in order to feed them and how annoying that must be. An Iguana would be a bad pet for me. Besides the iguana the only thing I really liked was the gecko that was sleeping while suctioned to glass of the tank. But the more I thought about it, the more I really just wanted a dog. But a dog is something that I can't have right now because of my work schedule and apartment size. I left the store with nothing, but a half an hour wasted on nothing.

The one section I was trying to avoid in Target was the DVD section. I have a sick addiction to buying DVDs. Somehow I always convince myself that the DVDs are NEEDS, not desires. I always justify them with the fact that I want to make films and that the movie watching is really just me studying and learning, which is true, but I still have a DVD buying addiction. So my first thought when entering the store was to avoid the section at all costs. I found the lamp section, well away from the DVDs, fairly easily. They ended up being right behind these mirrors that I wandered off to take a look at. I need a HUGE mirror in my room to take up this empty wall. I thought about just getting a painting for it but a mirror would be a perfect fit. The mirrors at Target weren't big enough so I turned around and there were the lamps. The section was full of all kinds of lamps, from those that were ornately designed to the most simple table lamp that latches on to the desk. I wanted something in between because the latched one looks cheap but the fancy ones were too fancy, after all I just needed it so that I could read in bed. After thoroughly looking at them all I decided to just replace the bulb on my old lamp rather than buy a new one.

In my wandering to find the bulbs I came across some cool pictures that may have a place in my apartment. I realized after 10 minutes or so that they didn't and that I was just wasting time and ventured further into the unchartered territories of the store. And what did I happen to stumble across but a full tiki oasis. There is nothing that I need more in my house than a tiki bar. There wasn't much deliberation before I headed towards the paradise in the middle of the store but the closer I got the more flaws that I saw. The bar looked cheap and after sitting on the stools and feeling the flimsiness of it all I realized that this was all just an illusion and that I'd better wait until I found a better one to invest in. But there were these cool coconut cups that I just had to have. However there was only one and that would not do so I headed off to find the others.

The drinkware section was dangerously close to the DVD section but I maintained my sights and the objective at hand. The cups were nowhere to be found though and soon my eyes drifted to a small section located within the drinkware section that including the title I was trying to avoid "DVDs". The section was small and all the movies were well priced. I decided that Baseketball was a movie well worth 5.50 and that it was my first positive purchase selection chosen thus far. I also decided to continue searching for my cups in the electronics section of the store. I needed another power strip for my lamp anyway because my computer, camera, printer, portable hard drive and phone charger were also in this area. But instead of deciding on a simple power strip I saw the Monster power strip that had everything color coded connections for my cable, which would make the entertainment center so much easier to manage. And right next to these power strips were the surround sound speaker stands that I asked the woman about two days before to which her reply was "we don't have any". So two more purchase decisions were made and still didn't have my lamp, which is all I really needed in order to do my homework. I still had the cup in my hand and I thought I would find the others first before getting the lamp but my hands were full and I was beginning to drop my merchandise as I stumbled onward.

I tried to fit them all into one of those hand-baskets but the speaker stands made that impossible. I saw a cart with only on item in it and decided to make a run for it. After taking the one item out I realized that I had just penetrated the heart of the DVD section and felt overwhelmed with desire to grab more movies. "No! No, I thought, continue onward" and I grabbed the cart and rushed out of the section, grabbing Everything is Illuminated along the way. I emerged from the section virtually unscathed but another trip into the section might not prove as successful. I decided that there could be no more close calls. I would ask the man where the cups were, get my lamp and leave.

I loaded the three extra cups that the man helped me find and the clip lamp to my cart and headed towards the checkout. On my way I saw a cute girl with what I thought was her daughter but the words "let's go find your mother" drifted into my ears and a little victory dance started to play in my mind. When I turned to see where she had gone, she was nowhere in sight. After seriously considering trying to find an excuse to backtrack through the store I decided that it was better to just get home because I was already way behind schedule. Besides, the girl in front of me didn't look too bad either. Tall but cute. Nothing was said as she headed out the door and I was calculating the amount of the items in my cart. The cashier commented on the cuteness of the cups that I was purchasing to which I replied:

"Yeah I know I was psyched when I saw those. Now all I need is a blender and a tiki bar."

That's about when it hit me. I was at Target, alone, on a Saturday night and "psyched" about some coconut cups that I happened to find.

Poems

Wonderboy's Poem:

Suburban Beauty

White picket fence neatly trimmed
Grass pressed flat beneath soles
Steady beat of solstice
Heel to toe heel to toe
Walk-in closets framed portraits
Eye level

Two feet sucked to the bathroom floor
Moisture gripping between skin and tile
A naked reflection and blank stare
Shared by one in the wall mirror
Hung above a sink
Two more feet take hold the surface
Stepping from a steamed abyss

Face down in down
Screaming into sheets to drown
The sound
Behind closed doors
Lies
A truth few come to know
If only these walls could talk
Chimes the grandfather clock

Cold chrome nips temples
Soon another black
Automobile parade down the
Street where neighbors share drinks
Barbeques and pools
White picket fences guard a castle
Defending all the kings horses
And all the kings men


MY Reaction:

Urban Reality

Blood stained couches breath the flame
Of a terror restrained in a shallow nihility
Constant beats of sorrow
Bumpitity bump bump bumpity bump
Licking the lips
And drooling

One foot sturdy on the shower floor
A dampened wall grasping the innocent toes
Breathing becomes heavy
The curtain is pulled
Metal spawns the scarlet flow
Of liquids drawn jaggedly down
Dragging masses through a steamed abyss

Warmth renews
The vacant accepts the solid
But the shrieks are saturated
And pain is rampant
In these Does that have no say
If only these neighbors would talk
Mutters the district attorney

Youth filled potholes are a prospering breed
Where buildings rise high
And the sky lacks color
Anonymous men stroll
Court systems ponder
White papers guard the individual
Attacking all the weak horses
And all the weak men.

Notes Fron Georgia

Special forces colonel- ramming techniques start slow and accelerate when close, "who does not want to get dirty?", point man, gunner

Former drill sergeant- all of his damn equipment, tall, chubby, mustache, balding, tattoos, looked like a real outdoors type of guy from the south who has a lot of shotguns

Army reserve captain, and navy officer along with sergeant holding on tight in back seat when I'm the sober driver driving them home.

At dinner in a fancy seafood restaurant with this girl, cant remember her name, she was short and chubby wearing a leather biker jacket and showing a lot of cleavage. Long black hair styled much like you'd expect a girl that was into death metal to. Overall trashy looking but had beautiful eyes. It was like looking at two roses in the middle of a swamp.

We ate at a fancy seafood restaurant just as we sit down and are asked if we are ready to order by the server:

"I'll have a shot of whiskey"

"Would you like a bourbon or a scotch?"

"whatever's cheapest!"

"Well we have a scotch that is fairly priced"

"How much is it?"

"3.75"

"That's the one I want"

"Okay."

"Are the rest of you ready to order?"

She had no money so the jag captain that we were with decided to order a bunch of appetizers that we could share and she could partake in. This is when we find out that she is a food tester in the army. That is her job.

"Oh yeah how long have you been in", the officer asks.

She pulls her hands out from under the table and puts up seven, no eight fingers.

"Eight months. Oh okay."

She then shakes her head no and says:

"No eight years."

"Oh", was all that he could say but I could see in captains face a look of puzzlement and astonishment. Eight years in the military and she had not advanced one grade. It seemed impossible.


Then, in the car:

"This is a picture of my husband."

He looked like Kid Rock.

"And this is a picture of my boyfriend."

He looked like a terrorist."

Recreating Self

I wrote this as an email a couple of days ago. I've been trying to keep the two separate but I haven't been writing much of either with my focus being school right now so I figured screw it.


Something was getting lost in the pursuit of
structures and ideas. The personal touch he had once
prided his writing on was now being submerged in
academic entanglements. The warmth and security he
once felt when writing about himself and others had
now become mysterious and violent. There was no solid
ground in the everyday activities of his world. At a
time when his mind was growing and changing and being
constantly exposed to a wealth of different music,
film and literature his personal life had become a
stagnant cornucopia of meaningless events strung
together with thin lines of optimism of a near distant
future that could not come soon enough.

That's about as accurate a description as I could make
of my life right now. I go out a lot. My mind is
accepting and expanding a whole lot. Yet, I dunno, I
feel like a person that is detached from himself. I'm
not sad OR happy. I just am. At times I'm
enlightened by ideas and at other times I'm enraptured
by the moment. I get my work done. I have fun with
my friends but there is just something lacking. Me,
I'm lacking in my life. I don't know where I am
anymore. Where have I gone? Sometimes I say things
and I'm not quite sure if I really mean it or not.
And it's not that I'm trying to lie. It's that I
really don't know. I guess maybe it's just something
to be said. It's like something has taken over my
mind and is using it for more useful purposes. It has
decided that I was just holding him down, so he
dispersed of me and started pursuing his own agenda.
Oh my, "I am Jack's bleeding desires".

I think I've been letting others do my imagining for
me. But instead of embracing their visions for the
created world that they are presenting to me, I'm
analyzing the structure of the plot. I'm identifying
the importance of the characters in the telling of the
story and what significance each action has on the
following action and noting why certain things work
and others don't. I'm embracing the camera's
different angles and movements and wondering about the
type of camera being used and whether there are
special lenses or filters added to it. I'm relating
the film's themes and form to others that I know have
come before it and comparing them to examples in
literature. I'm commenting on the music and sounds
that fit and don't and realizing the exact moment that
a suspension of disbelief has been reached and why. I
enjoy the films I watch and the books that I read and
definitely the music and sounds that accompany it all
but I'm not present in any of it, or if I am, I
realize that I am and stand back a look at myself as
though I'm a voyeur looking on my own life. It's all
become a big show and I'm watching myself act in it.

I guess I just… don't, exist anymore. I'm an illusion
of a me I once was and, at present, a me that I've
never met. There's no meaning as it pertains to self
anymore but a meaning derived in hopes of creating new
meaning which in turn is creating a new self that
hides in shadowy doorways waiting for the right time
to attack my body and stage a complete coup. Is that
all growth is? Am I growing? Is growth just a losing
of one self and the gaining of another, completely
different self? And if so, what happens to the old
self and where does the current self go during that
time of growth? When does the old self become the
current and the current become the new?

It's been some time now since I've tried to find my
current or developing self. I guess I just miss the
search. That's what these emails are usually about.
It's my search. But what is there to write about if
you've already found what you've been looking for?
What happens when all your "selves" converge and there
is no past or future but a fleeting present? Nothing.
Actions occur, days go by and eventually you get out
of the army and travel up and down the United States
in a car with a sunroof and a good friend.