I wish it would rain.
me too.
Thunder storm.
hard core.
Hell yes.
haha.
Oh me, oh my.
tell me about it.
I feel better, now.
Good.

...To recoil in awe is something. The thin film draped over my mind is drawn taught; then it tears like cellophane. Emotion burbles up and over with the slick consistency of lukewarm dishwater. I do not want to be touched, or spoken to, or noticed. I want to dissipate into the moment like a mistreated watercolor. When I am truly lost for words, I am aware of my shame, and I hold it close.

I heard her sing two years ago. I was there, in that humid room in Texas, next to the piano, five feet away from her. I remember singing the song with her in the car, going over it before it was time. As it turns out, I had never really heard Her sing. Not the person there, next to the piano. It exploded from her tiny body, up out of her diaphragm and past her heart and up up up through her vocal cords and out into the changed air. My calm was shredded, and I became acutely aware that she would never see from me what she produced so elegantly, so casually for everyone there- the other theater kids, the punks in detention, the ridiculous show choir teacher.

Tonight, I should have gone to sleep, but I stayed awake, and did some research. I listened to a song-- one with blocky english lyrics and pedantic medieval imagery-- and realized how stupid, how thoughtless, how commandeering I had been. I am embarrassed. Rocked? Rocked works here. I am not referring to skill, scale, or magnitude; I heard an unmasking, and knew myself deceived. It tore my perception of you, and I comprehend my foolishness in striking definition. It is as though I'd been playing with a gun all day, to suddenly realize it had been loaded all along.

I am a fool, and perturbed by the notion that I'm nothing more than moderately clever and verbally well-equipped, with little insight and way too much clown paint.

Me? I believe that rock 'n roll can save your immortal soul. I believe in the raw, American power of a well placed cliché. I believe in ghosts. I usually believe my horoscope. I believe that people are imperfectable, that knowledge is infinite, and that the world is run by a secret union of credit card companies, coffee conglomerates, and the Disney channel. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe in miracles-- where you from, you sexy thing? I believe in love at first sight and I believe that Adults are just overgrown Children with deep communication issues and that the decline of good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state-to-state . I believe in sun block and I take serious stock in table manners. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our natural resistance to the germs and crawlies and that eventually we'll be so clean we'll all die out like the badguys in "War of the Worlds." I believe in the right to self-expression and a woman's right to choose and a baby's right to live and that Texas is probably witholding secret documents that prove it's actually been its own country all along. I believe in Jesus- and Odin, and Poseidon, and Kokopelli, and sea monsters that live deep down in the Marianas Trench. I believe it takes more than a shotgun to kill a moose and that anyone who says sex is overrated hasn't done it properly. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, that life is absolutely sacred and that somehow I've been put in something similar to the Truman Show and that maybe, just maybe, all my friends are robots.

How it were
and when and ere and if it could be
the Lancome calling
however enthralling
was dubious
an
appointed attack

a gesture calculated
crispy, crisp crisply
snowed more deeply
than stutters
and lisps

_____________

In Aztec mythology, there existed the great warrior Popocatepetl, called Popo in times of equanimity. For Popocatepetl there was a princess comely, called Iztaccihuatl, and to him there was nothing more than she. The princess had thighs that were full and moist, and hair the color of crushed ivory. To the princess, her heart may have beat without instruction, but only because the fiery spirit of Popocatepetl willed it so.

The lovers sought union, and so the warrior approached the king with hands burnt-so-black, Iztaccihuatl's father. Allow me your daughter and my enchanted spear shall be yours, Popo bargained. In similar stories, it has been told that the mighty warrior offered too a selection of finely spiced meats, which the king with palms of soot-and-ash instantly accepted, and the story ended happily and there, without a point and little else to be told. Whether or not spiced meats were ever included in the actual wager is open to question, but the truest of story tellers know that the marriage between warrior and princess was never so easily arranged.

In the best tellings, the sable-handed king gave the bargain his kingliest consent, but not before proffering his own conditions. If the mighty Popocatepetl was to have his daughter, he instructed, he was to first go to Oaxaca and join the war blossoming there. In this the king with knuckles-charred was most shrewd, as he reasoned that without the enchanted spear, Popocatepetl was no mightier than any man; his death was certain, and the blood-god Huitzilipoctli would claim his spirit when his body fell on the red rocks of the distant city.

The mighty Popocatepetl agreed to this without hesitation, and surrendered his enchanted spear without complaint. He set off for Oaxaca that night, and did not fear. Popocatepetl was led by love: the darkest jungles moved for love; the most fearsome of gods knelt before it in awe. In this was he confident, and the distant city soaked in blood trembled as the ancient paths bore his approach.

Many days passed, and many nights passed too, as the battle raged in the distant lands. After a time, the king of ebony-thumbs approached his daughter, the comely princess Iztaccihuatl, as she made her sacrifces to Ixtlilton, the medicine-god and bringer of luck. He bade her to set the skinned rabbits aside as the Luck-Bringer could no longer assist Popocatepetl; he was dead, his spirit claimed by Huitzilipoctli as his body fell on the red rocks of the blood-city. So stricken with grief was the princess Iztaccihuatl that she died in that very instant, the fire gone from her heart.

As fate would have it, and fate usually does, the great warrior Popocateptl returned to the village that very hour, the molars and fingernails of his enemies finely strung together about his neck and ankles. The women and whores of the village approached him with cheers and pats of admiration, but Popo did not stop to drink the wines and nectars they brought him. He sought only his love, the princess Iztaccihuatl. The children of the village laughed then, clapping their hands and spitting on the ground. Why do you laugh, the mighty warrior asked. It was then that the king with fingers-of-ebony emerged from his hut, the tears evident on his cheeks and tongue. Have you not heard, the women of the village squawked, the comely princess died not an hour before your return!

There are some story tellers who say that Popo sought vengeance then, brandishing his enchanted spear and running the king with burnt-black hands straight through, carving out his eyes and placing his shrewd and horrible face on display for the rest of the village to see. The oldest and most unvarnished version of the tale, however, mentions nothing of the great warrior's retribution so swift and bloody, well-earned though it may have been. The oldest, most unvarnished tellings say that in there, in the moment of Popocatepetl's greatest despair, he drew his keen-edged dagger of stone and plunged it deep into his chest, piercing his heart and ending his life.

The gods witnessed this sacrifice and took pity on the two lovers. They covered them with snow, and their bodies became mountains. Iztaccihuatl's mountain was called the "White Woman" because of the resemblance it bore to the comely princess as she rested on her back, her hair the color of crushed ivory. The great warrior became the volcano Popocatepetl, and to this day, rains down fire on the Earth in furious rage over the loss of his beloved.

julian: you had better check yourself before you wreck yourslef

julian: have you put much thought into what your performance will be for this years annual follies?

cameron: no, i haven't

cameron: thought i'd go with the old turtle-in-the-sock, like every year

cameron: the kids love that one

julian: the turtle in the sock bit is getting a bit old

julian: i should tell you, it makes the women puke and the men shit in their pants

julian: personally