i'm no longer trapped between norths and souths, between lefts and rights. instead of wandering towards some magnetic pole, i have decided to travel upward. i am climbing towards the sky these days, hoping to build a place where you can swallow up the sky and see the world without myopia. i would like to be pure bird here, multilateral & multilingual.

i have been working hard at work that is more utilitarian than aesthetic. it is slow and frustrating and filthy, but all this preliminary is a sacrificial part of process i'm beginning to recognize in myself. this purgatory toil somehow makes me worthy of the task at hand. it all becomes meditation, learning the nooks and the corners and the dirt and the dust, studying the fingerprint of the space at hand.

i am sinking slowly, but surely, into my elsewhere self. these past few days have been a lesson in seeing, in taking in and blocking out, in visual dissection. i have packed and then unpacked, only to pack and move again -- deliberately, dialectically -- towards some subtlety in space. i have a clear head and a cluttered workspace.

tonight i went to the airport to pick up yuko, our most recent resident. she was not expecting me and i had never spoken to her, so the entire interaction was unpredictable at best. george equipped me with a solid set of directions, a green umbrella, and a cardboard sign that said "i neither know you, nor do i have your limo waiting."

accesories like that attract more than their share of attention at a baggage claim, but everything was going smoothly until this interaction:

wait.
excuse me?
hold on. i'm reading your sign.
(i pause)
is someone paying you to do this?
what?
someone's paying you to do this, right?
no.
so, you're just... doing this?
uh-huh.
huh.
.....
you know what?
what's that?
you're about the same age as my middle child.
huh.
......
can i...?
huh?
can i ask how old you are?
how old is your middle child?
eleven.
i'm not eleven.
what?!?!?
you're almost thirteen years off.
(he stares. and stares. and stares.)
well...you know what?
what?
i'm not a pervert or anything, i mean, my oldest child is almost nineteen, but...
(i am no longer making eye contact, as i am frantically scanning the crowd someone i don't know that is not going to recognize me)
well, you see, i'm looking for a second wife now and she's got to be between the ages of 25 and 30...
(i am getting ready to start walking towards anyone at this point, anyone at all)
and isn't it that funny? you're old enough to be my second wife! what do you think about --
(i am walking away now. i am walking quickly.)

my mind has been playing antagonist for months now and it is proving more difficult than i thought to realign myself with the language of likeness. i shifted so thoroughly from confederate to combatant in this past year. it is both painful and invigorating to be submerged in this, a world with analogy-bones, a universe of conversation.

as for my progress, my mind is so full that i haven't managed much communication. thoughts are pure paradox for me right now -- an overwhelming presence of cerebration exists as an overwhelming absence of productivity. i putz and i patter, prolonging the initial departure from my desk. i feel equidistant from everything.