For a few months now, I've been wanting to blog on my own site again. So during a spate of insomnia early this morning, I reopened the actual cygnoir's quill and now have much to fix.

I'm not disappearing from LiveJournal entirely, but you might want to add cygnoirnet to your friends list.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I do NOT receive any comments you post to cygnoirnet's entries! Go over to my website and leave your comments there if you want me to read them. Thanks.

So this is the tide, fetching strange little beings to be tossed upon the beach for me to inspect. I assess the damage, mumbling to myself. O, interesting: I remember that. That must have been pretty far down.

Then I watch these things die. I can't throw them back far enough for them to escape the tide's inexorable persuasion back to shore, and they need to go anyway. With them alive, with them unknowable and waiting in the wet blank sea to surface and sting before I can call out, I won't ever be safe.

They need to go.

Something whispers to me as I squint into the horizon. Without realizing what I've done, the conch is at my ear and I am listening to the dying thing inside.

You abandoned us, it murmurs. We couldn't find you in the water and we couldn't see you on land. We had to guess you were gone for good. I flinch before I can prevent it. Why did you leave us?

I put the shell down and walk away. But I do it in bare feet so I can feel what I've killed, every single fin and tentacle and everything that choked on my air.

feeling: drained
hearing: Run - Air (from "Talkie Walkie")

It's not like there's a dearth of romantic sentiment in my life. I have certainly been treated to various sweet thoughts and gestures. But there's one that just never happened and I pine for it, from time to time.

When Tesla's "Love Song" came out, there was no way I could actually pine for it, because I was in full Not Quite Goth Yet Definitely Geek mode, and we just didn't listen to bands like Tesla. At least, not intentionally. And if we happened to catch it on the radio, just happened to, you know, be sliding past that top 40 station on the way to the really rad college station we were sure have a Friday night slot on someday, we would definitely never pause and hug a pillow (which we had never once pretended was Christian Slater in "Heathers") and sing along very, very quietly. We'd never do that. Ever.

We'd never picture Christian Slater slouching into a dive bar, cigarette tucked behind his left ear, dressed in plain old jeans and an open button-down over a plain old white t-shirt and big boots, in his right hand a quarter glinting in the dingy light. We'd certainly never fantasize about sitting on a stool in not-too-high heels and a very flouncy, kicky dress and a red gardenia in our very long and flowing hair, watching him toss the quarter into the jukebox and then glance over with that kind of Jack Nicholson-y, kind of Clark Gable-y, kind of Christian Bale-y, "this is what's going on right now, babe" look.

And we'd never, not once, let him put his hand on our waist and tug us off the stool and slow-dance right there, with everyone watching.

Nope.

love will find a way
darlin' love is gonna find a way
find its way back to you
love will find a way
so look around
open your eyes

feeling: nostalgic
hearing: Love Song - Tesla (from "The Great Radio Controversy")

Omigawd, so totally thank you for taking my very own meme! As it is a meme, it is very VERY important that you take this meme SERIOUSLY. If you don't, your ears will weep pus.

1. If you could weep pus out of any orifice, which orifice would it be? You may choose a neighboring orifice, like, say, your neighbor's eye.
   
2. So say there is this friend of yours who posts really passive-aggressive things in her journal about this other friend of yours instead of actually, you know, approaching the friend -- and we should probably begin to use air-quotes here -- approaching the "friend" about "strife" between "them". DO YOU TELL YOUR "FRIEND" ABOUT YOUR "OTHER" "FRIEND"? YES / NO / MAYBE / O MY GOD YOU ARE TOTALLY WRITING ABOUT ME YOU BITCH.
   
3. Do you like pus?
   
4. How about the word "pus"? Is it satisfying to say?
   
5. True or false: I know someone who is addicted to crack cocaine. (The "I" is me. Not you. Follow along. Too much crack? SEE?!)
   
6. If you call me Hungry Hungry Hippocrates, you really know me, and I mean really truly know me. If you call me Halsted, you just kind of know me in that superficial way that we all call "know" but is really an excuse for the meaningless and empty black darkness that is the void of interpersonal relationships. If you call me Blanche Marie, you are my mom. She is weird.
   
7. My baloney has a first name. What is it? If you do not spell it out, you will receive ten demerits.
   
8. Socks are evil. Discuss.
   
9. Pick an interest from my interests list and join its corresponding cult. Do not tell anyone what you are doing for five years. At the end of five years, leave the cult. (Or be assassinated trying. They do that kind of thing. I know.)
   
10. Which are better, kittens or small end tables? Keep in mind that end tables sit still and are good for holding tumblers of ice water. Also, kittens poop.
    
11. Did you forget about the pus?
    
12. If you had to have a familiar, but it could not be a cute animal or some sort of anime faerie or something, and instead a dead white dude, which dead white dude would you choose and why?
    
13. Mouse with scrollwheel vs. Roomba CAGEMATCH. Which would win?
    
14. Hulk smash this question.
    
15. Name the most embarrassing song you know all the words to. Mine is "Whoomp There It Is" and that's no lie.
    
16. Fill in the blanks: I'm a little teapot, short and _____. Here is my handle; here is my _____.
    
17. Would you take a questionnaire that consisted of three thousand questions all about me and how well you know me, knowing it would take you five weeks to complete and that, at the end, when you received a score of 3.94%, you would send me into fits of painful sobbing re: aforementioned empty black darkness, void, etcetera?
    
18. If you answered no to the last question, make yourself a little superhero cape out of a napkin and tell everyone you meet that your superpower is being super-great on this super day! Wait to be beaten into a bloody pulp with your own arm.
    
19. Wow, you're still reading. Um. Okay. Here is a secret code only for you: there's no teamwork in meme. Just me, and me.
    
20. Your new name is Yoder.
    

feeling: meme-iforous

and you my cat who cries at nothing who leaps over my head and steps on my breasts to chase the moth i intentionally let in for your amusement you the protector of the beige grosgrain ribbon you the enemy of any plant i might even consider bringing into this tiny room you are not my cat at all are you you are some unidentifiable unnamed unscientifically-named wraith of confusion always needing to be let into the closet which holds your interest for less than the time it takes me to blearily pull open the door

yet when i smell your fur when i pull you into my red bitten arms and when i hold you i can feel the seven years between us the humidity in alabama and my tears that you licked away when i could only hold despair i hold you now and think

how good to know you my cat how good to depend on your existence and how good to share my shower-dripped legs with your figure-eight steps each morning how good to see you asleep so precariously in sunlight how good to feel your small form curled against the curve of my belly when i cannot sleep because of the things i know awaiting me in my head how good to know there is something so simple in the world as the slow close of your eyes when i pet just the right spot

and you my cat sent from an alien land to remind me that i must feed and water something other than myself that i am not wrong or mistaken in the sheer touch of fingertips to eartips and that we two have moments past and moments yet to go

This is a sad little public service announcement.

My nice little color-screened tri-band Samsung S-105 mobile -- the one that traveled to Europe with me -- died without warning this morning. I've dropped it maybe thrice over the past thirteen months, and this morning both the inside and outside displays just stopped functioning altogether. I shouldn't bond with gadgets, I really shouldn't, because when they stop working I take it as some sort of personal affront, like someone ending the relationship because they Need Space or Don't Like My Jokes or Think I'm Too Lame To Be Seen With.

Issues? Me?

So I scrambled to find, charge, and SIM-ify my old Nokia 3390, the one I got for free when I signed up with T-Mobile. If you're trying to reach me and I don't answer, it's because I've forgotten how to answer the call. It's a tank, at least, which means it should carry me over the weeks, months, or years before the Nokia 6600 is available to peons like me who don't understand how to buy an "unlocked" phone from shady characters on eBay.

I'm the only person I know who is moving backwards on the cool gadget timeline.

feeling: sad
hearing: When It Falls - Zero 7 (from "When It Falls")

i'm all hooked on konfabulator again and ityllux i wish i had enough pesos to take you out for margaritas all proper-like and this song right here encourages my naughtiest thoughts and i have tomorrow off for spring break day and i'm going to go find an inkbot and make wiggly faces at her over caffeine and perhaps afterwards i will go to san francisco public and smell some books

if you want to be a butterfly baby then i will be your tinfoil cocoon crisp and shiny break out of me and i'll just hang here on this branch for a while and watch your ass as you fly away

and that is just the way the world works you know

things change

things emmer-effing change

feeling: quixotic
hearing: Butterfly Caught - Massive Attack (from "100th Window")

Well, hello. Fancy meeting you here. I've been reading instead of writing.

( Now I'm writing stuff about books, and about the past five years, and then about ) one major highlight of the past five years: meeting randomlife, whose birthday it is today. Davy, I don't know what I did to deserve you as my friend, but it must have been really good. From day one -- remember playing Cheap Ass games on the ferry and helping Chad move the television? -- you were up for anything. Just roll the dice, your whole life says, and let's see where it goes. I love that and I love you. Happy birthday.

feeling: accomplished

It's impossible for me to see him and not think of the first time I saw him. As he emerged from dirty city shadows, I saw his relaxed stride first, chin up, slight slouch, long gait. Grin next: half of the hint of one, an expression dipping its toes in the water of his face. And I wouldn't see his eyes till last, but when I did, they occurred to me as the real color of the sea, and as deep.

Last night I needed so desperately to slough off the abuses of the workweek and escape into that magical place at the end of a long red bridge. ( Read more... )

feeling: peaceful
hearing: Hayling - FC/Kahuna (from "DMT Entity")

In the Waiting Room


The burgundy plastic snake is warm,
hotter than I remember, as it hurries
into its cylindrical home. "California
is number one!" the lab technician chides.
"Your name is a street in New Jersey."
It is more than in New Jersey, I think,
it is my name. I cannot look at what
I lose. Thyroid and liver tests as just
a precaution. Glucose to be sure.

The doctor asks me why I cannot rest
except on weekends. Work is
a one-word answer with books behind.
Then I tell her of how he wears me out,
wears me down with wine and words,
with kisses that cannot wait until morning.
I leave out the part about my breasts against
his back, his left arm that traps mine,
and how I match breaths with him
to sleep.

"It sounds like whatever you are doing
on the weekends is healing you,"
she says, and we smile; we share
that secret that two strangers can.

Strangers all in crooked lines
with names like Dimeling, Cabrillo,
Mush. Green letters on the black board
refresh, hold, refresh. We all pause
and watch how time passes more slowly
in the company of invalids. I eye
a woman's hipbone as it breaks the line
of her long black dress, unbroken by breasts.
She asks for Diflucan and I know what that is.

We all know more about each other than we should.
Now you know I have trouble sleeping,
how I watch the screen saver on my computer
and its endless iterations of beauty, and think:
I do not want to let go of this life, not yet,
but let me gently go into that good night's sleep.


© 02004 by Halsted Mencotti Bernard