Taking Back Where It Ought To Be

I remember when I was younger... I would always go for these great big walks, right. I would find different little spots that I would sneak off to, for whatever reason. Christ, depending on the age, it could have been to throw rocks at something, explore, or just to smoke cigarettes. There are quite a few in my mind that I meet now and again. It's the rain, I think. It does that kind of thing to you; makes you draw back on some things you never really could ontherwise. I had this one spot by a little creek off a trail somewhere in the north side of town. I used to live around there, so when young and afoot, it was within my grasp. Anyways, I would go to this spot and just sit. The water would move, and I would sit by it. I might have dipped my feet in it, or I might have just walked back and forth across the rocks that stretched just above and about the surface. You know those rocks, that dip their heads above the water-- too big to swim. I was always kind of a dreamer as a child. Thinking of nothing really, just quietly off somewhere, somehow. I'm sure my grades are enough evidence to suffice this. I still do it though; still sit and dream of nothing. Forever lost in illusions of vaguery and imagery. It's so funny when I finally come to- sitting somewhere in public and a friend walks up and starts a conversation. I feel like I was just pulled right back from a million miles away, and I have to have them repeat to me twice whatever they said. In that way I have become a very good multitasker. Anyway, another thing I liked to do as a kid was to walk on the train tracks. Stupid, but not really, if you know when a train is coming. I mean, those big goddamn things don't move at light-speed or anything, so you have plenty of time to get out of the way. I remember one time I was with a friend doing this, and we put nickels on the tracks before the train came to flatten them out like you buy at those stupid machines in caves, only without the engravings. I still have mine somewhere... For three days now it has been raining. Normally it would be such a waste of the day, but lately I don't mind. It's nice to fall asleep to the rain; like those machines people buy to simulate the sound, only its actually the real deal. That's the only good thing about the shitty house I live in. It's old and has all those old sounds. If someone acutally fixed it up a little it would be an alright place to be in. Roommates and college housing have killed that hope though.

I do realize that none of this has a point really, and that is precisely my point. I don't know anything about pop-culture or sports or america's newest favorite reality television shows. I don't have a tv and I may never own one again, save out of entertainment of guests and such. I'm really no good at these things, blogs I mean. What am I suppose to say? The few that read it have got to be getting to be fewer and fewer, being that I don't have anything for them to comment on unless it is about them or something. I think I will just do whatever the hell I please with this blog and that will be that. So far, pretty much every entry has been an experiment to see how and what I should actually be doing with this, and thus far I still don't know how I'll go about it. It will forever remain random and scattered, the true dominick form.

All this has from the start been inspired by two things that I can actually think of: first and foremost, a song by John Fahey entitled "In a Persian Market" off the album "Old Fashioned Love", and the second contributor is a story by Jean Paul Sarte entitled "Intimacy." I have read it before, and have recently decided to read it again. It's a short story about a woman who lives with her husband, but one day decides to leave him for her lover. That very day she leaves her husband she seems him in the marketplace, and he attempts one last reconcilliation, to no avail, and she is swept off to go to her lover. The night she meets up with her lover, she realizes how he disgusts her, and then goes back to her husband. I'm sure I didn't really emphasize any point in telling you that, but most of the depth of the story deals with her thoughts and feelings on the whole dilemma, and if you get bored enough, it is highly recommended. The way it is written has somehow creeped its way in to how I am writing tonight. I was going to start this blog talking about how I have two weeks left here and then I'll be home and blah, blah, blah but since decided that none of that really matters until it happens. For the next two weeks I'll be doing what I have been doing the whole time up here; working and reading and thinking and talking and drinking and laughing and missing things and people. When I leave it will be the same, except somewhere else, with different things and different people. It's funny how that works; you're always missing. Missing things from the past, and from the present, for different reasons, and different circumstances.

What I really want to do when I get home is get to work creatively. I want to take guitar lessons, and piano lessons, and learn the harmonica and work on my portuguese and read alot more than I have had a chance to since being up here. When everything is new it seems so very hard to focus on something so old and timeless like a book, or at least the books I read. There are a good many riverside parks to walk, there are good shows, but mostly on the weeknights. I once saw this duo, one man playing the cello, the other playing an acoustic guitar at the bar I often frequent. The started to play crazy train, and honest to god I have never liked that song but that particular time it was wonderful. The cello has got to be one of the most human-resemblant instruments. And then, there are all these interesting people to converse with. I have met some strange ones at the coffee house, and some even more charismatic ones elsewhere. It has been a good time, and I think mostly due to the fact that I have been actually trying to gain from it what I can at all times. I know that in the long run of my life it may have been a setback coming here, for whatever reason, but I really don't know what I will be doing in the next ten years, so long as it suits me and I'm content. I could be a fry cook at Babes if it seemed like the thing to do in my book at the time. It doesn't seem likely, but most things don't if you think about it in a light of hindsight. To actually be able to look back and see yourself and say, "thats what I thought I would be doing in relation to where I am now," seems like such a fucking bore, doesn't it? It's that little erratic nature of life that's worth the effort, I think. You really must check out this John Fahey song, it is really pleasant to the ears, and the man was a genius on the guitar. He died farely recently, but there has been a tribute album released. It is called "I Am The Ressurrection: A Tribute To John Fahey." It has some very good artists including Calexico, Sufjan Stevens, Fruit Bats, and Howe Gelb on it. Definately worth the fifteen bucks.

I suppose now and at this point I have become nothing but long-winded, and so I'll slow the roll so ya'll can go. Sorry for putting you through another painstaking expression of mindless chatter via electronic printed nonsense. Of course, if you stuck it out this far, you were just asking for it, you whiners, you.

-C