In my own skin I felt old, I felt cracked by the sun, my essence evaporated into the ether. In hers I felt sunken and heavy, soaked with a warmth and mossy expanding.
-Have you ever wondered whether or not Tom Petty's affluent dialectic undermines the fabric of American mythology? Peter was beckoning through the window again, while he smoked on the front porch and stared into the darkness.
-Yes, I said. When I was in college. I put my pen down on the floor and took a sip of beer, cold and spiked with a splash of lime juice. A mossy expanding? That was an image used to describe walking through the woods in Maine during the summers, not being in this skin of "hers". Like mother like son, I thought, and began drawing a voluptuous and impish character beneath the text of my notebook.
My skin was moist, bare against the evening breeze entering through the open windows of the living room. I had just had an incredible shower and was wearing an oversize flannel shirt, unbuttoned, and a pair of tight fitting boxer shorts. I had determined that it was my most comfortable outfit, and thus an opportune time for me to freely form some insightful prose in my notebook. Comfort and productivity were mysteriously co-dependent for me.
So far I had one sentence fixated on an image of an dried up, empty self being replenished with lushish life through the skin of another. Clearly this was untrue, as I was quite content with my moist skin as I lay alone on this sofa and, scanning my own memory bank, could not identify the feeling expressed in the sentence with any empirical evidence from my past. But what was more apparent was that the image I had focused on while writing was not actually anything like "her" skin, but was one of myself, alone in the woods along the coast of Maine. I was masking something evident with something esoteric and erotic. A surge of endorphins must have escaped in my brain, because I felt good, and moreover felt better still for feeling responsible for this sensation, if only by the simple fact of my introspective probing. bubbles pop pop ahhh.....
I lifted myself to a sitting position, placing my notebook and pen on the floor beside me. My gaze fell over the top of the coffee table, settling on the cover of Hannah Higgin;s "Fluxus Experience," it's red cover and vertical text causing a pac-man sensation in my optic field. The back cover featured a quote by some Owen Smith, who felt that the book was "essential" for anyone interested in the "phenomenological bases" of fluxus. That is something I would like to know, I thought, and tickled the idea that a phenomenological understanding of just about any artistic concept or epoch would be "something I would like to know." Then I got real and remembered that I would just want to use that information to impress people or possibly score the attention of a lady. Notably noble.
Peter had romped his way inside and into the living room, apparently lit; he was humming. He stooped over the stereo equipment, intent on selecting some musical companionship for his sizzlin buzz.
Aren't you a little Hemingway he said, glancing at my notebook laying next to my glass of beer, mostly gone. He had come home earlier in the evening to see me in a similar position at the kitchen table, beer and pen in hand.
Elliot Smith's "The biggest lie" began playing through the speakers.
Nice choice, I said
Yup, peter said, standing upright and leaning against the wall, mouth slightly open and eyelids slightly draped over his dilated pupils.
Written any new songs lately? I ask
I've been singing them, but not writing them. Singing a lot lately.
Are they about anything special? I intend this to be sort of a leading question, testing Peter's wit.
Um, Yes they are. They aren't really songs though, but I have these themes that I think up, and I apply different words to the themes. Then the themes become more evident, and then I build on them. Like, its like, the meaning can't be directly stated. Peter swallows. But I guess I do it for myself, to figure things out, I see things better after I sing. Or, not better, but its like I see them, whereas I couldn't see them before; I just felt lost inside these themes and happenings and feelings. I don't know what I'm saying, but yes, they are special, I make them special. I should write them I guess.
Got any T-rex? I ask
Fuck ya ma, Peter jolts off the wall. The fucking slider man, motherfuckin spaceball ricochet.
Alright, I stand up, and with a thrust of my arms I throw off my flannel, bend my knees low and twist my arms over my head.
With my Les Paul, I know I'm small but I enjoy living anyway
Book after book, I get hooked everytime the writer talks to me like a friend.
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