Vessel Log: 2009 01 31

: early like a school day but energized because it’s not. Coffee in the can. Monday Night Lit. The peaceful and near empty bus this early in the morning. This trip has the uniform of stealth escape. Oodori Station is rolled metal shades. McDonald’s is the exception. The train is a long, cylindrical tunnel, a hallway that stretches in the dark and cold earth. Sidewalk patches of silver ice, peppered with slate colored gravel. The movie theater is sponge painted salmon, polished steps lead to the screening room, bookended by flower boxes filled with forever-in-bloom blossoms. It’d be wearing gray on gray watching Earth Girls Are Easy here. Perfect and, yet, too easy. The arcade outside jangles, a training camp for Vegas. The films were grainy and blown. Pewter images of farming, corruption, capitalism, private property. A village watching Modern Times. Moss Burger for lunch. H.Y.’s boyfriend is an anarchist. Lucia; three segments of women in Cuban history. Eslinda Núñez looks like Rose Byrne. Dash and slide for the train. The wind in town has picked up bite. The fifth floor of Seiyu for bowling. Trade in my rental shoes for bigger sizes; 26cm, 27cm, 28cm. Boys versus girls. E., S. C., A., J., M., B., R., J., and myself. Later, T. from the B-- with his wife and baby.

Vessel Log: 2009 01 30

: towards to end of the school day the orbicularis gris and zygomaticus unionize with the coal chute esophagus. This rebellion caught the tongue off-guard as it trounced over words the brain committed near thirty years ago. More sifting, swapping, alchemy in rearranging the compounds of a haiku written by schoolgirls. Their feet slogging through mud at different kilometric intervals. Melancholy takes some earlier than others. The usefulness of hieroglyphs. Fifteen minutes in the deep cold. On the bus, Hips and Makers again this time a séance to communicate with the past and draw charts with the present. Habana, a party for the guest lecturer, Oda-sensei who writes books about Che Guevara. A meal of salad, roast beef, roast pork, chicken, rice and beans. They say チェ ゲバラ, I hear “gay bar”. Determined to catch the 10 o’clock Super Kamui train but kept sitting with the free flow of red wine. H.Y. and her boyfriend are moving to Tokyo. K. asks for a phone number swap. T. is pushing me to socialize, feeding me topics, questions and telling me whose number to get.

Vessel Log: 2009 01 29

: Manic mouth, spilling what had been muffled for months. If you’re losing yourself then invite him back to the table; with no excuses. The TV studio is hot lamps and projected video. The first human being to see and recognize him or herself. What surface was that? A calm lip of water? A sheath of cool metal? Narcissus? …on the night we kissed in the stairwell/ before we really knew each other yet… Juliana Hatfield: How To Walk Away: “Shining On”. Laundry near dripping wet and cold, the scent of chemically induced chamomile. We will always be beautiful… beautiful… we need to forget/ all the mistakes, disasters and words that should never have been spoken…

Vessel Log: 2009 01 28

: we only get together when there’s a death in the community. White as bone, blue shadow. President Obama is a lefty. In the classroom I count the number of left-handed students. 3 boys and 1 girl. Very unusual for a Japanese class of under 30 kids.

There is a man out-
side the window. Pacing and
breaking snow with boots

I can’t see. I don’t
know him. The kyoushikai seems
unconcerned. I will be too.

A bloody tissue on the sidewalk. Took the underground tunnel to cross the street. Cats are mewing to be let inside. One’s owner takes a picture through the clear door. Met E. at Victoria Station for dinner. Her misadventures at CostCo, the indestructible apple pie, A. running for the bus. What are intrusions if not the notches of a life?

Vessel Log: 2009 01 27

: if I turned on the lights it would be late afternoon and that would be confusing. I’d think about dinner, not breakfast; taking a shower, not getting my long-johns on; pouring a glass of wine, not making sure I have my bus tickets. I’m never more aware of my otherness than when I watch the news. Sumo wrestlers. Microwavable heating pads for the tub. Alice Notley: 30th Birthday; The Best Issues of Comic Books; Requiem for the First Half of Split. Snow blusters while walking the 45 minutes to the bus terminal. A room of aching machines, gray and labeled. A winter black & white scene of an empty railroad station with the occasional tin worm of a train. The camera lights are hot. My shirt fuzzes on the monitor; unsure if its in this dimension or another. This is a rehearsal. I’m fixed on my TV self. Uncomfortable, like wearing a costume. Wishing I had a House of Parliament to tell me what to eat for dinner.

Vessel Log: 2009 01 26

: the smell of marzipan in the school hallway. Great Ojo de Dios, of the Midori-Greenland Ferris Wheel, half lidded by the window. Enjoying twilight by not flickering on the harsh fluorescents. Willette Kershaw and her five tabbies. Old Throwing Muses articles in the New York Times archives. Tanya Donelly on rockband.com. Breakfast for dinner. Reimagining Hips and Makers. How is it 2009 and not 1994? Fifteen years is a lifetime connected with dusty masking tape and progressively poorer eyeglass prescriptions.

Vessel Log: 2009 01 25

: Hard Candy and the guy across the way, the one in a red pea coat and hair swept back waves to smile. Boston. Red Sox.

* * *

Before madness there is always a calm or ought to be. One hundred yen shopping; glasses, spray bottle, waste basket. A ream of paper. Emptying shelves on the third floor of Seiyu. Mounds of paper, unreadable advertisements, bills split in boxes, numbers, and characters. Printing stories, binding their A4 size in cardboard filers.