It is true that individuals spend an inordinate amount of time spouting off about the people they don't like; at least, in this culture, at this time. Amongst my friends, this activity is sometimes out of hand. Beyond the disparaging comments leveled at individuals, which (admittedly) there has been an attempt to curb and discourage lately, to varying degrees of success, there are also the wide-ranging generalizations brought to bear against social groups and minorities. This, perhaps, sounds worse than it is. As we make up a fairly multicultural, mixed-gender, inter-generational, poly-sexual-oriented clique, most of the bases are covered: the "post-modern, self-referential, ironic social commentary" (as it has been coined) has been a hallmark of the last few years, but it's run its course, and we're attempting to put that puppy to bed, as it just doesn't seem to be as funny anymore. As easy as it has been for me to sit around the patio table with a nice, cool...
For the past several weeks at the present restaurant job in Auckland (present only because I hope that in the near future it will be the stuff of anecdotes and legend) I have been making a grievous error. I have been making Lemon-Lime and Bitters the wrong way . Apparently, in New Zealand, as well as in other British and colonial locals, Lemonade is more what I might call "Sprite", or (if under duress) "7-Up"; so the "Lemon" in "Lemon-Lime and Bitters" stands for aforesaid fizzy drink, not lemon cordial, as I have been using, and soda water is evidently not an acceptable surrogate bubble-maker. I learned this after the woman who pointed out my error almost twisted the ears off my head for the inaccuracy. God I've missed waiting on tables.
to shake at the page, the blank world, it is not because I am empty. My hands are always full of something, but when the hammers and pins are lost numb fingers can still be very clever. I have been at the buckles today, the straight jackets done up, white like empty worlds; and I have been knitting ferocious spiders to spin their webs across the ceiling. I have tickled the belly of the three headed dog, and now I'm working at picking out this knot: a tangle of failures as smooth as oiled secrets, as tight as a garotte around the throat of an angel, balanced on the head of a pin; there are other dangers just as sudden that can spring from my curious fingers; and while I am working at undoing this potential for savage reunion with the world, which is as empty as it was in the beginning, puzzle this: my dreams were never violent, but they promised that all things will come.
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