So It Goes

Video cameras can turn the most fluid, composed human being into a giggling fool, and so it's a pity that they also capture such embarrassment for future viewing. But, as it would turn out, I happen to be oddly elegant in front of the little beasts. Perhaps the laws of 'vice-versa' apply here and I was an imbecile before that little red light came to life? Hm.

I sketched a little today, and mixed some paints together just for the hell of it, but the air in my room is still far too hot and clinging for my artistic lungs to process, and so I retreated to stretch my creative legs elsewhere.

What started out as anatomy practice on Paint on the family room computer soon escalated into a complete line art (and I'll admit, the anatomy portion of the project was quite bluntly dejected). SHE'S STILL GOT IT(?), FOLKS.



In heat like this, I'm anxious for the Centennial, wherein I'll be dressed in a colourful albeit poorly-ventilated French dress and pulled by atop a 'float' for all to see, sweating like a dog all the while. Last I heard, there was a ridiculous hat to complete the ensemble. Urgh. Ah, well, it's a favour for the Dedieus (why I was the one who was asked to do it, I don't know. I must look the most like a Dedieu?) and family is an important thing, yes?

Slaughter House Five is cracked open to page 47 (I got distracted, sue me) and already the late Vonnegut's voice seems contented to resound in my subconscious at every opportunity. "So it goes, so it goes..." plays back inside my ears beneath each loss of a life, each memory of a lost life, or the thought of a life being taken. The Vonnegutism seems to bear even more weight now that the writer himself is no more. So it goes.

And much like Billy Pilgrim in his post-near-death mental state, I'm eager to see life not as a beginning, middle and end - "beads on a string" - but as a collection of moments all very much permanent. When I die I'll be dead in that moment, but I'll have been alive in so many other moments that are just as real as they were when they happened, and there will be no cause for mourning or ceremony.

I will be dead. So it goes.

The more I think about it, the more I like it, and the more I like it, the more I think about it, on and on and over and over until every inch of my psyche is poisoned and, as they are doing now, the toxins find their way out by way of my tongue or my pen or my fingertips, into the world to infect other minds.

I'm not saying the book is prophetic in every sense of the word, I'm just saying that it's got me thinking, and you might consider picking it up at a bookstore (used, new, depending on what you prefer. I have a weakness for used books, to be completely honest. Call me crazy). While you're there, at your (new/used) bookstore, also consider skimming the shelves for Jesus' Son. I'm sure you know by now how I feel about that one. I'll throw a list together, one day. Perhaps.

The fact that I'm writing again when I made a new post just yesterday is evidence to just how monotonous the summer has grown. I should call Liam, one of these days, and I owe Stephanie and Justine a visit. And I've been meaning to call Tavis, too. Ah shit, I have options, I just have a habit of sleeping in till it's too late to make anything happen. Hm. Another reason I've been writing more frequently is that I now know I have four readers whom I actually know, and it's more compelling to write to an audience than to write to the endless depths of #ffffff space more commonly titled 'the Internet'. Cyberspace is not my friend.

Tammy Faye has lost her grueling battle with cancer. So it goes, and goes, and goes...

Manda.

Right on time
The symbols crash
And the tears you thought were gone
Have come to town again
Maybe my love wrecks everything
Maybe emptiness is key
There's a radio that calls your name
Everytime I hear it sing

I don't wanna miss you so much baby
I don't wanna miss you all the time
I don't wanna drive myself so crazy
And lie awake in someone elses arms
But I do