rocket to nowhere

a constraint creates
an independence from the
blank page tyranny

vs.

there is also freedom
in not knowing the answer
to seventeen plus one

Terry pulled up his socks before entering the room. Terry always pulled up his socks before entering a room. Terry pulled up his socks before entering any room and that meant Terry pulled up his socks as he was exiting a room and that meant Terry was often to be found bent over in doorways. Terry was often in the way.

Terry pulled up his socks before entering the room. Racquel could see most of him through the doorway, but couldn’t quite tell what he was doing, she could just see he was bent over. She wondered why he was pausing before coming to speak with her. She could understand perhaps pausing to pop a breath mint into one’s mouth, but to bend over, especially when one was wearing loafers (she couldn’t see laces from where she was seated). . . . She couldn’t understand it.

After Terry entered the room and exchanged a few words with Racquel, he left. As he was leaving, he bent over to pull up his socks, thus giving Racquel a mostly unwanted view of his posterior. Racquel was not offended. She was, however, even more curious about Terry’s somewhat bizarre behavior. She couldn’t tell why he was bending over. Terry, of course, had no idea he was bothering anyone at all. In fact, Terry would have been surprised to learn he paused to pull up his socks before entering a room.

vs.

Before declaring himself supreme ruler of the mountain (which was just a pile of dirt behind the Mortenson’s house), Serge paused to adjust the waistband of his underwear, thus giving Emily an opportunity to unseat him. Serge realized his knee was bleeding when he stopped rolling. He immediately screamed, “Blood!” which caused the other children to stop and stare at him. Serge looked around at them, fear and hatred burning behind his eyes. He then noticed everyone had scuffed and bleeding knees. Serge adjusted the waistband of his underwear and mounted an attack on the top of the hill, where Emily was still king.

Two days later, while digging through the trash behind the Cuthburt’s house, Serge was approached by Emily, who had a look on her face unlike anything Serge had seen before. He dropped the grimy copy of Juggs magazine he had just found, and stared into Emily’s face. Emily looked at Serge, down at the trash, and back up at Serge. She adjusted the waistband of her underwear. She spat into the dirt of the alley. Some muddly spittle splashed up onto Serge’s shoe. Emily turned around and walked away.

The day before their game of King of the Mountain, when he had so ruthlessly deposed her by shoving a mud pie in her face, down her shirt, and down her pants, Serge and Emily had spent the day catching frogs down by the bend in the creek. When Serge had six frogs, and Emily only had five, she grabbed one of his, pulled off its legs and arms, and threw its body into the creek. “There,” she had said, “now we’re even.”

magnets (all sizes) vs. half-width closing carts (all sizes)
six-inch Bowie knife vs. titanium flashlight
collectible porcelain vs. archimedean disambiguation
help & vigilance vs. temerity & toejam
telephonic etiquette vs. mad skeelz
Super Grover Underoos vs. trebuchet
toothsome vs. casserole
leather gloves vs. vast array of microwave amplifiers
candy bar vs. Miles Davis
Goat Island vs. the Family Circus
Extraneous Canes Among the Down & Out vs. Gonging the Falloon
cuticle shards vs. appleseed
haiku vs. ∞+1
new shorts vs. Batman tattoos
W.G. Sebald vs. small, green, steno pads
chocolate sprinkles vs. Aristotelian logic
debutante vs. Cincinnati
Lake McConaughy vs. finger-banging Cindy Crawford
gazebo vs. chapter 55
unlash wheel vs. ornery ninja elf
Nalgene vs. Thomas de Zengotita
airborne vs. sullen
miniature blue furniture vs. Bound Stems
blood stains vs. an treuell
Obtund Mess vs. covertly unreal realistic
Bob Newhart vs. Gemuetlichkeit

“We study the order of things, says Browne, but we cannot grasp their innermost essence. And because it is so, it befits our philosophy to be writ small, using the shorthand and contracted forms of transient Nature, which alone are a reflection of eternity.”

“I still see quite clearly the massive, elaborately carved sideboard, on one side of which stood a glass case containing an arrangement of artificial twigs, colorful silk bows and tiny, stuffed humming-birds, and on the other a conical pile of china fruit.”

—W.G. Sebald

This photo was taken on Monday, May 30, 2004 at 2:50 p.m. It was taken on the only long walk of the day, and in the same park as yesterday’s photo of the water from February fifth. This was the walk of the wild mushroom; the church party blaring Xtian music; hacky-sacking hippies; fat-assed bicyclists; ugly read-headed children; “Look! It’s a fruit store!”; another store that smelled of farts; “I don’t care where we go, I don’t care what we do. I don’t care, pretty baby, just take me with you.”; flowers on trees that smelled like inner tubes; sitting in the grass and looking up at the trees; a small twist cone, a chocolate-dipped cone, and a small Coca-Cola.

“But the fact is that writing is the only way in which I am able to cope with the memories which overwhelm me so frequently and so unexpectedly. If they remained locked away, they would become heavier and heavier as time went on, so that in the end I would succumb under their mounting weight. Memories lie slumbering within us for months and years, quietly proliferating, until they are woken by some trifle and in some strange way blind us to life. How often this has caused me to feel that my memories, and the labours expended in writing them down are all part of the same humiliating and, at bottom, contemptible business! And yet, what would we be without memory? We would not be capable of ordering even the simplest thoughts, the most sensitive heart would lose the ability to show affection, our existence would be a mere neverending chain of meaningless moments, and there would not be the faintest trace of a past.”
—W. G. Sebald

This photo was taken on Saturday, February 5, 2005 at 2:39 p.m. I don’t expect that date or time to mean much to anyone reading this, so let me just say that it was taken on the second long walk of the day, the second long walk and talk. On the first long walk, things were hypothesized. On the second long walk, things were finalized. Later that evening, I went for a 3+ hour drive on which almost nothing was said.
Today, I was going to write about how there is no way of knowing what kind of post will engender commentary—except that the post I want people to comment on will without fail receive no commentary whatsoever. Instead, I’m . . . ah . . . what am I writing about?

Passport Transport

pass port trans port
port port trans pass
pass trans port port
port pass port trans

port trans port pass
port trans pass port
trans port port pass
pass port port trans

trans port pass port
trans pass port port
port port pass trans
port pass trans port