(no subject)
Jan. 22nd, 2006 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
phthalombrageLots of exciting things happened, but they're just going to sit in my mind.
But I was very glad to see Melody after a long hiatus and very glad to return my overdue library book.
I'm tired of simply cataloguing place memories.
I'm tired of spending my life in rearranging objects.
How can the world be so interesting and stimulating yet so boring and trite?
Why would I want to stare at a picture postcard of lights I see approaching me practically every other day now, the skyline as seen from the John Ringling Bridge? Why do I want to memorize buildings that will only change? Why do I still feel like I'm only allowed to ride my little bike with training wheels around my block and never cross the street, to return to the same three-dimensional partition every night to sleep? To leave is something special still. Yet I can barely stand to look at some of the new places I remember. Nothing inside my house affects me anymore. Maybe I should just stay there...
-----[ Subroutines ]------------------
There were flashing lights just before the bridge to Midnight Pass.
We hoped there weren't any dead people.
On the way back, I discovered an ambulance waiting at the light. Its siren was not on, but the light inside was. The vested EMT guy was standing up, standing inside this moving rectangular box as it bumped up and down on the road. He leaned over. Was he defibrillating? He appeared to be talking to somebody and adjusted some knobs or something. I was following the ambulance. It was doing about fifty. I wanted to take a picture and record it in a history book somewhere. It seemed important. Our practice of moving the injured to a sterilized environment to fix them.
I left it to turn off onto Bee Ridge.
I was thinking about perception, awareness.
Maybe halfway to where I always turn off onto Lalani, I started to cry. There were two tears tracking down my face, one from each eye. It felt marvelous.
Then I stopped breathing.
I wouldn't let myself look at the clock, so I don't know how long I wasn't breathing.
The scary part was that it didn't feel like I needed to.
I felt the back of the seat on my back and the steering wheel under my outstretched arms. I could still feel the water on my face and the warmth inside my eyelids. My mouth was closed like a garage or a clam underwater and there was no pressure inside indicative that the old air wanted to escape. I felt the air inside me supporting my body, as if I were a balloon animal. Yet it was heavy; I was somnolent. It felt like eternity.
Then I realized I hadn't opened my mouth in a while and my nose was not accepting any air. I was like.. shit. But I kind of wanted to see how long I could go. At the same time, I was afraid to look at the clock and find out.
It felt so safe.
I thought of athletes, runners crossing finish lines, divers. Then I thought of dying people being jolted as ambulances rolled over bumps and depressions in the road. I decided it wouldn't be in good taste to slump over the steering wheel, passed out, possibly obstructing the path of other motorists and perhaps causing them too to require aid from a vested man standing in a metal-lined moving box with transparent plexiglas panels on the doors in the back.
With a decided effort, I opened my mouth.
The air still did not come in. Fine. I breathed. My breath did not come out in a gasp as I had expected, but it did come out. And new air replaced it. The cycle began again.
Quite unpleasant. Very strange.
If I ever go insane, don't let it be a surprise.
I kind of want to get it over with.
But I was very glad to see Melody after a long hiatus and very glad to return my overdue library book.
I'm tired of simply cataloguing place memories.
I'm tired of spending my life in rearranging objects.
How can the world be so interesting and stimulating yet so boring and trite?
Why would I want to stare at a picture postcard of lights I see approaching me practically every other day now, the skyline as seen from the John Ringling Bridge? Why do I want to memorize buildings that will only change? Why do I still feel like I'm only allowed to ride my little bike with training wheels around my block and never cross the street, to return to the same three-dimensional partition every night to sleep? To leave is something special still. Yet I can barely stand to look at some of the new places I remember. Nothing inside my house affects me anymore. Maybe I should just stay there...
-----[ Subroutines ]------------------
There were flashing lights just before the bridge to Midnight Pass.
We hoped there weren't any dead people.
On the way back, I discovered an ambulance waiting at the light. Its siren was not on, but the light inside was. The vested EMT guy was standing up, standing inside this moving rectangular box as it bumped up and down on the road. He leaned over. Was he defibrillating? He appeared to be talking to somebody and adjusted some knobs or something. I was following the ambulance. It was doing about fifty. I wanted to take a picture and record it in a history book somewhere. It seemed important. Our practice of moving the injured to a sterilized environment to fix them.
I left it to turn off onto Bee Ridge.
I was thinking about perception, awareness.
Maybe halfway to where I always turn off onto Lalani, I started to cry. There were two tears tracking down my face, one from each eye. It felt marvelous.
Then I stopped breathing.
I wouldn't let myself look at the clock, so I don't know how long I wasn't breathing.
The scary part was that it didn't feel like I needed to.
I felt the back of the seat on my back and the steering wheel under my outstretched arms. I could still feel the water on my face and the warmth inside my eyelids. My mouth was closed like a garage or a clam underwater and there was no pressure inside indicative that the old air wanted to escape. I felt the air inside me supporting my body, as if I were a balloon animal. Yet it was heavy; I was somnolent. It felt like eternity.
Then I realized I hadn't opened my mouth in a while and my nose was not accepting any air. I was like.. shit. But I kind of wanted to see how long I could go. At the same time, I was afraid to look at the clock and find out.
It felt so safe.
I thought of athletes, runners crossing finish lines, divers. Then I thought of dying people being jolted as ambulances rolled over bumps and depressions in the road. I decided it wouldn't be in good taste to slump over the steering wheel, passed out, possibly obstructing the path of other motorists and perhaps causing them too to require aid from a vested man standing in a metal-lined moving box with transparent plexiglas panels on the doors in the back.
With a decided effort, I opened my mouth.
The air still did not come in. Fine. I breathed. My breath did not come out in a gasp as I had expected, but it did come out. And new air replaced it. The cycle began again.
Quite unpleasant. Very strange.
If I ever go insane, don't let it be a surprise.
I kind of want to get it over with.
