kingtycoon | Entries tagged with plainswoman

The sense right now is that the hardest things are behind us. Have happened. Are over. That’s the feeling, like getting that one foot up on the edge of the hole – you can tell you’re through it and will climb out, most likely. Still - efforts are needed, but the victory is in sight.

For example – I hopped off the 10, and it was a weird afternoon on the 10 – extra crowded and with the scarred and scared denizens of the Buckeye neighborhood that filter in and out, that ride up and down 93rd street. The bus was crowded and I talked for a moment, fleeting but sweet to the Plainswoman, and was cheered and inflated by that, a buoyant harmonious feeling to talk to her and that carried me off the bus on Euclid. I looked at the sun, setting now and a maze of uncertain smudged colors, I looked and I thought- I will walk. A long way.

Up unfamiliar hills and through divergent paths, I made it to Shaker Square and then rambled back down Coventry and made it to home just in time to wait.
The long, good walk up hills and back down – that’s the needed and missing catharsis – for me – the mind, my mind it vanishes out of speculation, there’s just the ongoing action of foot and foot and foot in the long train. Here and there, there is traffic, cars – my perpetual enemies – they stop me going and I stand and it’s strange to suddenly stop – momentum being sufficient, I feel, to carry me on indefinitely. I wonder, sometimes, how far I’d make it, how long I could keep it going, what’s the longest I could go?

My longest walk, in memory now, is better than 10 miles. On facebook I’m told constantly that the people I went to highschool or college with – they run dozens and dozens of miles every day. I hate running. For real I hate it, I get an angry scowl on me when I do it. But I think, I wonder if I could run a mile? I don’t even know, but I could walk forever and seemingly never stop.

And then you stop once you reach home and then your legs are strong and weak at once, they quiver that little bit and your back is stiff and glad and you’ve spent an hour in motion without stopping, and you’ve spent a couple of hours with the good wind on you and the right pace of things to compel you forward.
Julie comes by, it’s Tuesday and we have a plan to meet and write. I am not shy about drinking beer and eating the pizza she brings, I’m starving- I announce it. She loves to get the pizza because she loves to talk to the pizza-man. I love to eat pizza. I have my party at the end of the week, which dominates my finances – my money’s all spoken for this month – and I think of it in a wistful way, looking at my filled up canvases – thinking, I’d like more, I want to paint, not write. I feel like painting and haven’t lately.

I talk, we talk, for a long time, I explain that lately it’s the visual arts, for me, I could work on my spellbook or my magic project that I’m fashioning for my Plainswoman, or I could paint my Tarot version 2 –or I could paint my maps… I could’ve painted my maps- I could paint my maps (now that I think of it), but instead it’s time to write.

I explain – “I’m pretty good at writing, people seem to like it, if they’re of a mind to like it, I don’t have problems conveying what I mean – what appears on the page is close to what I want to say – it approaches it as closely as Achilles approaches the tortoise, you understand, it’s never exactly what you’d want, but it’s also surprisingly appealing.” I said that, say that – just that way. I drop Zeno’s arrow in polite conversation, that’s just my way. I explain that I like putting pen to paper, that I like the act of writing, that I like the things I have to write, but that I don’t know where I have to go with it.

Painting, I get better, I notice and try – I get better. Spellbooks, wizardry – my weird affected, hyperreal praxis – these improve with practice.
I moan on this for a moment, and put my pen to the paper and knock down page after page, competently and well. Saying: “I don’t know if I feel like writing.” And then I do write, competently, well. Maybe just well enough.

I explain – “I’m at a plateau here. I can’t tell what being better at this would be like; I can’t tell how I even would get better at this. I don’t know where I could go or how.” Which is so.

In the end we talk about the people we’re interested in, drink more of my excellent scotch, stay up late laughing like weirdos. We talk about the fantasy lives that we each engage in, the dreams and visions that you give yourself over to until you fall asleep.

And then sleep.

The mind reels, the mind fails, the mind desires unwelcome outcomes. The mind must ever be the servant of the will and yet? It sure don’t seem like it goes that way does it?

The Will is intention and desire and self, you could say it’s seated in the mind but I tend to disagree, I don’t offer an alternative, I just disagree. The Will is fragile and can’t be supported once it’s achieved its ends. It wishes for things but is made to wait, languishing – that’s what’s bad for the will, being frustrated by waiting, by time, by distance and the intervening efforts required between wanting something and having something done. It’s in your will to write a book, in your will to paint a picture, to find a job, to do a job, and it’s the mind that wanders while these things are being accomplished. It’s the mind that listens to physiology and succumbs to strange demands, weird pulls and bad decisions. The Will is frustrated because it is boundless but tied to a mind. The mind, in this construction, is the physiological intellect.
I don’t always think this, but what does that mean? That I don’t really think this or that depending on physiological circumstances I would always think this? Conundrums.
Turning away from that though – there is the life that’s accomplished in the intervening time, life occurring without the application of Will – the life that happens to you when your attention is elsewhere. This is a comfortable state for me, being rather willful as people go. It’s fine to sleep through days while thoughts of far off, even imaginary places spring up.

I remember, at a party once, I was drunk and getting drunker, I was drunk. I sat at the bar with a girl I didn’t know, she wasn’t interesting so I had to be extra interesting. Do you know how that goes? I took the conversation where I wanted it to go – explained how it is – you flex the will, imagination, you think – the telephone poles become the Baobab – they become trees sprouting from the ground, breaking pavement, the lines are vines, the asphalt is a litter of flower petals, the cars are elephants, mammoths. You can will physiology into submission, see what you want. Focus the mind on what you want to see, and close your eyes concentrating, open them – and you see. The girl drove me home but we didn’t kiss. I see her once in a while, I don’t care about talking to her now.
Sometimes people can’t learn. Because it’s not obvious what can be known.
In the meantime, life is lived, while you dream the dreams you decide to dream. There are those moments, where there’s another person who appears, who you want to appear and then the world snaps into itself – no amount of force or insistence will shape it back to your fantasy – instead you accept the real because you need to share the real with someone.
My person, the roots to my particular tree, of course, is Agatha – who I’d missed. We spent our time together, wonderfully. Pancakes and shoulder-rides and the war of Jam vs. Jelly while we wait on our Pancakes. “Then, Everything changed, when the Jam nation attacked.” The sweetener packet says to us. “But I believe the Creamer can save the world.”

Flirt at the bookstore, drawings on the dinnertable. We are busy and happy and the best company either of us could want. It’s so strange anymore- that I live for the weekends, for the good time.
I wonder if I could have it every day – so many people do. They have wives, girlfriends – every day, and their kids every day. I’ve got solitude until the weekend.
Well – not solitude, but my friend comes over- who I used to date till I didn’t want to. She makes fun of me about the Plainswoman – I show her what I’m working on and she scolds me: “Of course, you’re the worst possible boyfriend, that’s why you have to get all caught up in these crafts based romances with women you never actually see.”
I kick something on the floor, look at my feet, sidelong glance and a smile – “So?”
The weeks go by, Monday-Friday and the Will is subsumed by other wills, the car drives itself. Come the weekend and life is focus, laser-sharp. That’s what’s happening. That’s who I am now.

He who dreams of drinking wine may weep when morning comes; he who dreams of weeping may in the morning go off to hunt. While he is dreaming he does not know it is a dream, and in his dream he may even try to interpret a dream. Only after he wakes does he know it was a dream. And someday there will be a great awakening when we know that this is all a great dream. Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman ‑ how dense! Confucius and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle. Yet, after ten thousand generations, a great sage may appear who will know their meaning, and it will still be as though he appeared with astonishing speed.

Have you ever felt like you were a great sage foretold by the ancient Taoists?

So I find myself, having wandered through thresholds, through the strange gate of the airport, through the sky above the clouds and I think - I woke from a dream, or I think, I'm asleep now and dreaming. Or I dreamed that I was dreaming in my dream. I fell asleep one day and started dreaming. I dreamed that I went into the sky, and I dreamed that I went to the plains, and then I dreamed that I came back, and woke up - but I was still dreaming.

I'm up against the unreal or the hyperreal. Nothing seems like it can be real because when the unreality sets in there at the fringes of your experience it calls into question your whole experience.

We wake or don't, and what seemed real becomes more and more distant, the dream becomes unrecoverable. What was it I dreamed, what was it that happened? It is unreal and the dark world that we wake to at dawn has no answer - only demands. You wake from the dream of sublime experience and emotion and love & find on the other side all the things you must think about, that you must do, that you must feel. And fall away from the dreamworld and leave it behind you, you convince yourself that the dream was only that, that it didn't mean what it meant because you must do what you must do. So Waking Life betrays the ideal life and you must say to yourself - 'it was only a dream' as if dreams were not as valid as the cold world you wake to.

So what's real? Now? I remembered that I used to dream - there was a girl with Kaleidoscope eyes I'd dream of and then I'd think that life- dreamlife - was the real and this the false, and then I met her, for real, it turns out. I dreamed her or she me and what's real but what we decide is real? So you see, you can be in this particular state - disoriented, and then reoriented and there is that nagging sense that this is really true - this wintery self of work and responsibility and not the good world, the realer seaming one you left on the plains.

You guess, a second or a third time - undoing yourself - was it real? Should I reconsider? Is she rethinking? Is she actual? Too many cluttered anxieties, too many hopeless phantasms to grasp at - this is the trouble with the unreal - it's too perfect to be believed.

What's horrible is persuasive. What's Perfect is almost impossible to endure.

If you are lucky -
There will be a woman on the plains, she'll say to you, from her distant metropolis - "come see me." And you're not foolish, you go. She'll sing to you like a siren so you go to her. Bag in hand and nothing else, alone in a far off place, you're at her mercy and you find in short order that she is merciless. She fits into your arms like she was made from a mold just for that purpose. She'll smile at you, a grin that makes you fall apart tryinng to keep up, giddy even, you'll talk to her, tell her anything you can, say any words just so she can have them. You want her to have anything you can give her. There will be a woman on the plains, she'll call to you. If you're lucky enough.

If you are good -
If you are good you can have this woman in your arms, you can call her to your lap, you can kiss her a kiss like candy melting, you can feel her stealing your breath. She'll be merciless to you, gracious, ideal. You'll sit in her kitchen with her in the morning and she'll make you breakfast, fix you some coffee in her hard to understand mechanism. She's hard to understand. If you're good, you won't understand how this is happening, becuase if you're good, you won't feel like you're quite good enough.

If you are brave -
You'll go to the woman on the plains when she calls you, you'll pass over clouds and unknown cities in the night - all grids of electricity and effort. You'll fall from the sky and she'll be there to meet you. You'll go with her wherever she says and She'll show you everything there is to see, you'll come to life, in her car, driving by some dingy shrine, she'll look at you and smile, she won't like it that you kiss her neck - she's driving and thinking. She won't hate that you kiss her neck, she'll smile at you and it will be that merciless smile that crushes everything you thought about love under its heel. You'll go with her, everywhere, if you are brave.

If you are great -
You will be ready, you will go to the far cities with her and you will be delighted, endlessly, you will find the best places for the best drinks, the best places for the best meals, you'll find the true things in the universe in the stars in the sky and in the shifting colors of her eyes. If you are great you'll find what you didn't know you needed. You'll find a sustenance that you'd never had an appetite for. If you are great, you'll even deserve this.

If you are Kingtycoon -
You'd be me, and everyone with any fucking sense at all would envy you. Because you held her hand, the woman on the plains, you held her hand when you crossed the street under the full moon, and kissed her when she tried hard to get her arms all the way around you, and you'd know it was all conjured up for you you'd stop dreaming because the world will give you more than you could dream of, the world would give you a woman on the plains - if you are Kingtycoon.

I lost some teeth today, they just fell out.

It's been a weird, sort of hard couple of days. I should really take a moment now and try to organize my commentary, buuuut no. Instead I'll just words words type words.

Worrrrdddssss Worads

So it starts, probably, on Wednesday - yeah, probably. I'm having a pretty good day, things are going right. I remember, they were Right. Everything in it's correct place, broken stuff? Gets Fixed. I'm hungry, I'm happy, it's the good day at the old job. After? And don't get me wrong - it's cold, bitter-cold, and hard - there's that element in the background and all - frame this picture with the winter, the snow, the hardness and the wetness. It's bad outside. So, that in mind - imagine me, the rugs are stained with salt and wet, the computers break and get fixed, you wander the campus (if you're me) handling things, the yard guys are calling me over to look at their phones- and I'm all Knowledge, fixing it all with proper wisdom and johnny-on-the-spot cleverness. I'm having a clever wise week even. I got smart about what to paint and I worked on words and ideas - I'm gonna write a book this year, I figured it out! All smooth, all right.

So after work I head down to 25th street to see about the City. My friend, who invents the cool things to do, went and got a job organizing events for the NPR station - so he had a forum where civic and city officials came to talk. I got there early, worked on lines in the notebook, ate up a nice cheeseburger and drank a few nice White Owl Beers.

Those are my favorite of favorites.

Maybe I went too far, I might have. I got nice, foot-warmed (if not dry) head-cleared, ink-fingered - I was rolled up into the neatness, but maybe a little puzzled by beers. I sit through the discussions and they explain it- City of Cleveland's operating budget - mostly? Income Tax - 2% on everyone who works here. I think about it and I listen, but I still think about that, and you know- you realize, it's a lot of failure, that leads to the situation. Income tax- - you know it was progressive and a big deal once- tax the earnings on labor, work - nowadays, it doesn't seem smart, it seems reckless. It seems like it's the reason the city might care more for employers than residents. I think a lot, probably with the help of Japanese Beer about what it will be when we're over work, as the means of support, over labor. It's a hundred year old scheme and it's showing its age anymore. I think and think. I get discouraged by the panelists - who seem incompetent and crazy. I have a badness about me that judges and listens and discerns. I know the phrases, the ideas - the weak and clawing ideas that call and call - 'attend to me' but they don't mean a thing.

I remember that in the basement of this particular bar they have the old-timey cocktails that I like. I get a couple of sazeracs - but keep forgetting and asking for an Acererak. Puzzled. You know. Ain't nobody want an Acererak in the basement.

Finally, I get filled up with dismay and bolt, catch the train, reading all the way home, and arriving in the dark&cold just in time to talk on the phone with The Plainswoman, Ms. ThousandMile. It's a nice, time, she and some latter-beers put me to bed and I wake up, not at all refreshed, but tired, having stayed up late talking and drinking in the fashion of a younger, much younger man.

But still, more plus than minus on this Wednesday. In fact- I got to Office Space this fucking printer. This Fucking Fuck of a Printer

That was good, cracking plastic, angry noises. Trash compacted. It was good.

But Thursday - Let me tell you about Thor - he's no Odin. Not at all. I am laid-over and hung-down, I am up-torn by sleepy whiskeyness and not having it. Tired. And Not Great. My contractor comes in to help and and look at things, we face down weird and frustrating intrusion attempts on our out-facing internet infrastructure, we stop it all and apply updates. It's... It's fine, but I'm not in the mood for conversation, I'm tired. Motherfucker, I'm tired and hungry and my feet have been wet and cold for a week now. It's 0 - ZeeeRO degrees and that is not enough of those fuckers. I need Degrees. And dinner. Worker friends are all about the meetup- former, ex, once employee, a lady from my neighborhood who found a greener pasture- she wants to take us out, dinner-wise. I agree. I am starving. Go with the funny&nice old man in his car, liking it just... okay. It's fine, he's got a regular car to go in, I'm fine. We hit the place, I eat, sit, talk, it's good. The lady, the one who gained the new job and left our company - she picks up the check and it's almost shaming - she's too generous, it's too much, but I will not pretend that I fought about it. I was like- "you were very subtle when you intercepted the bill and handled it, and I respect that you clearly intended to accomplish what you're accomplishing."

And then, since I'm from her neighborhood - she's like: "I take you now." and after buying dinner and drinks, I thought - Nice Lady.

Well into the snow, into the trouble - she ends up having to veer away in a snowy skid, drives her nice car right over a curb and crashes down some obstacles - continues on, hasty and angry to yell at the fool - chump she had to avoid, wrecking her car and causing me to become... distressed.

She drops me off, the bumper's wrecked, but the car takes on signs and curbs like a hero, not even a crack in the plastic grille. Impressive. Still - looks like a $5k repair. I feel bad.

I go in my home and pass right out. Falling asleep on my Silicon Dioxides that came to me from the Plains. I am spent and tired and flashing back to ugly car-wrecks that I've been in. I think the number is up to double digits now. I am good with not going in cars. I am okay with not doing it.

I wake up double-plus early, which is fine - having gone to bed at 8:30 half lit and spun out by that car-crash noise. Up I get and it's a nice morning alone, paint, shower, coffee at home before dawn. Love the early morning. I get set up nice and ready - go to work, wetting&colding my feet once more. In the door and everything's wrong. Virus outbreaks, badly&misapplied updates & broken relationships in the database. I have to tell all the work friends - Remember how X-Co-Worker came out in the snow to treat us all to food and drinks and then drove me home? Well, there was a car wreck - that was her reward. And then... v3 hours deep, I got a break, caught a slow moment and what do I do with it? I take my time to talk to you.