There are jaded souls – who have lived through some tragedy or calamity (or a series of miserable misadventures) who take their pain as hard won wisdom, to be able to see through the pretty lie that happy folk believe in – that their pain is a set of hip, ultra pensive shades, through which they can see through bullshit.

There are serene souls – who have lived in love and happiness (or if not, had some spark of fortune that allowed them to hold on to serenity regardless).  They see their sheltered serenity as wisdom, able to see behind the black clouds floating over the jaded souls, brooding selfishly, waxing Byronic.

“And which is wisdom?” I ask my rubber raven, staring down at me (plastic-gem eyes of a demon’s seeming) from my bookshelf (one day I’ll scrounge the money to get him a pallid bust of Pallas…perhaps plastic as well).

Why is a rubber raven like a writing desk?  Well…for starters, neither of them will answer questions, queries, nor conundrums, no matter how little sleep I’ve had.

Neither is wisdom.  Both are just tunnel vision.  We can see the world in larger frames, outside of ourselves, but it’s easier to assume the whole ball of it is as it is through our tinny perception-goggles.

“Oh…my mother was a crack whore, killed all my pets, and put out cigarettes in my eyes.  Surely the world is a black pit of despair, since this happened to me – surely God does not exist…and he’s an asshole.”

“Oh…my family sat around the tree, every Christmas, hugs all around, my life is a long Hallmark card.  Surely the world is fine – surely I am a snow flake, carefully cut by a benevolent deity.”

Tunnel vision.

Because, whispered a voice, many serene souls are one tragedy short of being jaded – and where did there serene wisdom go then?  And every jaded soul knew, intellectually, that bad things happen and they knew this before their personal tragedy – and so their jaded wisdom is cheaply bought, an emotional backlash, adolescent and black.

No wisdom there, neither on the z nor the y.  Wisdom must be won on another axis.  On another plane.  Off the map.  Here there be dragons.

This, my rubber raven said unto me.

“But you just claimed that rubber ravens and writing desks can’t speak,” you might be saying.  And that is true, I said neither could answer questions…but combined…

…give me a writing desk and I can conjure animus, to animate a rubber raven (plastic molded shape of a Native trickster god who stole the sun from the sky), by my so potent art.

I think you have to have a really twisted sense of humor to make me the minister presiding over your wedding…

…I love it!

Back stage, during director studio scenes, I slipped and smashed my head into a brick wall (they heard it all the way down the hall). It gave me a headache. I’ll type more later.

Josh not sleep good.

Josh not sleep.

Josh go out run errands in bright light.

Josh maybe sleep gooder after.

1. Go into your LJ archive
2. Find your 23rd post
3. Find the 5th sentence (or closest to it)
4. Post that sentence along with these instructions in your livejournal

here’s mine:

And, amongst the hidden shadow courts of the mouse kingdom, there was much rejoicing.

Though I did transport some of my old Ujournal posts to this livejournal account…I started counting from the first LiveJournal entry. I’d explain the sentence…but what’s the fun in that?

For class today, I had to read the short story collection, Jesus’ Son.  I also had to write a little, 500 word review.  Click below if interested…

Jesus’s Son – review

I recall, as a little pupa-staged child, sitting in class, gestating in a catholic-school-uniform-cocoon, still years prior to sprouting wings – listening to the teacher tell us the secrets of life and death and the thereafter. I remember daydreaming, wishing that when my time came, I could instantly graduate from Heaven-bound soul to earth-bound angel. Maybe assigned to look out for folks, whatever; the important thing was that I’d get to come back, not have to leave for Heaven. Oh, paradise seemed all right, after a fashion, but it just wasn’t as precarious, as imperfect, as…precious as earth. I guess, at a young age, I realized that perfect was boring, was without as much meaning, and that a perfect heaven was just a hell of another zip code.

It’s nice to recall little adventures.  It’s nice to realize you’ve had a few good ones – to be telling an anecdote to the slightly younger cast members, at rehearsal, and ending it with “…and that’s how I got into the Porn Star Ball.”

Memories…

The student directed scenes I’m in are on December 9^th, 10^th, and 11^th.  I’m in two and get to play Danny in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea as well as a cocaine snorting, sleazy, lawyer/con man, sometimes-ax-murderer in Curse of the Starving Class.