I Am Warm and Invisible

“You can sit here, the table lights up.”

The tender at the hotel bar is friendly. She’s lord over this transient space, a spot in between, that isn’t here nor there, just subsisting. I like places like this: we forget them, but they’re a necessary support apparatus for our velocity. There’s a forgotten energy to them, a thrill that comes from saying “I am in the forgotten space. I am hiding in plain sight. I can see you, and you can see me, it’s just that you choose not to.” I write in places like this—more than anywhere else. These places are invisible, and that gives them energy. Together, we vibrate. I can float above, and wait to see what I can see.

Blue hat is in the corner staring into the bottom of his glass. Four-eyes is gazing longingly at his phone, probably to look busy out of fear of having everyone else realize he’s here alone. It’s okay, four-eyes. We’re all here alone. That’s the point of hotel bars.

A man sits down for a drink and asks for the happy hour special and then doesn’t order it. A woman picks at her teeth with her nails, which have a shiny new veneer. There are no manners here. Everyone looks profoundly bored or unhappy. And that’s okay. You can be as you are in the in-between spaces. If you’re invisible, you don’t need a facade. A television flashes to white and makes us all obediently look up. A woman stands in the corner and mutters something about work-life balance as she replies to email at 7pm.

And I wonder about that. With all pretenses gone, we can be as we truly are without judgement, and this woman is sad because she feels like she’s muddling up a very fundamental problem of life. And I’m not sure, but it seems busted to beat yourself up over not achieving balance. What is it about thinking so much is in our control that makes us so profoundly sad when things don’t go our way? Does the precept of “balance” as a satisfactory, desirable, possible default throw things even more out of balance when we worry as we don’t achieve it? Is that on us? Are we just unskilled or are we merely unfortunate? Just… human? I prefer the latter. We are more at the whims of others than we may realize. We may act, but even acting isn’t always enough to get what we want. (Cue Rolling Stones.)

Don’t be hard on yourself, lady. What if there is no balance? What if there is only movement, and trying to do your best with what is in front of you?

Another swig of whiskey. And then another flash of white, and then a quiet moment. Then, like in most quiet moments, a dangerous little thought creeps in. Who the hell wants a balance between work and life? Who sold that to us? Ultimately, there are two goals: to get by, and to be happy doing it. When I consider myself at my happiest, whether it is work or life (if the two may even be separated, as if one is not just a piece of the other), at my most joyous, I feel the same on the inside. When I am happy, I forget I exist. I am not here. I am projected forever outward. The path may be different, but the result is just the same.

I just lost myself.

I’m not here. I am in the forgotten place. I am hiding in plain sight. I’m in the place between, that isn’t here nor there, just subsisting. I am lord over this transient space.

http://blog.frankchimero.com/post/4076258770

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

Well I’ve been out walkin’
I don’t do that much talkin’ these days
These days
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do…for you
And all the times I had the chance to

And I had a lover
And it’s so hard to risk another these days
These days
Now if I seem to be afraid … to live the life I have made in song
Well it’s just that I’ve been losin’ … for so long

Well I’ll keep on movin’ … movin’ on
Things are bound to be improvin’ these days
One of these days
These days I’ll sit on corner stones
And count the time in quarter tones to ten … my friend
Don’t confront me with my failures
I had not forgotten them

Some gigs are process oriented: Set up a process correctly and the rest takes care of itself. It’s challenging and frightening to get it right, but after that, you merely have to do the hard work of showing up each day. Do the work and you’ll get the results.

Other jobs require a different sort of hard work: the guts to be wrong, a confrontation with the risk of being stupid.

The comedian who fears that each new joke might fail, the writer who has to say something new, the leader who must improvise, solving new problems on a regular basis. What makes this work hard is that it might not work.

More and more people now have jobs that require them to confront the risk of appearing stupid on a regular basis.

-Seth Godin

LESSON:  being creative always involves confronting the risk of being stupid.  I really believe this is true at school, at work, and in our social lives.

I’m making this my wake up song.

Lenni Sesar- Morris Park (Bonde de Role Remix)

Bibio- Take Off Your Shirt

Saturday, when the hair comes down
All the girls in town gonna dress the place
In blue-eyed green-eyed brown-eyed light
All the boys with desire of night
Gonna lose their feet gonna lose their mind
In drinking fighting sweat and lust
We play the game of weaving ducking dodging hiding
Through the hormonal battle on the streets
Then we reach our destination
It is consolation for star-people constellation
Sadness in rags won’t feel the pain
Of sadness in silks and golden chains
Take off your shirt
And give it to the one with fur coats and shiny shoes
On Sunday when the streets are bare
Reminders of the party there
Red devil horns dropped in the road
Tiaras made of plastic gold
A bloody puddle stains the floor
Outside the boarded nightclub door
And all the one night love is jaded
When all the memories have faded…

“A guy will promise you the world and give you nothin’, and that’s the blues.”

Bumble Bee Slim- No Woman No Nickel

You should have read the directions before showing up to the party

The Death Set- Can You See Straight?