magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

my dreams involved a trip by train, and a burglar alarm that went off in a house that daniel and jeanette owned in savannah, or some smallish, warmish, east coast city.

in the shower i had an idea for the screenplay that i'm supposed to be writing. to combine the text of my performance piece 'creation myth' with truth and lies about my relationship with stef (i wouldn't be able to write about anything completely unconnected to this right now), including my short story idea about a boy who has a nervous breakdown and kidnaps his ex-girlfriend. it would be a tragic love story, about overcoming hang-ups and regrets, as well as ideas of creation and recreation and myth, with genies and angels and probably faeries, but grounded for the most part in the emotions of the real world. i don't know whether or not it would have a happy ending.

now i just have to start writing.

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it was a beautiful, spring-like day today. i didn't need to wear my hat or zip up my jacket. and i was reading the man without qualities on the train, about austria, ninety years ago, in the summer. and i was okay with this city. i ate a bagel and then decided to walk cross town, instead of getting back in the subway. i dictated into my phone: 'it's hard to reconcile the poetics of the city, historical, architectural, literary, with the physical reality of actually living in it.' i can't take full credit for this thought. it was sparked by something alex, bachelorette #1, said in an email.

i had an interview today for an internship with a company that designs sets for television (primarily news shows), as well as trade show exhibits, events, retail stores, and the like. i got a really good feeling from the offices, from beatrice, who would be supervising the internship. it seems like something that really could set me off in a good direction. i should know tomorrow or friday. it's exciting.

back out in the city, probably glowing a little, with the spark of possibility, i continued to walk. from 36th street south. nowhere particular in mind. past 14th street and the most direct train home. into the village. south. eventually i realized that if i just kept walking i would come to the world trade center site.

it had been about a year and a half since i had been there. a year before that, on september 9th, 2001, i took a photo of the new york skyline as my plane flew into newark, and from there on to rome. a year an a half ago the implications of the site were just too overwhelming for me to even begin to internalize. i watched the reactions of others, because i was simply numb. today, no one really pays much attention to the site. a few tourists stop to look at the displays of historical information, at the site itself. but most people just walk by, as they probably do every day on their way home from work.

on september 9th, 2001, stef drove me to the airport in boston, and i got on a plane and flew away from her for eight months.

but once i again i digress, and find myself spiraling into things i'd really rather not spend too much time thinking about. instead, how about this:

i may not be the first person to have this thought, but imagine, if you will, anthropologists some hundreds or thousands of years from now studying the american empire. they will no doubt come across record of a cultural phenomenon in which the adjective 'freedom' was widely substituted in the english language for the adjective 'french'. they will also come across records of a 'freedom tower', a monumental construction, the tallest building of its time, dating to roughly the same historical era. they will assume, and understandably so, that this building must have initially be called the 'french tower'. in light of this, i plan on calling it the french tower from now on.

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i called all three of those girls tonight. voicemail for becky. voicemail for alex. talked briefly with robin who was out and said she'd call later. alex called back and was also out, said she'd call me tomorrow. becky called back, and we made plans for dinner and drinks on friday.

i'm still a little unsure about all this. but, in the long run, the experience of meeting new people can only serve to be a good thing.