on ritual

human beings need rituals. we're cast into this beautiful, perfectly imperfect world with our hearts and our minds and our ethical and aesthetic ideals, or at the least, our ability to conceive such things, and with our imaginations only partially tethered to this earth, and we need anchors to hold us down. rituals can be short-lived, and they can change over time, but without familiarity, we have no way of knowing one thing from another, or of really knowing anything. all knowledge has its own context, and there are many contexts, and thus many kinds of knowledge, many ways of knowing the world, and many kinds of ritual.

the granular world

there's tinny jungle music on the rooftop of the embassy hilton hotel. the bodies around the pool are cream, coffee, chocolate, brown sugar - laughing, though their eyes are absent, lost in the depths of the sky. the clouds have ill-defined, blueish edges; perhaps there will be heat lightning come evening. a lone individual detaches from the wall, and sits down amongst a cluster of bodies. the conversation may go something like this:
"is this seat taken?"
"no."
"is it alright if i pretend i know you guys?"
"...actually, we were just about to leave."
"oh."
"see. you."
plastic cups full of vodka and soda water make their way from hand to hand. the clock on the wall of the pool deck reads eleven a.m., but the second hand isn't moving. it could be eleven, or not. it wouldn't make much of a difference.

you know

you know those times when you're wearing a v-neck shirt in public and it feels like the v goes all the way down to your belly button, but instead of hiding in the corner where it's dark and safe, you just get on the dance floor? and your face is made up with so much green and gold eyeliner that you look like bowie? and you're at a party in some warehouse with music and people milling about with drinks, and light shows and art installations, and d.i.y. wall murals, and glowsticks and people speaking in accents you can't even place? yeah, i know, right?

ignition

so these days i'm lounging on firelit rooftop bars with the great expanse that is washington sprawled out, glittering down below me, and i'm reading books when i get the chance, and passing out business cards, and sipping cocktails at embassies and accidentally spilling them on multi-million dollar business owners, and every once in a while, i happen upon the edges of the city around sunset, in the places where patches of trees and grass peek through, and there are fireflies, and my heart beats a little bit faster.

ghost footsteps

you know how you said you don't want or need me? well, i wish you did, and i have no idea why, until i remember the long walks in the woods, but then, i remember that i've had plenty of long walks in the woods, the best of them without you, and i'm back to wishing, and wondering why, but knowing that it's not about you, it's about me. these days, i live in the city.

axis mundi

there was this moment on the rock of gibraltar, when, standing between earth, sea, sky, and cloud, i found myself bowing my head in prayer. there are some visceral moments, like this one, in which one's life changes discernibly, and beautifully. these moments are important, but as important are the more gentle moments of inflection, changes which one barely notices even as they occur.

a pocket-liner

16. zero-sum games.

17. (magical) realism.

18. truth.

19. eye-contact.

20. quality.

outside the metro station

three men are sitting beneath a bus shelter; an old one, a young one, and a middle-aged one. the young one is squatting on the ground, smoking a cigarette. he passes it across the old one, to the middle-aged one. the middle-aged one takes the cigarette, breathes in a deep drag, and exhales. he passes the cigarette back to the old one. the old one smiles.

a spring break

some days are days for sullen, overcast skies, and light, indifferent hearts. some days are meant to turn into weeks on end of bleary-eyed train cars and unwashed window-panes, and a steady progression of fifedoms and city-states and townships and arching corridors of pine forest spiderwebbed with plastic scraps, and the air tastes like it's about to rain, and the church spires and the slumbering vinyl-and-concrete homes roll on.

ladybugs / the metamorphosis / wish you were here

i've been working on building a life for myself in washington dc, though in another version of reality, i'm such a libertine personality that my life is really all over the place, but being in washington, not unlike being myself, is like being in a place of being all over the place, so perhaps one fits the other, or the other fits the one. i spent some time working with nice people in a nice glass office building that got light, and lived in a basement apartment that didn't. for the moment, all of that has come to a pause, it being the moment now for a weekend of reflection via withdrawal to the more familiar north- for in the capital, it already feels like summer, though i know that summer has yet to start in earnest, and that it will be a scorcher.

in this instant, all i need are a few breezy april days, days ever so slightly more temperate, days more austere, of visits with family and friends, and of train stations and touseled suit-jackets and windswept hair, days of eyes that see with fondness, and of time apart from time.

a gilded age / the austere years

10. compassion.

11. minimalism.

12. craftsmanship.

13. temerity.

14. austerity.

15. shades of grey.

the world, part ii

6. intellectualism.

7. adventurism is dead.

8. objects of ultimate concern.

9. fortuity.

the world

1. everything is connected.

2. things change.

3. in it and of it.

4. chirality.

5. mutuality.

sheridan circle

some days people call me handsome, other days they call me pretty. that's life.

the snowfall days - part ii

i like moral philosophy, and chai, and billy- my new hairdresser, and talking about art and politics, and wearing nice warm dry clothes and feeling toasty, and that i'm starting to find going to nightclubs less interesting, and shawarma; and thick scarves are in, so i'm supposed to like them, too, and i needed a new scarf any way, so i'll ask me mum to knit me one that's black, white, and grey, like old television screen static, or i'll knit it myself. i like tables that look like sawhorses, and the idea of wearing pale red or blue cotton button-down shirts with grey cuffs and some grey thread in them and looking like an architect with my glasses and my haircut, but it's just an idea, so i probably wouldn't look that way. but if i looked like an architect, then i'd be a moral architect of sorts, now wouldn't i?

the snowfall days

today, you walked by me on the path, and for the first time, i was comfortable not knowing you. it was nice.

a party

some nights are loud and warm and full of wild light, and outside, all is dark in snowfall.

lost and found

i went off to graduate school in iceland, thought about dropping out, ate a lot of really good food, had some fun, was lonely, went swimming in hot springs a lot, was moody, watched the snow fall, thought a lot, ate some more really good food, saw the northern lights several times, partied with some rogue internationals, lived in a cheap apartment, got lonely again, and came back to maine. now there's flitting from city to city, visiting the family in new york for thanksgiving, and apartment hunting in washington dc, because someday, i'll be a visionary justice theorist and aesthetician, and you know, every prophet in his house, and all that.

the far north

for now i'm blogging at pointilli.sm. you should take a look at it.

in rainbows

it rained a lot, and then there were some extra-ordinarily bright rainbows, and then i failed my driver's license test, and then we were toasting each other with brushed-aluminum martini glasses and live music at a little bar, and twirling and dancing. and now i'm feeling dissociated and ready to move on and soon i'll be in iceland.