40 years is a long time, especially to a hamster. It seems more like it was far away, which it was. Actually, it was long ago and also far away. Damn. I was very thin, very thin. Not so thin as Uncle Don, mind you, but certain broomsticks or rails were obese next to Don. Nevertheless, I was thin. From what I can remember of those days I was also bright, or well read anyway. I remembered what I read, the actual words, sentences... entire phrases. It was fun with Teddy and Don and the rest of the group, going through Pyramis and Thisbe to the delight of all our friends. It was fun. But that was a long time, about 70 pounds, two wives and 3000 miles ago. I'm better now, different anyway. The internet has provided me with a chance to see a slide show again of those sweet young kids and another slide show of some old men, most with beards and some of those sweet young girls who captured my heart so long ago, but they'd dyed their hair graying, maybe to make the old men feel better... why didn't the girls age? Much. Why?
Well the simplest answer is right in front of you: look at what happened to Mike and Rick and Don! Gee Don looked so drawn. Maybe more woodcut than drawn, or graphic novel style, monochrome. The girls sucked them dry. All of 'em. Even the "Saint" had hardly aged a bit and oh, what irony. I've aged too. Not as much as a couple of those poor guys, I try to keep up with the chickens. No, but even from a distance they got me. I can't believe Margaret could be a vamp. But times are hard and strange and ya never know. I never would have thought that Jonoff would end up looking like Don Knotts.
So it's more complex. I can close my eyes and see them, see how they were moving as Larry snapped the picture, what the air tasted like. And there it is, the problem with the strange, locked in amber women and the strange, withered old men with the eyes and smiles of my old pals. Some of them aren't smiling, some aren't even there. They're missing and I see the gaps in the pictures where they all stand shoulder to shoulder, smiling at the camera. It's rare we see an early shot of Larry, because he was the cameraman, our eyes on our world. Weekend parties would go quiet and the lights go dim when the man with the magic lantern would begin to show what happened last time we had a tourney or a party or a war. Larry was a short man with a quick lense and you looked for your own face, or if you were in love at the time for nice shots of your flame de jour so you could get Larry to sell you an enlargement. For the cost of paper and chemicals. He'd develop them in our bathroom, the bathroom we shared in our apartment. Larry and I had one wing of a two family and Teddy and Cheri the other. Now Teddy isn't waving back as an wizened bagpiper sucking on a churchwarden pipe. Nor Larry, nor others who just seem to have been there yesterday, but it's been 40 years. I've lost them and I didn't realize it because in my mind, I seem to see them so many times a day. They cross my inner sight every time I see a pipe, a camera, a sword or a cheap bottle of red wine.
The thing is, I don't but rarely see those things without thinking of those empty spots. I worry that the young men and women might someday go away too, in my inner sight. So I drag them out with eyes closed so I might see them again and start a new memory. But each one fades, that's empathy. Or entropy. There is a difference but there's another term that describes it. This. Them. The editor helps me get past those times when a term gets away. I can look up and see what I was writing about, see if that jogs my memory. Empathy is a cleaving of minds, a synchronizing of souls, however briefly. Entropy is the winding down of Everything, the thinning of the Universe. They are not the same, nor are they not connected. There is a sympathy for empathy in entropy. As one goes, so the other shall follow. But it's a Little off Everywhere, not big chunks, not people suddenly not being there. That would hurt too much. Even a heartless thing like Death doesn't take everything at once. It unwinds the thread of the carpet in your mind a little here and there, like a mouse crawling across the floor a little at a time. So you wind down until it's obvious and then it feels like a big chunk has been taken away. You just were preoccupied, distracted by another one so like yourself you felt an immediate bond, a merging of minds and bodies at times. At times it seems that all we did back then, back there, one bed one pair of bodies and sometimes under the stars, in pools or rivers and canals. I was such a hormone driven kid back then, two wives ago and 3,000 miles. I got better in many ways.
What do you call that? When one day you're riding skateboards everywhere and the next you're using the bus. There's a term for that and it's not entropy. I can't always remember a specific term or word and since I always think in words, when I lose a word I lose a thought and I can't always get back to it right away. I have to write everything down. Sometimes as I am trying to write it down I forget what "it" is called and then of course I lose the next thought and the chain is broken. Aphasia. When a word drops out of your vocabulary.
It's okay, not to worry. I just have to get a nap. It's worse when I'm tired. I'll get better. I'm just going through some tiring times, it's just a phase. Yeah.
Well the simplest answer is right in front of you: look at what happened to Mike and Rick and Don! Gee Don looked so drawn. Maybe more woodcut than drawn, or graphic novel style, monochrome. The girls sucked them dry. All of 'em. Even the "Saint" had hardly aged a bit and oh, what irony. I've aged too. Not as much as a couple of those poor guys, I try to keep up with the chickens. No, but even from a distance they got me. I can't believe Margaret could be a vamp. But times are hard and strange and ya never know. I never would have thought that Jonoff would end up looking like Don Knotts.
So it's more complex. I can close my eyes and see them, see how they were moving as Larry snapped the picture, what the air tasted like. And there it is, the problem with the strange, locked in amber women and the strange, withered old men with the eyes and smiles of my old pals. Some of them aren't smiling, some aren't even there. They're missing and I see the gaps in the pictures where they all stand shoulder to shoulder, smiling at the camera. It's rare we see an early shot of Larry, because he was the cameraman, our eyes on our world. Weekend parties would go quiet and the lights go dim when the man with the magic lantern would begin to show what happened last time we had a tourney or a party or a war. Larry was a short man with a quick lense and you looked for your own face, or if you were in love at the time for nice shots of your flame de jour so you could get Larry to sell you an enlargement. For the cost of paper and chemicals. He'd develop them in our bathroom, the bathroom we shared in our apartment. Larry and I had one wing of a two family and Teddy and Cheri the other. Now Teddy isn't waving back as an wizened bagpiper sucking on a churchwarden pipe. Nor Larry, nor others who just seem to have been there yesterday, but it's been 40 years. I've lost them and I didn't realize it because in my mind, I seem to see them so many times a day. They cross my inner sight every time I see a pipe, a camera, a sword or a cheap bottle of red wine.
The thing is, I don't but rarely see those things without thinking of those empty spots. I worry that the young men and women might someday go away too, in my inner sight. So I drag them out with eyes closed so I might see them again and start a new memory. But each one fades, that's empathy. Or entropy. There is a difference but there's another term that describes it. This. Them. The editor helps me get past those times when a term gets away. I can look up and see what I was writing about, see if that jogs my memory. Empathy is a cleaving of minds, a synchronizing of souls, however briefly. Entropy is the winding down of Everything, the thinning of the Universe. They are not the same, nor are they not connected. There is a sympathy for empathy in entropy. As one goes, so the other shall follow. But it's a Little off Everywhere, not big chunks, not people suddenly not being there. That would hurt too much. Even a heartless thing like Death doesn't take everything at once. It unwinds the thread of the carpet in your mind a little here and there, like a mouse crawling across the floor a little at a time. So you wind down until it's obvious and then it feels like a big chunk has been taken away. You just were preoccupied, distracted by another one so like yourself you felt an immediate bond, a merging of minds and bodies at times. At times it seems that all we did back then, back there, one bed one pair of bodies and sometimes under the stars, in pools or rivers and canals. I was such a hormone driven kid back then, two wives ago and 3,000 miles. I got better in many ways.
What do you call that? When one day you're riding skateboards everywhere and the next you're using the bus. There's a term for that and it's not entropy. I can't always remember a specific term or word and since I always think in words, when I lose a word I lose a thought and I can't always get back to it right away. I have to write everything down. Sometimes as I am trying to write it down I forget what "it" is called and then of course I lose the next thought and the chain is broken. Aphasia. When a word drops out of your vocabulary.
It's okay, not to worry. I just have to get a nap. It's worse when I'm tired. I'll get better. I'm just going through some tiring times, it's just a phase. Yeah.
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