I am the shadow of the waxwing slain

It's a moleskine week... it's tiny precise letters in a peculiar red ink. I've eaten too much Nabokov and I'm burping little pockets of synesthetic prose.
See you soon blog, it's not a goodbye.

Spin

I don't have many regrets in life. I subscribe to that horribly hackneyed idea that everything past made me what I am today. Yes, yes I know. Why on earth would I not regret that?
There is one thing though and it occurred about a year ago.
I happened to meet James Meredith. I'll level with you - I'd never heard of him before. My extensive knowledge of key civil rights players began with King and ended with X.
Upon learning I was British he asked me What's the difference between Great Britian and The United Kingdom? I told him. So far so good.
Then he began to tell me how in the olden days, well-to-do English ladies had little black boys as pets. That they would parade the streets of London, bedecked with finery and leading a little black boy along on a piece of string. Like a dog.
I shook my head, no no no that's not true. It is true he solemnly informed me, nodding. The man had a stately way about him. What could I say... no no no that's not true again? It didn't sway him the first time around. So I gave him a small shrug and a furrowed brow and somebody else entered the conversation and the topic changed.
That's my small regret; That I didn't have an answer or a proof to give him. When I think about it I feel almost angry. He should have proffered a proof to me. He made the outlandish statement, he's the one telling a tall tale and labelling it Fact. Well it's not fact, James Meredith, it's spin.

Hey Hombre! You put a hole in me!

Yep, Chump. That's sums it up. You did a number on me. Nice one. Well done. Gotta hand it to ya. A compliment on your shooting. Good game. Good game.

Oh no, Hey, Wait a second! What's wrong with this picture? Why am I the walking wound? Why has everybody got just what they wanted... except me? Why do I lose? If we had to pick just one of us who broke the rules, I wouldn't pick me. I'd pick you. You're the bad guy. Now I'm the fall guy. It's not right. It's not fair.

Things I'd save in a fire #1

I found this today...

[well, when I say "found", I mean I spent fifteen minutes ransacking my drawers in search of it]

Carlo wrote this on the inside of a cigarette packet. I was having a crisis of confidence, you know the spiel, I'm not this enough and I'm too much of that.

Here's what you are, Rachael he said.

And I loved him in that moment (and every moment after) but I never found a way to say it, and now its far too late, and it wouldn't have mattered even if I had so actually it's not one of those missed opportunites I beat myself up over, it just was.... and wasn't... but, Hi Carlo, if you ever find this, Hi Carlo!

How do you want me?

I am impossibly sad. Or fiercely angry. I can't tell.

In a timeframe of less than 2 hours, these two dated, dissatisfied men have done their damnest to eviscerate me.
[and the maddening thing is, their cruel tricks almost worked]*

The option, he said, is to find a family of your own and spend christmas with them.

Let me contextualize that for you:
I was bleating dejected trains about my building christmas dread, about the sniping and the point-scoring that sit down to dinner with my mother, my father and I.
How I hate Christmas, how it's so cold and sad here in this outgrown cocoon made for three.

And then he gave me the other option.
I must be a fool... I thought there were limitless options, permutations, scenarios, possibilities. I thought I could shoot into space as an astronaut, I thought I could tour Europe as a rock star, I thought I could sail to far off shores, I thought I could dive into bottomless oceans, I thought I could run marathons, race rallies, fire arrows, sail seas. I thought I could slay monsters (allegorical of course), bestride worlds, open doors of perception... or just get so high I look down on Heaven itself.

Oh no. There's only that other option. Find yourself a family. Spend Christmas, new year, next year, life, forever, with them. Cheat on them when you start circling forty and the disenchantment stings. Grovel like Hoggle when they find out. Play dumb, play dead, do it again.
~~~
That's why you're still single he quipped.
Time stopped. As he clipped the last syllable, that little phrase hurtled through spacetime, across the room, over the dining table like a quantum packet.
Time stretched. I tilted to read the left of it, it came closer, I bended further away, we all warp a little, jelly minatures on a wobble board.
Bang. It blew up in my face.

It doesn't matter to me why you think I'm single, it doesn't matter to me why I am single, it doesn't matter to me that I am.
What matters is that you think I should be double.

I can do this alone. I know I can... you're supposed to be a feminist, you always always said you were.
How do you want me? Am I to take what I can get? That's him you know. Him and men like him. Cheats, cowards, cravens.
You're supposed to love me Daddy. Don't make me take that.

*Not on purpose, never my intention, that's not what I meant, I didn't mean it/to, you misunderstand, you're reading too much into it. - These are not valid excuses and will not be accepted.