stolen time in harvard square

[aslant]

a strange loose-limbed and constant unspoken sensation of having sex all weekend (thanks ak) except there is none, none to be found.

elaborate dreams of hospitals and frantic women and katie and flight. will elaborate monday.

& every time the phone rang i thought it was you.

Comments

I'm glad it's not just me that felt that.

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

it nearly was me. but I'm trying to pretend I'm something I'm not. that's why it wasn't me.

I received your - journal (I don't know the right word) this morning. I'm very impressed. you humble me.

pleased as punch.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

who are you pretending to be?

i'm glad you like the siren. i wish i hadn't graduated so i could work on it for another year, or two. great talent, great women.

i have much updating to do. the "stolen time" entry i actually dictated to my sister because i couldn't get on the internet saturday and was desperately fiending to say those particular words.

i have odd butterflies in my stomach, after now reading your recent updates. including the chat transcript. i don't know what to say yet, but i'm pleased.

Re: pleased as punch.

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

I'm pretending to be the person who's not that bothered. and that's not the person I am being.

I'm glad. I have butterflies too. I don't know what to do about it.

Re: pleased as punch.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

it's hard not to be bothered, when you actually are.

i'm so easily distractable this weekend. half of me is not crossing the street, turning the key in the lock, it's elsewhere. maybe i left it accidentally with velcro.

Re: pleased as punch.

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

I'm really pleased you dictated it. the last line made me smile - a lot. "& every time the phone rang I thought it was you".

should it have been?

Re: pleased as punch.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

not if you didn't want to call. but i wouldn't complain if you did. but prices being what they are, i cannot in good conscious tell you to keep calling me if i can't call you.

it's true, though.

what a sad and strange place life has become, these past few days.

Re: pleased as punch.

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

I feel disconnected. as if I'm doing things - but only on auto-pilot. the rest of me is thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking.

I did want to call. I didn't want to scare you off.

Re: pleased as punch.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

you won't scare me off. really.

i think today i am far off, up in the air. the oxygen is too thin. my blood races around going nowhere.

what is this? what is this? i ask again, again. i'm not coherent because i don't know myself.

Re: pleased as punch.

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

if I won't - then I will probably call again. it took me a lot not to call you back. five minutes after I hung up - it occurred to me. I almost didn't hang up the first time. but that wasn't the impression I had wanted to give.

I can know you. will that make me coherent? or must we know eachother?

Re: pleased as punch.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

we should arrange a mutual exchange of coherency. for the good of the other. to make up for all this confused talk.

i'm attempting coherency. not getting very far. we must know each other. from somewhere. otherwise what is all of this? this is not smoke and mirrors and a few typed and talked conversations. i know that much. there's something here, there's something
obstinate under my daily shovel of dirt
and blindly i pick around it, the boulder,
the unseen mountain.

like that. i was talking about being far away from jennie but it goes the same for you.

Re: pleased as punch.

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

well, here's two ounces of my coherency. I hope you have some to trade, for I fear that may be all I have left.

I feel like I know you. there IS something here. there is something here that makes more of what I have. there is something I don't want to waste. or lose. and - unlikely and false though it may sound - something I have not felt before.

Re: pleased as punch.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

the unfair power of words is that they seduce me. so i have no way of knowing what is word-induced delirium. but i know what that fluttering in the stomach and heart-skipping feeling feels like, and i haven't felt it in years and years, and it's your words that make me feel like that. oddly, unfairly enough. i was beginning to think i was a cold and shutoff person, because i do not feel this way lightly about somebody. ever. i am not a flighty person.

[mark comes and goes through the office door and hardly suspects what is going on under his nose. i am a secret spy today.]

Re: pleased as punch.

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

I'm impressed with my words. I'll buy them a drink later. they truly hold no candle to yours though. you have an affair with them - and I can only read about it.

it's such a relief to have the way I feel reciprocated. it really is.

i am a secret spy every day. for Portugal. but don't tell anyone.

reciprocation is the name of the game.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

i am a secret spy for a secret country. i promise not to reveail your secret.

yes, i do have an affair with my words. they push me over the edge. i drink them like alcohol this weekend.

monopoly is the name of the game.

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

I like words to make me laugh. I find reading words more comic than hearing them read - for often the reader will translate them differently to me.

a secret country? none of the other countries know about it?

Re: monopoly is the name of the game.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

yes, nobody has ever been to my country. i am all alone here, spying out from the trees in case somebody arrives. then i will have to report to the queen (which is me) who will send out a welcoming committee (also me) to ensure this trespasser has some form of id. if not, the army (me, me, me) will throw the unlucky person in jail.

i should send you a passport. in case you accidentally stumble across the border, you ought to be prepared.

very few possess these passports. you have joined a lucky elite.

(ha ha listen to pompous me)

risk is the name of the game.

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

is there a guard in the jail? or is that you?

if these passports are so rare - I may sell it. I think we should move to Paris together. or somewhere.

strategy is the name of the game.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

no, the jail is unguarded. but it has no door, no exit, no window, no grate. the jail is not a happy place. i would hate to send you there.

no, i would love to send you anywhere, actually. as long as i went, too.

paris sounds very posh. if i moved to paris i could learn french again.

Re: strategy is the name of the game.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

that's funny, my country's market is great right now for translators and programmers. the one and only boss (me) is currently dissatisfied with the employee's (my own) inability to program. unfortunately there is no map to my country and no train and no road and no airstrip. frequently i must travel abroad (my own expedition team) to find what i need elsewhere.

syllables? i have enough trouble with words this morning. if i went to paris i would start talking like this:

no.

yes.

m.

eh.

and so forth. however am i supposed to order up room service if i have lost all language?

Re: roleplay is the name of the game.

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

LJ is slowly working less. and less.

I would come to your country, but my passport hasn't come yet. and it's secret. and there's no airstrip.

that's how people in Paris speak anyway.

ehhhh...
ahhhh...
tchtchtch.
mmmmmmmm.

room service - you can write down for them. or sound like you're being attacked - and they'll be there quickly.

Re: roleplay is the name of the game.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

yes, it is slow. we're getting cut off. bastard slow servers.

what do they mean when they say tchtch?

actually i'll just put you in charge of telephoning room service.

Re: strategy is the name of the game.

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

Paris is not posh. it's the only town I know where people speak communicate in syllables, and not words. somewhere else maybe. where they pay through the nose for translators and programmers.

did you receive those attachments I sent before? you never said. feel free to say the book is awful - i know it is really. that's why I never finished it.

Re: strategy is the name of the game.

[aslant.livejournal.com]

ah,

i'd forgotten about the attachments. i started reading the book but didn't get very far before brian and his stupid tickets interfered. i will go look at it later. when i'm not talking to you. it's not awful. it's like walking around invisibly behind you.

Re: strategy is the name of the game.

[booshtukka.livejournal.com]

hmmm, kind of. it gets better the more of it I wrote. 4:20. one hour ten minutes.

tell me a story.