January 2007 Archives

There's a little slip of paper in my desk drawer that is asking me if I'm going to sit here for another year or leave it all behind. I was given a similar piece of paper about two months ago, but that one had a "Maybe" option on it. This one is a lot more passive-aggressive about its question. My deadline is about two days away and while, if I was asked two months ago, my heart was set on coming home, I found that over the last two weeks, I've been torn up by the question. I've spoken with the family and have been weighing every option and reason that I can think of only to discover that poking myself in the eye is a lot more fun than making a decision. I guess that life decision aren't something I have an aptitude for.

January has been a turn around from 2006b. After the time I spent with Alex, Juliette and Jackson in Seoul, I've felt like living again. Sure, there are the things which have happened that I can't forget nor forgive myself for, memories that have branded me from optical nerve to the deeper cortices of my skull, but I've stopped being near obsessively anxious about what certain people thought and expected of me. The lashing myself with the past has eased a bit in favour of the present, but before I can get even a decent grip on that, I've got to consider the future. Damn.

One thing that is making the decision stupidly hard is how seriously, to even my own surprise, my Japanese study has become. I know that when I return I'll have to consider a more profitable and sustainable career than speaking another language or making coffee again, but while I'm here I'm swimming in the everyday learning opportunities, which is obviously something that isn't as available anywhere else. I'm making progress and making mistakes, but I am improving. Regardless of that though, I do miss my family badly and my friends of course, all of who may not be back home if I stay even longer. That is, of course, to be expected. The scariest part is how old I will be if I do stay. It's all crazy I tells ya! I've been waking up in the morning thinking that I going to go home and then ending each day wanting to stay. I swear my neurological functions are scattier than a gas particle's vectors.

So I've finished my one class for today, and I'm thinking and smoking and weighing pros and cons and pacing and poking myself in the eye. Two days and I need an epipany real quick. And a strong drink. And to stop ranting.

lets start where i seem to notice i always start.

when a band is about to break up, there's always a mention, a rumour, a farewell tour. shit, i would've seen Arab Strap on their way through Nihon if weren't saving my cash for seeing Alex and Jackson in Korea and really didn't need any more of a bummer ride than the one i'm already on. i guess actors are kind of the same - you see them fade, taking shittier roles, dissolving into typecasts or exploding into media derision, shortly followed by ignorant death.

but what of writers (ok, i'm skipping artists and directors)? i have a surprising Pynchon hardcover waiting for me to gather the confidence and backpack space to read. Danielewski has finally released another book not related to HoL. Murakami is still at least releasing short stories even though his last novel was wanting. Shit, there's even been another Marquez novella to pick up.

But where do they go when they dont publish? DeLillo is silent. Where did he go? What has Wallace been doing? what happens to them? how do we know that they've thrown the towel in? where is the the crazy media outburst at the death or retirement of a talent?

i sit here with my milky pink sakura liquor diluted with calpis very late (or early) wondering this for theumteenth time in an empire of drafts thinking if i were ever something with what i do, the same thing would happen and i remember a perth poet talking of a wake held by other perth writers for the passing of Bukowski, and even though in some far away corner of this earth someone notices, but oh how quietly the writer lapses.

in the winter bleached grass
lies a crooked whisper
and night, having made its kill
caws bold and fed

the wind stands at attention
holding against the gathering
arid blue
                a white pennant jet stream

for where the river was
the morning birds wont return.

I"m glad to have you behind me.
Sincerely,
Richard