Moon Memo: Soup, Sandwich, and Apizza
Good morning from the day after Christmas, where I seem to keep shaking off this fucking cold. I've been sick for most of December. Chest rattling with every breath. This morning I woke up a little stuffy, but nothing too bad. Just enough of a cough to remind you to slow down, but not enough to really do much in the way of changing the way I'm going to be working (not at all). I took today off. An extended post holiday quiet is upon us. Going to spend the day doing what I want to do: writing and reading. Going to possibly finish Draft 4 by John McPhee. First done book since I started this process of an hour a day reading in the morning. I want to read more books this year. This is a chance to do that, I think. Clear out the old book pile.
Not much to christmas this year. I slept for 4 hours in the middle of the day. Made pasta sauce. Watched a lot of Youtube. Watched Jade play Baldur's Gate for a while. Just a lot of quiet in the day. Talked to mom for a minute. She cancelled on Shane this year too. Poor Shane and his ruined holidays.
I'm going to take my time this week. Things are going to get crazy enough this year without me making them crazier. Of course, how do I do that. There is a part of my brain that wants to make the world more complicated than it has to be. How do I push against that, and not keep melting down?
Garbage trucks rumbling outside. The holiday's pile of paper and plastic going to the landfill. There are landfill's exploding all over the place, for when we turn toxic chemicals together underground. We deserve all the punishment that we are going to reap. This is the world that we deserve.
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End of year numbers:
Total number of poems typed since I had a catastrophic backup failure in 2010 that lost all of my electronic work since I was 13 years old (but not all the physical work. I still have that): 2725
Total this year so far: 289.
This is officially the most poems I've written in 1 year. Banana pants.
Not that it matters. I'd give them all up for tomorrow's poem.
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Currently listening to Brian Eno's Music for Airports, but stretched out for 6 hours. It is now the best ambient record ever, having surpassed Brian Eno's Music for Airports at usual speed.
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Amazing how many of us don't see what others see. Like I know that Jade finds me beautiful, and not just in a being kind sort of way. They see me as truly pretty. And I just can't see it. This is not fishing. This is just the truth.
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Time for a bath with electric book. Something that sounds very dangerous. As reading should be.
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Finished Draft 4 by John McPhee. A great book about living the writing life, which gets WAY too technical at the beginning and a little more cuddly towards the end. I really liked it.
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I want this soundtrack to follow me everywhere. Music for Airports stretched for 6 hours. I don't even know if its the whole album, or only the first track. It makes me so happy, knowing that I can fall forever into this ambient river if I want to. Keep falling forever.
***
Jade and I went to Korean BBQ tonight, and honestly, beef and pickles may be my favorite meal. Beef and Pickles: the two genders.
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Walked into my office with the world still dark around me. Had to turn on the overhead light just to see my desk, and that's deeply unusual for an overhead light hater like myself. Plugged in my laptop. Set up my paper calendar in a way so I can see all of next year in one swoop. Put stars where orientation is set to be. A lot of Thursday/fridays, which sucks. Talked to my boss about living the Disney life. How we both dream about having an apartment in Disneyland, just to live in a well planned place.
Outside the bathroom window the church steeple rises. Outside In is surrounded on multiple sides by a community of service, the Unitarian Church. We were founded in a basement in the UU church, continue to rent building space from them. When you pee you can look up and see the steeple rising into the clouds. It's a noble site.
***
Currently listening to an Aphex Twin song I haven't heard since college. Lying in my bean bag. Gold stars given to all of my department mates. Trainings sent out to everyone. Orientation coverage set. Ready to go.
I'm Ready To Go. I just don't know where to go.
***
Reminder of how great the 2000s Battlestar Galactica reboot was:
Cavil: In all your travels, have you ever seen a star supernova?
Ellen: No.
Cavil: No. Well, I have. I saw a star explode and send out the building blocks of the universe, other stars, other planets, and eventually other life, a supernova, creation itself. I was there. I wanted to see it, and be part of the moment. And you know how I perceived one of the most glorious events in the universe? With these ridiculous gelatinous orbs in my skull. With eyes designed to perceive only a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum, with ears designed only to hear vibrations in the air.
Ellen: The five of us designed you to be as human as possible.
Cavil: I don’t want to be human. I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I want to smell dark matter. Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can’t even express these things properly, because I have to — I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting spoken language, but I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me. I’m a machine, and I can know much more, I could experience so much more, but I’m trapped in this absurd body. And why? Because my five creators thought that God wanted it that way.
***
Micro plastics are found in the clouds. Think about that. Think really hard about that.
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Today my boss and coworker and I went to a soup restaurant here in Portland. Ate bean and kielbasa soup and cornbread and a thanksgiving sandwich. Ate a moon pie. Haven't had a moon pie since I was tiny. You are what you eat.
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Going to get a small pizza for dinner, then sit in a coffee shop and write for a while. Do the good work.
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A quick Pizza Review: Dimo's Apizza is cracklingly crunchy, the crunchiest pizza in Portland. Had the clam pie, and it was blistery like a proper Apizza, and briny, and delicious.
Definitely highly recommended.
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Home from pizza, and I'm beat. I think I'm going to put this to bed. Love you all so much, especially Sabina. Well, and Jade. And Elodie. So I guess all of you.
Love and stuff,
Misha Lynn Moon
