3:11 pm | 21 May 2003 | synchronicity

Something is up today. I got a voicemail without the phone ringing. My MSN Messenger refuses stubbornly to tell me when I’ve got a new e-mail--indeed, the front page of my Hotmail is silent on the subject, but upon going to the Inbox, I see I’ve got three. And now my Diaryland buddy list is being pouty and periwinkle, not turning red to alert me that you-all are writing, are doing something to distract me from another monotonous day--what does this augur, all these messages without warning, all this lack of notice? Someone told me this morning to read Jim Carroll, and then lightfallsup’s diary quotes him. I feel fear: deep, deep fear. I feel like I’m late for my own surprise birthday party, but you bitches KNOW I ain’t no Taurus (shudder)--my birthday’s not for months and months yet. I hate this feeling, as I hate most surprises, especially the kind where people jump out of wherever, laughing when I start with fear and then pass out. I always demand to know all plans in detail beforehand, because of this pathological need to be totally on top of everything that’s afoot. So, GOD, what’s going on? TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON! clm.

Here, take this too.

It might’ve been just a stumble or
it could have been a half-heard suppli-
cation to someone I suspected
wasn’t even listening — someone
who doesn’t even have ears, in the
conventional sense—but neverthe-
less stumbling against the black foot
of the bed hoping my ass wasn’t
too white and if it was jiggling,
please let it be jiggling in the
hot J. Lo way, and not the Jell-O
geriatric way, please— But any-
way, there was something orchestrating
the fall, some mechanism in mo-
tion, whether someone else delivered
me into it or whether I was
marked all along, some strange invisi-
ble score, the kind planted by someone
with no use for eyes (not in the con-
ventional sense)—but at any rate
I stumbled there, gracelessly, and fell
back into bed, where I tried to ex-
plain a painting to you, the meaning
of which I wasn’t sure myself, though
I painted it, but I did so with
no attention to meaning or pro-
phecy, at least (in hindsight) I hope
not. But anyhow I think about
the terms of falling and still try to
rationalize, the way I explain
everything while silently praying
it’s true, or at least close enough to
pass for the truth or convince someone
who’ll never know better; in any
case I stumbled, I fell, I have no
explanation, and all along I’m
thinking if I were really modern
I wouldn’t need an explanation
and the simple stumble itself would
be enough, oh sure, oh sure, oh sure.