feathery and smiley
15 August 1999

I was just talking to Michael and Jolene's answering machine... telling it that I was feeling feathery and smiley tonight. The machine must have been surprised as it normally only records messages from me sounding red-eyed and vampirish.

But not tonight.

It's dark, but glowing. There's a light breeze generated by a humming fan across the room. I'm listening through a subtle Ani DiFranco to hear the patter of gentle rain. Right now I feel like eight months ago: January with a new Bret Easton Ellis book, a mysterious man kissing the microphone in a small college radio studio, epic poetry every evening to a complete stranger inhabiting my soul.

In my last twenty minutes of Friday afternoon captivity, I jumped from link to link, like stones across a clear, cold river: a slow but deliberate pace. And on the other side, I found her waiting for me. And like her, I too was sold: her defiant stare, slightly-parted lips, clumpy eyelashes. I wanted to touch her. Until this moment I had not known what it would feel like to want to own a true and original piece of art. But now she's there when I close my eyes and I've spent long car rides of time trying to imagine her current perspective. What's the weather like there?

And it only took me two days to finish and subsequently fall in love with her short, grounded thoughts and quirky sense of self. So many moments buried in more than simple honesty. Part of me is still swimming inside those pages, living inside of phrases turned by a sparkling magic wand. And this severed sense of self has left me feeling light... feathery... smiley.

Just these simple thoughts remind me of the astrological compatibility between Aquarius and Leo: "Exist together on a purely intellectual level, but expect nothing more." I feel that he, out there stringing along the highways, may be the only one to truly understand me tonight.

But he's enough.