Toeing The Line

I had a really weird dream last night. It involved going back to Brooklyn College to take classes, dating and fucking a student of mine, having sex with my best guy friend, attacking a bunch of evil spirits, rescuing a box of kittens from getting thrown onto the subway track, taking photographs, eating jell-o at a park, and proving to someone that I'm the same person they met at the beginning of my dream.

Not in that order, and not in that same vain. But still. That's what I dreamt about. It was intense and strange and somehow made a lot more sense when I woke up than it does now.

I should've written it down, but I got the basic gist of it. I'm writing a story now that's based on it, called "See-Saw." The basic premise goes like this: A, B, C, D, & E happen, and people either figure that A, B, C & D happened to legitimize E, or that E happened to legitimize the occurrence of A, B, C & D. It's like the chicken and the egg: which came first? Does it even matter?

The fact remains that A, B, C, D, & E happen, and each letter is like a pivot point, like on a see-saw. You put your weight in one direction, and shift the pivot just a little bit, so that when you move in the other direction, it's definitely not the same way that you've moved any other time. Every little change and every little movement alters the proceeding action - even if it's only by a minute measurement. In this way, you don't change the future so much that you can't logically deduce what'll happen next; you just change it enough so that it's different from the first time around.

It might not sound like much, but that's my idea for ya. We'll see where it goes...



I'm working on a lot of writing ideas right now. Some of them interlap, so that when they're not working for one story idea, I just add them onto another story.

Along with my See-Saw idea, I'm working on something called "23." Basically, I want to pour every little bit of knowledge, wisdom and experience I've accrued before my 24th birthday into 23 interwoven short stories. I've written three of them so far, and I'm excited to continue the series.

I'm working on a collection of poems for National Poetry Month also. I think I'll call the collection something like "Snapshots of Myself in April" or "Self Portraits in April." Each poem is supposed to capture something of myself, a moment, a glimpse, a rendering of who I am at any particular time within this month.

And, of course, there are the other things I'm working on: Beautiful Prison, Pieces, Exercises in Futility - all of them works in progress that I've been hard at work on for years. Lately, I've actually been getting some work done on them, and it feels good to be at a place where I can ask opinions of people I respect and have the means to show off my writing, too. Maybe I spent too much time marketing myself to people in the know, but now that part's over and done with, and those people in the know know me. I can concentrate on the craft at hand.



I didn't sleep well last night. A student of mine had an emergency and called me, and I did everything I could to make everything all right.

Still, the ambiguity shakes me: How did I know what's all right? How do I know what I should do in an emergency? Is it all learned knowledge? Or is it naturally instilled in us?



I'm an adult and a teacher and a responsible human being - but never before did any of that feel so real than it does right now. It's springtime, and the warm breeze kisses my cheeks. Somewhere in Richmond Hill, a teenage girl is mourning the loss of her virginity and wondering if she would've gotten raped if she had played the part of "prim princess" more accurately.

Opportunities are ripe and reality seems tangible, and I tell her that it's not her fault, it can never be her fault. She nods her head even though she doesn't fully believe me. All the prep seems to have been valuable. Shame and anger can only be aimed at herself because it hurts too much to feel the repercussions of a single, life-altering event; the realness cuts like jagged glass. She is much too humbled by culture to accept anything less than full responsibility. She hopes that she can look herself in the mirror and learn to like the person she sees.



So I write and I live and I try not to confuse the two. I act and I think and I know when to do either. Life is good and what I'm feeling is real. Life is bad and what I'm feeling is real. Life is not a dress rehearsal, a run-through, a backstage pass to the main event. It is the only event. The real event. The one true test and defining matter.

And when it's all over, who knows what we'll have?