Sometimes you just have to let the voicemail pick-up.

The phone rang. I had a taco in one hand and a hydrocodone in the other. What to do? Feet were not an option. I was smoking a bong with my left foot and carbing it with the right. Echo and the Bunnymen were on iTunes (“Do It Clean”.) I was kind of multi-tasked out. Somehow, my brain formed these words while I was contemplating the estimate the mover gave me today while enduring pain-to-the-bone torture of recent dental work and wondering where to dispose of old computers.

Let’s see what it’s going to be like this time…

Pre appointment:

On February 4^th, I went to the periodontist to have a “root lengthening” procedure—something I didn’t particularly think was going to be too painful, but turned out to be unbearable up until this past Monday. Today, I’m going back for the follow-up appointment. I guess he’s going to remove the stitches and see if I’ve healed properly. I have no idea what to expect, actually. I called the office three times over the past 12 days because of the ongoing pain. Finally, this past Monday—the third time I called—they put me on the phone with the doctor and he called in a prescription for hydrocodone. That was sufficient to knock me out and dull the pain until today. Hopefully, I won’t be needing anymore (for medical reasons) in the near future. We’ll see.

Post appointment:

I spent about 15 minutes in the chair. Most of that time was spent watching various assistants fill up a goodie bag for me. And by goodies, unfortunately I don’t mean those of the paper kind that one redeems to a pharmacist. No I got, like, 50 of these weird sponges on a stick that I’m supposed to use to brush the surgical site.

The doctor came into the operatory, opened my mouth, looked in, said, “Cool” and walked out. An assistant came in, said I was done, and scheduled my next follow-up. Boom. Done.

I grabbed my backpack, threw on my coat and left. I called Lynn from 30 Rock and began to make my way across town to see her. It’s a nice walk, especially when I consider what’s waiting for me at 919 3^rd Ave. I took a different route today and found a church dedicated to what might be my third favorite thing next to Lynn and the Red Sox: the NY Jets Team Store.

Even though I was supposed to meet Lynn, I had to stop in to say a quick Novena. It was glorious. Wall-to-wall Jets stuff. I was in emerald heaven. Alas, I didn’t stay long. I wanted to see Lynn and—this is important—I was cleared to eat chewable food! The Jets store could wait. The food couldn’t. I wasn’t sure if she would have time to dine with me, but I was kind of hoping she would. Turned out to be one of the best dates we’ve had so far.

We went to a nice place tucked under the Barnes and Nobel across the street from her office. We were shown to an out of the way booth and after looking at the menu for one fifteenth of a second, I decided to get a cheeseburger.

Before we even ordered I was on my second Diet Coke. Lynn was in perfect form, lamenting her workload while asking to see what I had written for the day. (She has admirable standards.) I showed her the first paragraph of this lame piece. She liked the second to last sentence. So did I.

During Diet Coke #3, our lunch came. Cheeseburger for me, veggie burger for her. The first bite I took was a cow-gasm. And I mean that in the best possible way. It was salty and savory and juicy and chewy and actually required the use of my lower jaw. (Even Lynn’s burger was awesome. So good, in fact, that I might actually go for a veggie burger the next time we’re there.) I ate all but the last few ounces, calling it quits before I hit the tipping point, which would have necessitated a nap in the booth.

The burger, surprisingly, wasn’t the highlight of our date, however.

The best part was Lynn’s super-amazing feat of side order amazement. She’s been on a hilariously attractive and endearing clumsy streak lately and performed a magical circus trick with a French fry while we were in mid chomp fest. Somehow, she lifted a few fries off of her plate and—I have no idea how she did it—made one shoot out of her hand, fly completely off the table, rotate with the velocity of a military helicopter as it hovered in mid air, then, as if the fry had a mind of its own, it realized what it was doing, stopped twirling and began obeying the laws of Newtonian physics again as it dropped to the floor.

I don’t thing we’ve ever enjoyed a laugh like that before.

We capped the date with a quick visit upstairs to the Barnes and Nobel. Lynn bought me the latest issue of my favorite Brit pop magazine, Mojo. It was heavy on the Nirvana content, so it made the train ride home a breeze. Truth be told, the whole day was a breeze. And I will never, ever forget being blown away by that flying French fry.

Reassessing indigo tides

Pulsing and tossing to a wide wake wave from the moon.

Where is the ultimate question.

Where will you be, will you be when you drop?

Where, you can avoid.

When, you cannot.

Ultra–meta.

Pray to the god of meta.

Metaphysical.

Metamorphosis.

Metalanguage.

Ultra-mega.

Pray to the god of mega.

Megaphysical.

Megamorphosis.

Megalanguage.

To simply re-read is impossible semantically, because time is the mythical ocean you can never step into twice.

You get the max for the minimum, the minimum price.

You can't redo anything. Unless, of course, you relive the exact same life. But then, you'd have to relive it at the exact same time/space relationship within the universe, making time bogus because the same life would have to occur an infinite number of times simultaneously without time occurring which is God with a capital gee.

An infinite number of events progressing at the same time without time occurring, passing, existing. If true, how would the concept of time be perceived? Identified? Invented? How could anything but infinity exist in the blink of an eye?

This is the essential, bare bones, greatest common denominator of an eternal mystery.

*

Endurance alone cannot overcome the speculative spectrum of this contemplation.

Converging, submerging, and a call for help as broken hearts beat.

A silent, unheard call characterized by deceptively strong modes of interaction.

Later, a stun quick and empty, savage silence and a bottom–scraping crash.

Later, sanity and a reality that isn't so bad.

Later, full circle and re-acquaintance and other similar intentions.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. (2/4/11)

A crown popped off of the top of one of my back teeth last week, so I made an appointment with my dentist to have it replaced. Simple enough, right?

Not so much.

Turns out there was a fair amount of decay that had migrated below the gum line and to the root. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the Starburst, Jolly Ranchers, and Skittles I gorge on just about every night. So what happens when you have decay below the gum line? Your friendly neighborhood periodontist gets involved.

In my case, he was called upon to do a benign-sounding procedure known as a crown lengthening. “Nothing to worry about,” the folks in my dentist’s office reassured me while urging I make the appointment for as soon as possible.

Boy, am I a sucker, or what?

Now, I know that any procedure that involves the manipulation of soft tissue has the potential to be a little invasive, so I decided to schedule the appointment as far into the future as possible. This gave me all of three days – Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday –

to prep for Friday morning’s appointment. I spent the time worrying less and less as the time grew near.

Sign #1 that it was going to be a bad day: I didn’t sleep the night before. I was worried I wouldn’t wake up in time to catch my train, so ironically, I did not sleep. I was awake when my alarm went off and when Lynn called. Exhausted and growing nervous, but awake.

Sign #2 that it was going to be a bad day: The train I wanted to catch never arrived. I wanted to ride in on an express, so as not to let the tension build. Instead, the local pulled up 10 minutes late, crammed with surly passengers. Somehow, I found a seat of my own. The train crawled toward the city as my heart rate accelerated.

Sign #3 that it was going to be a bad day: Once I finally made it to the office, I was pacified to the point of creepiness by the staff. Few things portend doom like overly kind and comforting people with sharp and pointy instruments within reach.

Sign #4 that it was going to be a bad day: There was a copious amount of blood-soaked gauze and cotton littering the assistant’s tray. I don’t think I was supposed to see that.

Proof positive that it was a bad day: Once the bloodletting was over and my mouth was sewn back up, I was told not to eat solid food for 10 days. So much for the, “nothing to worry about,” part. It’s freaking Super Bowl weekend. You know what that means? No pizza, nachos, chili, chips, Doritos, Cheetos, pretzels, burgers, buffalo chicken sandwiches, fried chicken, or Italian subs.

Nope, lucky me gets to sips lukewarm soup and squish Jell-O through the non-sutured side of my mouth. Pinch me, I’m dreaming.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. But there was a silver lining. Lynn hooked me up with two therapeutic wonders guaranteed to soothe the pain: a chocolate milkshake and a beaming smile. Even if it wasn’t supposed to be like this, I’ll take that any day.

Boom.

That dry old log I tossed into the fire whistled softly, hissed, and sounded with three sharp cracks. A momentary glow, a crisp scare, an enduring warmth. The fire roared and suddenly the log exploded. A shower of sparks soared up the chimney and arced outward toward you and me. For an instant, everything stopped—the brilliant pixels of light lingered in the darkness and burned into my mind’s eye.

The fire cooled and soon glowing embers were all that remained. Later, after we had fallen asleep, those embers were gone. Later still, when we awoke together at dawn to open our gifts, there was more light—the twinkling Christmas tree, the candles on the breakfast table, the daybreak peeking through the blinds, glinting off of your shiny new diamond ring. But all I truly remember are those sparks and your expression of delighted shock illuminated by the burning tinder in the fireplace.

Earlier that night we walked hand in hand from the solemn, incense-filled church into the bracing winter air, the sky dotted wildly with stars. Remember? Walking home, we had a conversation about the sermon—the standard holiday homily about the spirit of Christmas. We were proud of how in touch we were of with that essence. You brought up the day we visited the Children’s Hospital to deliver presents. We wanted a baby of our own. I confessed to you that I felt a little guilty about the heartwarming feeling the visit gave me.

That night, I said that all Christmases should be that special. You said nothing would ever live up to it. We never did finish that conversation. We should have. Maybe we remember just enough so that things make sense.

That Christmas was one isolated instance in the grand scheme of our lives. Why am I reflecting when so much has happened since then? Because now I understand. We spend lifetimes waiting for experience to crystallize into emotion. We decorate our lives with ritual to summon feelings we cannot otherwise embrace. And when moments do become emotion, they take us by surprise.

You’re gone and I’ve forgotten entire years of my life, yet the clarity of that dazzling instance in front of the fireplace is still pure in my memory. That dry old log exploded and it rained fire for one split second. One split second when we were in love and everything made sense.

Sneezing is a form of orgasm

…It sounded like a meatball flipped out of the pasta pot and splatting onto the kitchen floor. It was an awkward moment, as we has just been passionately making out when suddenly she had to sneeze. Her nasty snot bomb hit the wall with the aforementioned force. I reeled backward as she invoked the choo part of the a-choo. Her perfume still smelled as pretty as it had in the four hours we had spent in each other’s company before the settled suck face session began. And in the company of the intoxicating and her, her, her, beautiful presence, we had nothing left to do after that sneeze than to watch the loogie slowly slide down right smack in the middle of Conan O’Brian’s face on my 25” Magnavox TV. Eerily, Conan seemed to mind. Me? I fiercely resisted the impulse to sprint toward the Windex and paper towels. Let me think how I can ignore this, I thought. Then, in her beautiful demure meaner, she politely asked for a tissue. I hand her one as she excuses herself to the bathroom, then I take one for myself to mop up the TV screen. I get this creepy feeling that I’m wiping cum off of Emily Post’s face. As in real fast, before she notices.

This is my favorite song right now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbGw3A9Dg…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx4kDnVTS5w&NR=1

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Degrees of difference

Setting the thermostat in winter…

The huge difference between 66 degrees and 70 degrees. Where else but my fucking apartment do 4 degrees make such a difference? I mean, out of the whole spectrum of possible degrees within the reactionary response of human flesh, I’ve narrowed it down to 0.01% of comfort. Yet that equalizes a 30% increase in my heating bill.

Now I know that I don’t have a 360-degree spectrum to work with as far as my furnace is concerned, but the difference still puzzles me. Like, if it were 4 degrees between liking a girl and not (hot or cold), I’d spot the difference. I got Lynn right, thank God.

Way back when I started off small. In 1985 I was 19 years old. I was a highly respected Boogie Boarder on the Central Jersey Shore and was in the second semester of my freshman year at the College of New Jersey. In the spring, on every sunny day when the temperature tipped 70 degrees, I’d leave campus and drive down the new Interstate spur to Seaside Heights. Those days often fell on weekdays and, um, I did miss a few classes. But I was 19 years old and tan and my veins surged with independence. By the time the semester was over, my GPA was 1.8, but my self-esteem was off the chart. For a change.

Or, in other words, to a certain degree.

Fossil fuel

Nobody remembers exactly how we got together that exquisite summer night. We all just ended up there, parked on the side of Sandy’s lawn next to the driveway. It was half gravel, half grass mixture, so it was okay to both park on and mow. We parked six cars, all pointing toward different landscapes on the horizon. Tire tracks fading from acceptance to lawn.

Nobody remembers who reclined on their car hood first. We all ended up on someone’s car, the warmth of a cooling engine beneath, eying the shining elegance of the stars above. We talked, just basically shooting shit, passed around some beers and a bottle of champagne. As for the champagne, we had nothing to celebrate but for the fact that it tasted better than those fucking wine coolers.

Nobody remembers who became aware that we were in a deep conversation until it was too late. We couldn’t move. It was time to come to conclusions and view a spectacular meteor shower.

I slipped into a fine line to mode out and become one-dimensional. To focus on a star and become the line of sight between myself and the space between. To be that line and to bond and bridge. To maintain composure and stop at the star, to not penetrate its surface. Only touch the tension. Allow it to froth and twist in its own dimensions. Touch, understand, then leave and be the line and the single dimension. Watch the soft focus. Nurture the vision.

Travel like gods, sweat the ages away, and do me.

Notes From a Future Exile from Red Bank

Our entire physical activity is bent upon procuring pleasure and avoiding pain. – Freud

The ego learns that it must inevitably go without immediate satisfaction, postpone gratification, learn to endure a degree of pain, and all together renounce certain sources of pleasure. Thus trained, the ego becomes, “reasonable,” is no longer controlled by the pleasure of principle, but follows the reality principle. -- Freud

Exiles inhabit a personal universe. They may be found in any sort of place, but the choice is always based upon expediency – whether they stay for a short time or forever has little to do with the particular locale, for they do not commit themselves to any time or place. The site of the exile represents anyplace away from the place, or more commonly, person, the exile has voluntarily abandoned, fled from, or lost.

Cain’s exile in Genesis. Greek war myths about heroes like Philoctetes and Achilles. Odysseus, who does not want to go to war, yet only serve as a prototype for the myth – which entails both the exile and the return from it – but also presents himself as the romantic epitome of the type.

The exile exists in a state of brooding alienation, but always with a submerged patriotism for the right side, if not for the flag-waving that symbolizes the right side. The exile, when fully aware of his own strengths and the necessity of action, can be counted on to burst his bonds.

Having said that, I will add this non sequitur: What is the difference between New York City and other cities? In New York we wear nicer shoes to walk on dirtier sidewalks.

The End, for now.