EXCLUSIVELY BY EXCALIBUR

Having spent half the summer safely hidden behind my uncle's dark, oversized "Excalibur" sunglasses, I'm left feeling naked and exposed on these dimmer days. Suddenly the movements of my eyes are no longer secret, and it takes me a minute to remember that the person across the bus from me can actually see me looking them up and down, nibbling their personal appearance like a mystery danish. Rasperry? Strawberry? Prune? So what if I am nibbling? Don't most people dress to be nibbled in the first place? It's probably all in my mind, but the looks they shoot back are reprimanding and defensive : Hey, you nibbler, I was saving this for the lunch of my own self-perception. Back off.

And now, because my blogging was interrupted, and the train of thought lost forever, I will discuss fruit:

Mango was probably the most intense person I'd ever met. She thrived off of and radiated intensity - it was an airborne contagion that seeped through the pores of your skin in her presence, and entered your bloodstream directly. With Mango, there was no such thing as a casual conversation - the girl was incapable of shooting the breeze or passing the time. Every moment, every subject, was novel and astounding, worthy of the most profound wonder and awe.

"Fruit," she'd say. "Fruit," her eyes widening with the madness of an enclosing serial killer, "The most amazing fruit experience I've ever had was with a papaya." Her words fell with measured cadence; her hand would grip the arm of your chair and those crazed eyes would look deep into your own. "This papaya, it wasn't a normal papaya, it was the richest, reddest papaya I've ever seen ... it was so red - like dark, oxygen-rich blood!" As these words sank in you would suddenly become aware that your own eyes had widened enough to instigate a headache, the hairs on your arms would rise in fascination and anticipation - all for this bloody papaya.

"And then," she'd continue, "I took a bite, and it was the most sensual fruit eating I've ever experienced - I mean really, really sensual. The flesh had this musky smell to it, and it was so soft, and so sweet ... and it got me thinking about how in some cultures the papaya is, like, a symbol of a woman, and i totally understood it. It was really amazing..."

And then she would plunge from the depths of fructal intensity into the basin of cultural intensity, all the while holding you hostage with those enormous and furious eyes.

nail nibbling.

i've been looking for a symbol of myself. something that i can destroy with a physical release and rebuild with careful thought. an effigy to burn and to redefine. i could make one of those rainbow sand-jar creations out of the ashes, and bring some old lady somewhere some joy. i could delete my facebook or myspace, one deliberate keystroke at a time, but honestly, neither of them actually represents me. i may be represented in my writing; in my journals, in my hack-poetry, in this passionless blog. but i'm too much of an egoist to destroy such a direct reflection of my thoughts. conundrum.

just because i wanted motion

it's too hot with the window closed, too cool with it open. there is no in-between zone, just short alternating intervals of equal discomfort. if i didn't have this music i couldn't be typing right now. it's just that's how i've been lately - heavy and awkward and still. i'm hoping the beginning of classes will shake me down and back to myself and all of my stupid ideas. oh, how i miss my stupid ideas, i wish i knew who has them now.

you come back to class and your classmates are married, your classmates are in love, your classmates think they belong, your classmates have a list of everything that they want to do in their lives, and your classmates have the determination to do all of it. they're wonderful, even if it isn't all that simple, which i doubt that it is.

if you walk down cartier right now, and look up into my lighted study, you'll probably see me hunched here, scratching my nose or rubbing my eyes, thinking hard about what it is that i don't know i want to do, opening and closing my window, indecisive as ever.

you've watched me change

and it's happened again.
it rather needed to, didn't it?