Random Notebook #9: Transitionals, part 002

I’ve had the strange sensation that despite the fact that I have thrown away a magnificent amount of time, the fact remains that I have also done a great deal of work; all of this, despite the fact that there are other things that beg for my attention.  I’ve been lucky, more than lucky, to understand the same rigmarole of the days that go in and out of my life.  I know that the feeling that my end is near is just that, a feeling.  There are times, however, when I see all of it quite clear in my mind, and I can’t get over the fact that life is good aside from all this.  I don’t know what mechanisms are at work in my mind when I ultimately believe it may all end soon, but factors that led me to where I am today I understand all too clearly.  And if all of this leads me to lose myself by creating these fictions, these stories, these plots that go nowhere, then at least I am keeping alive by means of those words of my imagination.  Like, for example, how did I predict these events on that plot I came up with in 1995-1996 but never followed through?  I wish I had had more insight, more vision to pursue that plot when I originally struck the vein.  No crying over spilt milk, really.  What I will do now is continue to think about those men on that isolated post and their questioning (not challenging) of their leadership.  What good would a post like that do?  So far from the rear, clearly out of artillery range, impossible, even at times, to call in air support?  What good, really, is the sitting around, going out on patrol, taking the casualties they did?  What good are the replacements straight out of boot camp?  One hundred years from now, when all of us are gone, who would remember this post, these hills, and these fighting holes we dug?  Fifty years from now, when whatever we leave behind rusts to deformity, and all that is left are the faint scars we carved upon the earth itself, who would really care about what we did here?  What consolation is it to the men that died, to their families?  Certainly, this is a mission, and the mission is more important than any of our opinions, or worse, our own feelings and lives.  I would like to believe that there are things more important than the mission, but the idealism that goes behind believing what our superiors say to us leads me to believe that all of that is obligatory rhetoric, a form of appeasement.  I believe it infinitely more believable and productive to listen to the rest of the men when they speak genuinely, that meaning when their words are the meaning they all hold close to their hearts.  Ironically, it is these young “boots” opinions that one must listen to the most.  Coming back from patrol, whether or not we had made contact with the enemy, the look on the faces of these young “boots” makes it clear to us, men who have been out here for the better part of a year, that this post is madness, that the patrols are simply nothing short of suicide runs, and that the only reason why are here is because this relentless enemy doesn’t fear us, but rather seems to find meaning in simply toying with us.  Imagine if the enemy, in their clear capacity to overrun this post, wiped us out of the map completely?  They couldn’t possibly do that, could they?  In reality, they could.  Conceptually, for the enemy to overrun and take over this stupid hill would be to simply invalidate the meaning of their so-called jihad.  One comes to a very awkward realization—the Taliban needs us here more than our own high command does.  But these are things one writes down and speaks not of.  This was something we all secretly agreed upon, and woe be unto the man who broke this silence.  “Keep it bottled up, Jack… no real need to talk about it.”  Deep inside the absurdity of the mission became a joke we all enjoyed, perhaps sadistically (especially when we take wounded and they die in route to the rear).  I know I wasn’t far off the mark when we captured a man walking barefoot and half naked on ____ valley one fine afternoon in the month of October (description here).  ×  And this was only 30 minutes.  I wanted to write for a longer time but the lack of focus was terrible. 

Random Notebook #8: Transitional Narratives, From Here to There

I feel as if I had abandoned better thoughts or things to write about due to, perhaps, a lack of focus.  But in all of this nonsense there is a hidden lesson: I dare any of those “professionals” I left behind to match my writing, even then I was finishing notebooks left and right.  It really is a whole lot more than simply finishing notebooks; it’s the development of thoughts I might simply browse in the waking hours and days ahead of me, day after day.  I wonder what I would be doing if I never gave a thought or examination to life in general.  Life might be even better.  To live in ignorance of these complex questions and deep examinations of my most basic thoughts; live as if nothing of this mattered but was just entering life and exiting at the other end without having a single existential question, or perhaps thinking about it but not recognizing it as such.  Even in writing about it here, I have a tendency to believe all of this, of course, has been thought and examined before, as if in all the things and their essence nothing about be solely original, but a rethinking or reorganizing of a thought examined years before. 

I have little idea as to why I chose to write on these things.  Like I said, I think they are universal thoughts, and that is all I can think of right now.  Reading “The Deer Park,” by Norman Mailer, but I must have written about this already.  I had a feeling while traveling here, that I should write something based on K.B.’s life.  The girl was raised as a Jehovah Witness and was damaged for life.  I would probably write in the first person, that and talking in the intimate side of telling another person’s life story in a sort of episodic form—traveling from present tense to past as any whim in the story pushes out.  Where to begin?  Perhaps make it contemporary—it was my first college class since being discharged from active duty… Having done four combat tours (three in Afghanistan and one in Iraq), I had had enough of the “brotherhood,” and being “always faithful.”  Of course, there are people that would disagree with me for not re-enlisting, but one has to take opinions like that just like the ones coming from the assholes who hold those same ideas.  I don’t mean to sound like a cynic, but I simply felt it was time to move on.

I enrolled at B. University on a whim.  I saw the name and it sounded good and round and resolute—I never cared about researching anything.  There were officers I disliked for throwing their Ivy League names around, disclosing their privilege backgrounds.  Some earned the respect of their men because they were careful, high-spirited but careful and not subject to “gut feelings” while on patrol.  Those officers were in a microscopic minority to the other so-called “risk takers,” the ones who trusted their gut more than what intelligence reported, never even looked at the GPS and got us lost for hours.  Luckily, the loss of men was small when these idiots came along barking orders to enlisted men who had been in-country for close to a year and a half, gone on hundreds of patrols.  Sometimes, these officers got us in troubles that only the Staff Sergeant and other senior NCOs could get us out of.  Because under fire, and I don’t mean IEDs or insurgent snipers, the Staff Sergeants were the ones in command and when the odd-ball officer saw the NCOs take the initiative, they would sit and watch how it was done.  They would learn this way more than they ever could at the Naval Academy or West Point or whatever sorry ass ROTC programs they came from.  The men knew right away whom to trust and whom to despise.  Only occasionally we would have one of those assholes who, fearing of losing face, would shout out an NCOs plan to get out of an ambush.  Those were the real dangerous ones—the ones with only a handful (or less) patrol experiences but acting as if they knew it all.  I can’t even count the list of men—fine Marines—that dumb officers got either killed or wounded, just on the strength of pushing around their lieutenant bar.  The more moderate ones listened to the NCOs and watched carefully at how masterfully these lower rank men pin-pointed locations, called in air support and medical evacuations as needed; all of this while still engaging the enemy and directing precise flank movements that, at least in my experience, never failed to get us out of a jam and take the upper-hand from the insurgents.

That was my war.  That’s how I spent my time serving my country.  Maybe even 90% of the time I spent reading the officers, at least the lieutenants.  The captains one could trust because these were a different breed of men; men who had fought in Panama in 1989, Kuwait in 1990-91 and in Somalia in 1993-94, and most of them got field commissions.  Other older brass had been part of the Beirut “peace keepers” that got blown to bits in 1983.  We trusted these men as we distrusted the “pale-faced,” which was what we began calling them because as green as they were their faces would be pale-white even into their fourth or fifth patrol.

Random Notebook #5: Genesis of Nothing, Start of All

 All of this may come with some facility to me but when it happens, I have to take quick advantage of it, lest I lose the thread.  At any rate, it is fun to simply write freely and without care.  To write about whatever I care about.  To write about whatever strikes me.  I do pray and hope that things do not come down to ranting, and I must be aware of what I am doing all of the time so as not to ruin the time I am investing on this.  It is difficult because there’s still so much anger inside of me, anger that is begging for some outlet.  It is not a waste of time to think that my rants lead nowhere.  I try and that is all I can do.  Even the best published authors do not have it all figured out.  They begin where I begin, do the same things I do, but with much better discipline than I.  They also have a lot of help from editors and people who make suggestions and corrections.  Nevertheless, I know I can do this at this level and with some talent and working on my discipline as much as I can.  The past has to remain behind.  There cannot be any more wasting time, this time that is so valuable.  What M has offered me has been a dream come true, and I feel I have wasted much of that time.  There’s much to do about discipline—the timer helps, and there’s a great deal of joy in finishing the time allotted for this.  Yet, I have to do more—I can put pressure on myself and fail tremendously, or I can simply do what I did yesterday and the day before.  Think effortlessly.  Think smoothly about the plot, no pressure, just type, print, and craft.  Repeat as necessary.  Of course, the plots sitting at home also need to be looked at.  There are many things I’ve tried that have not worked—others that I simply wonder where they came from.  There are hints of talent and gift, but I get discouraged too quickly and there’s the issue that discipline must (I swore I would not use that word) correct with time.  It’s a matter of really thinking about it and knowing that unless I push myself, nothing will come of this.  So there.  It’s time to begin the game of suppose.  First, decide on a topic/emotion/root of the plot.  Man or woman?  Okay.   A man from a small town.  He owns a hardware store on one of those picturesque American Main Streets in Anytown.  He is married.  Seemingly enjoying the perfect life.  His name is Norman, Norman Grant (yes, I knew that name was in my head for some purpose—here it is).  Norman Grant.  Small business owner and respected member of his community.  Esteemed in his church, a veteran of the Great War.  So, the plot must take place between 1981—1925 or thereabouts.  His wife, Selma Grant comes from Puritan stock, her repression (emotional and sexual) eventually leads to the crisis of the plot.  Okay, how about this: the big secret, the great mystery comes from this—Norman has extravagant sexual desires that he cannot engage in with his repressed wife.  She finds him sick, distorted and downright evil.  For years, he imposed his will on her, violently and damagingly.  But the sick thrill of using Selma for his games becomes too much an effort for him to make constantly, and therefore he abandons the conjugal bed and opens his sexual desires to other roads of perdition.  By an act of conscience, Norman finds a willing partner.  The woman, Rose Platt, is the town preacher’s wife.  Before I can write about the affair, I have to figure out a way for them—Norman and Rose—to find they have a common interest in their perversity.  Think, think, think.  How does Norman find Rose’s sexual deviance?  Okay, suppose that Norman has what I could call a “purveyor” of filth, of explicit illustrations that comes into the hardware store from time to time.  During one of his visits, the man brings in what he calls the best stock of photos he’d ever had to offer.  The men go back and forth about the price as Norman goes through the material.  A series of 10 photos catches his eye because of the theme explored.  In the series, a woman is tied to a chair.  She is kneeling on top, her upper body immobilized by ropes wrapped around her shoulders; her legs are tied to the legs of the chair.  This is a very awkward position—the woman’s bare buttocks are prominent, two perfect spheres, Norman thinks.  Norman goes through the entire contents of the box but he’s not sure he wants to buy the entire stock.  He wants to haggle on the price of the set that caught his attention, but the man would not let it go alone—he had to purchase the entire stock, or nothing.  Among the photos, Norman sees a face he recognizes; it is Rose Platt, the preacher’s wife.  He’s baffled.  He studies the photograph closely.  It had to be her.  Of course, there’s no way of telling if it’s simply a look alike, or if his eyes are not betraying the similarity.  Norman is sure now that he wants the photographs, but he needs to bring the price down.  One thing he knew was that if he acted disinterested, the purveyor would be less likely to come down on the price.  He acts hesitantly, unimpressed, casual about the set he wants or the Rose Platt photo.  He goes through the photos again with even less interest.  “I don’t know,” he says, “price is a bit over my budget.”  “But they’re good photos, Norman… unique.”  “Let me think about it,” Norman says with an air of indifference and starting towards the front of the store as if to indicate he is through.  “Okay, Norman,” the purveyor says, “make me an offer, but be fair.”  They haggle a bit longer for the price.  “I’m sorry,” Norman says, “I’m not going to keep you.  If we can’t come to an agreement over a few pennies, it’s no use keeping you here.  I am sure you have other people to visit.”  The purveyor gives in and the transaction is quickly done.  The purveyor leaves.  Norman looks at his watch, it’s still half an hour before lunch.  Should he put the sign for lunch up, or should he make himself suffer with his uncontrollable desire to look at his new collection?

            Again, he thinks of the woman in the picture.  The resemblance was too close—good heavens, could it be her, he thinks.  But even if it was, how could he ever approach her, show her the photo?  Could he, he paused, get some mileage out of these photos?  In his eyes, it would not be black mail, but rather an agreement between two people who share a common interest.  He became obsessed and could think of nothing else.  He needed to confirm that the woman in the photo was indeed Rose Platt.  He couldn’t certainly come up to her and ask her, could he?  What if it’s just a coincidence?  What if she accuses him of immorality?  Is it worth the risk?  He tried not to think about.  He counted the minutes before he could put up the sigh “out to lunch” and go up to the attic to “study” these pictures closely.  His excitement was desperate.  He couldn’t wait any longer.  He went to the front door, the turned the sign over, and with the envelope containing the photos he went up to the attic to have “some time” with his new acquisition.  × This came fast and furious, and I almost forget where I was on what I was doing.  Perhaps the best way to go is the library, but beyond that, the fact that one can make a fiction out of just about anything one can come up with.  That is what I will look for from now on—the thing that really clicks, the one plot that makes all things flow.

Moleskine #003 -- Writing Exercises and Developing Discipline

 These are the type of experiences that tell you you could do this professionally.  All that material stored in your mind can indeed come in handy at times like these.  This is one exercise you should really concentrate on for J.—show the emotion through events rather than simply make him say explicitly what his emotion is.  Arch those emotions.  For example, that sense of him resigning to his lover’s decision creates later a gamut of emotions with both sadness and desperation at the center of it, but never really anger.  He is sad and by thinking too much about it, it progresses into desperation; that inherent inability to control himself or his thoughts that ultimately culminates with him turning into a stalker of sorts.  Then, of course, is humiliation, complete, collective, irrevocable.  Now all of the emotions continue to boil.  He’s caught in the threshold of insanity and all that is required now is for one more single push that will “nail the coffin” for him.  That nail comes next day when, in the morning, during what he considered a valiant effort to regain normalcy, he shows up at work to find D. waiting for him in the lobby.  They go to the boardroom where the other partners are gathered.

You may or may not have the time to go into detail now about how the meeting develops.  That’s not the point right now.  At the end of the meeting, J. is completely out of control.  He leaves the building in a daze of confusion.  The only difference is that the proverbial tunnel, slow-motion that populates the senses similar to this one do not appear in front of J.  Of course he knows this is not a movie, but he felt disappointment nevertheless.  In a sudden burst of sacrilege and existential angst, he wonders whether God is, to use his words, “fucking with him.”  J. was sure this was not the case, but wondered nevertheless what sort of explanation he could put together right now. 

This of course was not for S.’s benefit but rather for himself.  How could a chain of events sparked by something so simple as an affair lead to such an apocalyptic result.  Is this what happens to all people who have affairs?  Is this what eventually will happen to S. and I.?  No, he seriously doubted that.  There seems to be two outcomes for cases of infidelity.  In his case, lack of careful management of the affair (that is to say, his own inability to keep his emotions in check) had brought all of this about.  No, of course it could not be.  People have affairs all of the time and not all of them came to the catastrophic conclusions his did.  Imagine, with so many affairs taking place in the confines of the business world, if even 50% of affairs ended the way this one did, we would be living in an economic collapse of Biblical proportions.  Lives ruined by illicit love affairs would eventually impact American business leadership to such a degree that the trickle-down effect would leave millions unemployed, houses will foreclose, banks would be forced to close down for lack of liquidity, the streets would be filled with the discontented, riots and civil war will envelop the country, the government will be overthrown and anarchy will be the way of the world.  J. knows that all of this is a terrible slippery slope, and that it will never happen; or rather, he knew that the source of all the things leading to that will not be marital infidelity.  And now he hated the fact that the entire idea of the affair wasn’t entirely his own.  Didn’t S. advocate this?  (This is the scene where everything is passing by him in NYC).  He walks half of the edge of Central Park, but doesn’t know where to go from here… the pause makes him think of something and he goes into a long memory scene that takes him back to (       ).

Moleskine #001 - Being Home or Lost in Place and Listening to People at a Cafe

 These are the first words you have written here, lost in this mess, this cultural wilderness.  You’ve not come here to find yourself or to put pieces together.  You’ve come here only to observe and to listen closely to all that is around you.  This is the place where people want to continue putting you in the position of being home, and that’s not even faintly true.  Imagine how little of what you consider home really is (in some way, shape or form) any form of spiritual or physical connection for you.  This is not home, not at all.  This place is not home any more than that other place (the place you now call home) is home.  This is not an artificially flavored polemic, or synthetic soul searching—it is just the way it is.  No excuses and no fake justifications.  This is the reality that you embody at this moment.  Now that you are reading Eco on the semantics of “being” you have a better understanding of this situation and the feeling that overcome you today and in the next few days.  You suspect that things will be better when you leave here, but it is not to be.  When you return, you will do some work, but also you will think about all of this and then try to theorize or formulate a language real enough to convey all of this.  

Yesterday, you overheard a couple in crisis.  It was about breaking up, or something of that sort, but you weren’t completely sure.  There was another man involved, a so-called friend, against whom the young man last night had had an issue with.  Things you overheard—that, according to young man #1, the other man only wanted to befriend her to take advantage of her.  Now, it does sound terribly jealous and extremely machista; however, one simple look at the girl and one would have to give some validity to what the young man #1 was saying.  She was a beautiful and tall, very slender and a body that most men in this place will kill their own flesh and blood over.  She was voluptuous and curious, with lips that simply begged to be kissed.  Her face was exquisite, although she wasn’t made up.  This was more an outing; they were determining the fate of their affair.

Birth of a New Project -- The Past is Now the Present

 Looking over to my left from where I sit at my desk, there is a pile of Moleskine notebooks too numerous to count.  These are notebooks I have filled in the last nine to ten years since I found my first Moleskine notebook at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Washington DC in 1997 or 1998.  I cannot remember accurately, but I do remember finishing the notebook and starting a new one the very same day.  I guess I had a lot to "say" or write down then.

Over the course of many years, and as I played around the disaster that can be "hypergraphia," I never stopped for a second to think of the emotional benefits or the psychological damage I was inflicting on myself.  Writing always seems like the perfect blend of a justifiable activity (look, I am not wasting my time. I am doing something productive), and idling hours away that could be put to better use.  That tinge of guilt that comes from two hours of not putting the pen down is constant and not abating.  On the other hand, the pleasure of filling another notebook (or I should say, notebook after notebook after notebook) is one of incomparable accomplishment.  Either way, this is the way we doom ourselves to this activity of writing.

I have decided to put the text inside those notebooks to good work by publishing parts of it here.  I have already typed most of those notebooks into Word files, often printing them when  I have access to a "free" printer, ink and paper (yes, those are department perks), but I never go back and read them.  The act of typing those notebooks up becomes the act of reading them without the weight of censorship or any other judgment.  I type as the words are on paper and never change or fix anything.  What will be presented here are parts that I found non-compromising, not giving away identity, and/or not jeopardizing anyone's privacy.  Some of them will be random pickings, while other will be passages that I deem appropriate or valuable in some way to me. 

The entries will be without date, as my notebooks are not diaries but rather reflections of what I think, read and observe.  I confess to going into sprees of useless rambling and will try to keep those away from the posts.  In order to keep some semblance of sanity, I will number the entries and will add a short line on the title to give it a sense of direction or thematic meaning.

I hope the long-time readers of this blog enjoy this new venture.  Of course the other posts will continue between Moleskine notebook posts, and those will be titled appropriately.

Notebooks That Matter...

Well, in my never-ending search for the perfect notebook for my Visconti pen, I've come to realize that my solution was right under my nose. While I have been using the practical Moleskine Sketchbook (the paper is so thick there's only 100 pages worth), I have considered the Quo Vadis Havana as the ultimate solution. The problem is that I can't fork over the twenty-something dollars without feeling the guilt. It's very tempting, with that and the fact that the Havanas have the coveted Clairefontaine, 90g extra white, acid-free paper, but I simply cannot do it and keep a clean conscious. So, as I reexamined the (dis)organization of my book shelves and office, I came across a stack of about 20 notebooks I purchased in Japan over a decade ago. The maker is Apica Notebooks, as if by magic there it was: 90g acid-free paper! Super effective with fountain pens, no matter the color. In fact, I wrote in several of these when I lived in Japan back in 1994. The pen at the time was my loyal and ever-trusty Parker Vector, medium nib (20 years ago a $6.95 value at your convenient college bookstore). Even with a medium nib the paper held nicely without any bleeding. Even today, when I review the completed notebooks from 1994, I am amazed I had completely forgotten I had these valuable notebooks just sitting around waiting to be REdiscovered. The Havanas will have to wait for a good while now. Here's a photo of the Apica Classic. The cover reads: "Note Book Most Advanced Quality Gives Best Writing Features" (those of you familiar with the Japanese usage of the Queen's English will no doubt understand the "Engrish" phenomenon).