chop chop

I've killed my world and I've killed my time. Thank you, Kinks, for you articulate better than anyone the feeling of becoming a stranger.

I don't have anything to say I'm just bloggingabloggingablogging.

Sat on the balcony for 45 minutes today straining to spy a helicopter. The day was perfectly clear but you'd be surprised how much concentration it takes to look for a helicopter. I thought maybe I could read my book while I watched, but no, you have to keep scanning, left to right to left to right, so you don't miss it. It's surprising what hijinks your brain decides to get up to when left taskless for 45 minutes. First of all, it turns every sound, and I mean every sound, into the sound of a helicopter. When people opened the door behind me, that was a helicopter, and when they came out and sat on the balcony and chatted away, jabberjabberjabber became chop chop chopchopchopchopchop and their voices were helicopters. The T outbound was a helicopter, and the pelicans mucking about were helicopters, and the helicopter that flew behind me, in the wrong position, which was not the helicopter I was looking for, was absolutely a helicopter.

But my brain can wander in two directions at once so while it was busying itself dressing up the sounds of the city in helicopter clothes it was also just leaning on the generate random memory button. Remember when Ross called you on that payphone at school yes I do. Remember when you were driving along Grizzly Peak and you heard At the Bottom of Everything for the first time yes I do. Incidentally remember all the lyrics to At the Bottom of Everything yes I apparently do. Want to sing them right now under your breath on the balcony yes I do. Don't forget about the time you thought your parents forgot about your eighteenth birthday and then they surprised you and it made you cry, don't you forget that. Don't forget that the name of the kid that broke your arm in fifth grade was Brandon Fein. Go ahead and forget which of the Tamayo brothers you had a crush on, but remember that it was either James or Justin but definitely not Jeremy. Remember that they served shrimp at the department Christmas party last year and that the first time you hung out with Aya was at Cafe Claude. Remember that you went to England in the winter of 1995 and that someone surprised you with the plane ticket in an envelope at the bottom of the driveway on a warm day and that you yelled out. Remember Bear. Remember when you found out that Morgan Wagner is the one who makes all the Christmas candy and not Susan. Remember Simon March. Remember Sick Boy. Remember auditioning for county honor jazz band and feeling pretty good about yourself. Remember that your audition number was five. Remember remember the fifth of November the gunpowder treason and plot. Remember, that is to say never forget, that when you were standing by the fridge as a youngster and your brother was taller than you due to his age, not just his genes, he told you to remember the number nine, and remember that it was this fact that surfaced as you read the last words of Cat's Cradle.

Number nine, number nine, number nine.