Friday, July 11, 2008
My Adventures In YouTube week of 7/11
My favorite new music video. Oh, just because...
Te quiero, Goldfrapp. Te quiero mucho.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Strawberry Letter 35
Hello my love,
I return, a little worse for the wear, from the past to let you know that time traveling is not all that it's cracked up to be. After receiving your last letter I found myself consumed with waiting for your return. I looked around every corner, studied every face. None of them were you. A friend imparted that old nugget of wisdom "If you keep looking, it's not going to happen". My spine spikes at that idea. Sure, I've found lost baubles and such weeks after ceasing a focused attempt (in an overstuffed drawer, behind a heavy couch, in a jacket pocket) but the things that really matter have only been found when I put my mind to it, retrace my steps and realize how fucked I am without what I'm looking for. Like losing my house keys I just can't get anywhere without you. This search, my love, is how I came to find that I had traveled all the way back to 1994.
Like Alice chasing the white rabbit I thought I saw you one night, that familiar scent of pine needles and honey stung me like a swarm of bees, and I took flight after the source. He looked like you from behind, your shape, a faint puff of breath, that sweet smell that I remember when I washed your hair, kissing your neck as the freshwater filled my senses with such an aroma! The shape of the small hairs just six inches from your shoulder moving in the drops the way that moss dances on a submerged rock with the flow of the river. I heard a crunch of twigs underfoot and came to. I was outside of a house, a bright light illuminating the yard full of teens, drinking and laughing. I thought I would feel older than them but catching my style of dress in a window's reflection I realized that I had Quantum Leaped into a scene I had so often experienced at 16 or 17. The wind shifted and I caught the scent again coming up behind me. My heart swelled to think that it would be you to quell my disorientation but as I turned I sputtered at the sight of someone who was most certainly from my present. Someone who has become a master of time travel himself, skipping across years and memories to reside in small moments of joy that had nothing to do with the here and now. I felt a little violated that he had brought me to a time and place that was of some comfort to me but just enough pain to make me turn and run. I'd had enough confrontations with the objects of my affection at these parties to make me know what this fellow wanted from me and it wasn't what I wanted to bring back to 2008. I had been on your trail (so close!) and getting stuck in this slip of time was only going to knock me further and further away from you. I could see words coming from his mouth in my direction and so I pulled a pair of headphones (94 style) from the pocket of my windbreaker and hit play on the Walkman they were attached to. A familiar bouncing beat wrapped in devastating longing filled my ears and the words racing towards me popped like bubbles on my fingertips. I turned and ran, turning onto a long dark road lit only by the yellow stripes that ran down its middle. The song moved faster in my head and I matched the beat to your heart and aimed my thoughts on the notion that I had not lost you in 1994 but knew that I could only find you in 2008. I watched the fresh paint on the road slowly fade and crack with each step as I shot forward in time, the young man from 08 that I left in the lurch back in 94 whizzed by around 07 where he seemed content in resting. I felt bad leaving him there but I knew that if I was going to find you I had to get back to the here and now. The air rose in temperature and the thick lines that had once run under my shoes had crackled into faint reminders of themselves. I had made it back. As I caught my breath I hoped that I would smell your scent again moving on the air. Sadly, I only caught the smell of rain.
Wanna hear something odd? It turns out that the song I played on the Walkman had been from 2008. Even weirder? It was made by someone that I knew in 1994. I listen to it now and can't believe how much that song moves my calender back 14 years. Like it has taken its own journey through time to remind me of the things I left behind and of the span of that time that stands ahead of me just waiting to be reached into. I play that song everyday now, sometimes just for a moment, I like to think that you slipped that tape in when I wasn't looking while I actually lived in 94 and that you've been there with me every step of the way. Maybe you needed to go back for something yourself, a memory that had shifted and fallen back behind some heavy boxes, and it was indeed you that I had caught on the wind. The tape in my player was your postcard saying that you missed me. Well my love, I'm sending you back a paper kiss from 2008. I wish you were here, where you belong.
I return, a little worse for the wear, from the past to let you know that time traveling is not all that it's cracked up to be. After receiving your last letter I found myself consumed with waiting for your return. I looked around every corner, studied every face. None of them were you. A friend imparted that old nugget of wisdom "If you keep looking, it's not going to happen". My spine spikes at that idea. Sure, I've found lost baubles and such weeks after ceasing a focused attempt (in an overstuffed drawer, behind a heavy couch, in a jacket pocket) but the things that really matter have only been found when I put my mind to it, retrace my steps and realize how fucked I am without what I'm looking for. Like losing my house keys I just can't get anywhere without you. This search, my love, is how I came to find that I had traveled all the way back to 1994.
Like Alice chasing the white rabbit I thought I saw you one night, that familiar scent of pine needles and honey stung me like a swarm of bees, and I took flight after the source. He looked like you from behind, your shape, a faint puff of breath, that sweet smell that I remember when I washed your hair, kissing your neck as the freshwater filled my senses with such an aroma! The shape of the small hairs just six inches from your shoulder moving in the drops the way that moss dances on a submerged rock with the flow of the river. I heard a crunch of twigs underfoot and came to. I was outside of a house, a bright light illuminating the yard full of teens, drinking and laughing. I thought I would feel older than them but catching my style of dress in a window's reflection I realized that I had Quantum Leaped into a scene I had so often experienced at 16 or 17. The wind shifted and I caught the scent again coming up behind me. My heart swelled to think that it would be you to quell my disorientation but as I turned I sputtered at the sight of someone who was most certainly from my present. Someone who has become a master of time travel himself, skipping across years and memories to reside in small moments of joy that had nothing to do with the here and now. I felt a little violated that he had brought me to a time and place that was of some comfort to me but just enough pain to make me turn and run. I'd had enough confrontations with the objects of my affection at these parties to make me know what this fellow wanted from me and it wasn't what I wanted to bring back to 2008. I had been on your trail (so close!) and getting stuck in this slip of time was only going to knock me further and further away from you. I could see words coming from his mouth in my direction and so I pulled a pair of headphones (94 style) from the pocket of my windbreaker and hit play on the Walkman they were attached to. A familiar bouncing beat wrapped in devastating longing filled my ears and the words racing towards me popped like bubbles on my fingertips. I turned and ran, turning onto a long dark road lit only by the yellow stripes that ran down its middle. The song moved faster in my head and I matched the beat to your heart and aimed my thoughts on the notion that I had not lost you in 1994 but knew that I could only find you in 2008. I watched the fresh paint on the road slowly fade and crack with each step as I shot forward in time, the young man from 08 that I left in the lurch back in 94 whizzed by around 07 where he seemed content in resting. I felt bad leaving him there but I knew that if I was going to find you I had to get back to the here and now. The air rose in temperature and the thick lines that had once run under my shoes had crackled into faint reminders of themselves. I had made it back. As I caught my breath I hoped that I would smell your scent again moving on the air. Sadly, I only caught the smell of rain.
Wanna hear something odd? It turns out that the song I played on the Walkman had been from 2008. Even weirder? It was made by someone that I knew in 1994. I listen to it now and can't believe how much that song moves my calender back 14 years. Like it has taken its own journey through time to remind me of the things I left behind and of the span of that time that stands ahead of me just waiting to be reached into. I play that song everyday now, sometimes just for a moment, I like to think that you slipped that tape in when I wasn't looking while I actually lived in 94 and that you've been there with me every step of the way. Maybe you needed to go back for something yourself, a memory that had shifted and fallen back behind some heavy boxes, and it was indeed you that I had caught on the wind. The tape in my player was your postcard saying that you missed me. Well my love, I'm sending you back a paper kiss from 2008. I wish you were here, where you belong.
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