According to the June 2007 Discover Magazine, the internet weighs 0.2 millionths of an ounce.
I count my skin as fingerprints, distant voices traveling through wires, places I lived that are only names on highway signs where I am now, and the paper pamphlets collected from endless hands on corners, islands of passion in the middle of seas of uniform strangers, all stars of their own films, to which I’m barely an extra. I count my fingerprints as netted truth, minutes caught together in information and joy, the small symbolic poetry of crossing an invisible finish line, arms in the air.
Yesterday I was out of it, eyes dilated, responding to my environment as if my nervous system was watching from outer space. Sounds felt tinny, like my tongue. It started after work on Thursday. Thursday night after my phone-call, I curled up in my duvet nest of bed, (the other half of my mattress is stacks and piles of books), and stared at the ceiling until I was willing to be crazy and simply get up again. Trying to sleep was about as effective as talking to a wall, which meant that Friday began a little loose around the edges. I had red bull and blue curacou for breakfast, and then for lunch, as I helped Silva set up her yard sale, which is when the edges completely fell out and the world began to sway in careful patterns.
It didn’t help that my evening then became the I Braineater gallery opening where my friend’s father randomly accused me of having a birthday soon and then, just as suddenly, ceased to talk to me; explaining, in detail, how one goes about safely blowing up 100 televisions; mildly hallucinating while standing on the corner by Tinseltown, having a deep personal conversation with a man I barely know; wading into a thrashing metal mosh-pit in a dark dirty pub full of kids with ironic Aerosmith t-shirts; possibly breaking some teeth of a junkie who wanted my bag then sitting with a hippie pan handler, tears tattooed under his eyes like a harlequin, to help him tie his shoes; ending up at Organix and finding it full of drunk brazilian boys, (since when did anyone have alcohol at a psytrance night?); finally having to hurt one of them too, just to be left alone; being given a Bjork ticket by a best friend’s ex-boyfriend’s roommate, (the same man who left me to wake up next to an unknown naked scotsman once); then realizing, when I’m home after dancing until I couldn’t walk and barely see, that the machine-gun sun was coming up and I had to be somewhere in a couple of hours. (I suspect that I sent some worrying e-mails to various countries then, but I haven’t the energy to check the damage yet. Nor will I, so fess up.)
So Friday became Saturday, where I got to ache, have more blue curocaou, sit a lot, try not to haphazardly cry, (being a rational human being has no place in such matters, apparently), and be mildly rained on at the yard sale. Saturday I finally slept, but not until something that wasn’t quite 2 a.m. I’m still burned out, but it’s more of a flickering scorch than a hospital ward stay. Such things do not actually “get better” but the machine, after hiccoughs, smooths itself out. Tonight Brian is picking me up after work to help me recover, tomorrow Keith is yanking some of us out to a random island for photos, and I’ve got dinner with not-the-conspiracy-theorist Merlyn. Should be fun, (or at least distracting).