scratchings,
Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2025 12:53 pm
I have illustrations that I've been working on but I'm not really confident or interested in posting them here at this time. It's mostly character art of past and future me-s as I continue to try to articulate myself and my histories and my dreams. Instead I wanted to post things I write about from time to time. I could just post them on my blog and then link them here but that step of abstraction will absolutely filter people.
I always feel weird about sharing writing because I think sometimes about the different ways I (and maybe most people) tend to engage with art in the context of social media. It is fun and easy to look at an illustration or a photograph and most importantly it is very quick. It does not take long to look at an image and appreciate it in full or pick out some part we find interesting or well-done and comment on it or not comment on it and scroll on.
But if it's an audio clip, or a video, or a written message longer than a limerick... I filter a lot of those out. I think a lot of people do. That shit takes time and in order to make sense of it you probably have to listen/watch/read it in a particular order, and maybe you don't want to do that either. And everyone can write these days, so what worth is it if I do?
So I usually feel like it isn't worth posting things I wrote unless I have something particularly insightful to share. And even then I don't expect anyone to read it, or to grapple with it, or even to skim it. The clock's ticking and most people don't barrel through text with the rate or recklessness I usually do anyway. And as a note I would suggest taking such an approach here because it's not worth taking this in slowly, and if there is something in here worth lingering on I am sure it will snag you as you tumble on by.
I didn't expect to tack on an additional five paragraphs of preamble. Here's the context for this: I had a pleasant interaction at the store the other day. The cashier, V-------, struck up conversation with me about my day, and I told her I had driven a couple of hours to return from R---------, and she said how strange -- she's from R---------!
How serendipitous. But yeah, we hit it off well. She told me about a couple of local joints to check out. I told her I had in fact gone to one of them this morning, a donut shop. She told me that was the donut shop she grew up on and she got real fucking disappointed with the average donut when she had the misfortune of venturing out to other donut shops. Naturally, I didn't trade phone numbers with her; I don't ask people out while they're on the clock. It's a rule I have, because I am as oblivious as I am perceptive and it is sometimes difficult for me to judge if someone who is paid to be friendly to me is showing a kind of interest that is outside of their pay grade.
But anyway, I wrote a letter to her, that I do not intend to send but wanted to post here because I am trying harder to express myself and my feelings and it is not of particular consequence if anyone sees these thoughts.
I want to spend more time with you. I guess to talk to you about myself because you seemed pretty cool and interested in sharing your own self with me. And I thought you might be interesting too or even if you aren't I want to know what other people are doing and thinking and feeling -- if you're boring I want to know why you're boring.
I'm crying as I write this. This isn't why, or it is. I already had like four ideas about things I wanted to write this morning. I wake up with zero responsibilities and a writhing mass of duties and messages and needs.
I wanted to write a letter to my cousin. And to my grandfather, to my partner, my other cousin, and I wanted to be more verbose about all that because the repetition of sentence structure makes me feel like it hits on something harder but I've been doing that shit too much lately and it has tired me out.
I am hungry but I do not want to eat. I don't know if I want to starve myself. I just want to change my body a bit. Maybe I want to pass out at an inconvenient time. Maybe I want to create problems like everyone else seems to get to do.
I want to take you on a date to a parking lot. I know just the one. I used to live next to it all the time. This time of year it's empty, barren. This time of year it's nothing but lines and poles and an absurd strip of grass that I pray one day spills over and breaks apart the curbs that contain it and the squares and squares of concrete that surround it. I don't even like grass. I was struggling to say something nice about it but I don't have anything.
We would meet up there, or somewhere else before, at a time of day when it feels most bearable. This time of year I don't know that there's anything like bearable so we would have to settle. It would be bright and hot or dark and humid and hot anyway or maybe we could get there at sunset and it would be light and hot but the oppressiveness of it would be tempered by an evening breeze or at least the fact that the sun would no longer be directly shining upon us.
We would maybe talk about how the view of the sunset isn't very good there, but at least the dusky lighting would make the clouds look tangerine or crimson or Dark Lavender, which isn't a real color but it's the best I could think of since I don't know many purples.
I would tell you that I listened to a Tegan and Sara track like 50 times the other day. The original meaning of the track isn't even something that resonates with me at the moment but there is an energy and feeling and hypnotic repetition to it that just makes me want to hear it over and over, and what they have to say kinda hits anyway. I would say it's silly but we all get like that sometimes, we've all had that kind of feeling about a song sometimes, and I would ask if you ever got locked in on a track like that.
I don't know what you would say. But if you had one I would want to know what it was, and why, and where you were, and what you were feeling, and if it helped or not, and if this helps or not.
I would nod as if I learned something I could use to solve a math problem instead of nodding as if I got to have a person share a part of themself with me. I would change the subject or you would change the subject.
If it was me I would talk about why we're at a parking lot. In the spring and autumn -- the tolerable and messy seasons -- this lot and the other three lots fill up with all kinds of oversized, unwieldy trucks, sport utility vehicles used for neither sport nor utility, unremarkable sedans, occasionally something that stands out like a jeep-ass jeep or a classic car or something.
I would stand up and point, or if we were already standing I would stand up on something nearby and point and point and point. "As does that lot. And that lot. And that lot." I'd point at lots we can see. I'd point at lots that are obscured by buildings. I'd point at lots that are obscured by the terrain.
If you called me on it I would say that I can probably approximate all the lots that are in use here. I'm sure I would forget a few but the city is always being smoothed out by the university; of course another dying house collapsed and left behind an empty lot.
Anyway, the point is the vehicles. The lots grow lousy with them. Have you ever seen how an overgrown pecan tree will produce too many nuts, and it will droop and droop and droop until the branches get in the way or slump on the ground or snap a branch, and that branch falls to earth and if you're lucky or unlucky it will take out a flower bed or a fence or a person?
I wonder if these fields which spend months getting to do nothing but soak up and reflect solar radiation, and then suddenly have to bear dozens, hundreds of tons of steel horses... if they will ever cave in as disastrously as something like that. Then I remember I'm a geologist and I note that it is unlikely (though I suppose not impossible) that any of these were built over a future sinkhole.
I guess that's probably a good thing. I wouldn't want anyone to fall into a stupid pit and be crushed to death by a bunch of extraneous vehicles on their commute to composition or calculus or some shit. What an ignoble and senseless death that would be. It would be more preferable to be killed in combat, by a driver who was drunk or texting or eating or sleepy or just decided to do something really curious with their car.
I would apologize. That got gloomier than I wanted it to be and it wasn't what I wanted to talk about anyway.
No, what I wanted to talk about was a recurring daydream I have. In it I pick a night that I stayed up too late or woke up too early, a kind of night that is fairly abundant. I dress in black, and for convenience, and for utility -- so, like I usually do -- and I bring gloves and goggles and a knife to slash tires or a bat to smash windows.
And I would slash and smash and slash and smash until I got tired or got caught or felt I was pushing my luck. I would prefer the larger trucks and SUVs, since they're literally the biggest problems, but I wouldn't be picky and I know assholes can drive anything anyway. Poorly, maybe, but yeah, anything with an engine.
You'd probably ask, well, how do you intend to get away? I'd say I haven't figured it out yet. I guess slashing tires would maybe set off less alarms. But smashing windows would be more fun. And I don't know how to slash a tire anyway.
So maybe I could slash a reasonable amount of tires and slink away and hope I don't get caught by a camera. Or that if a person saw me they wouldn't rat me out. I have a good reason for what I'm doing, and if you knew what I knew and cared how I cared you'd do the same, or worse. Don't trick yourself into thinking you're making the world a better place because you're making it a more lawful place. Anyone with enough experience can tell you that there are damn good times and reasons to bend or break a lot of the rules we have supposedly agreed to.
But anyway, you would ask why or I would just go on and say why, which is that we have twisted ourselves in knots around the motor vehicle and that slavish devotion, which is not natural to us but is beaten into us by advertising and palm-greasing and geography, that slavish devotion is draining us and poisoning us and killing us. I would bring up Unsafe at Any Speed. I would ask rhetorically why a book like that is so expensive, uncommon.
I don't have anything after that. I don't need anything after that. We would have enough to talk about, not least because you would have brought anything you were willing to share, and it might or might not be as geographically relevant but it would maybe be just as delinquent or painful or altruistic. Or maybe it would be selfish or loathsome or apologetic. Or maybe it would simply be mundane.
But if you had had the kindness or intrigue or paralysis-through-concern to stick around through all that, the least I could do is repay the interest, even if what you shared was mundane.
I always feel weird about sharing writing because I think sometimes about the different ways I (and maybe most people) tend to engage with art in the context of social media. It is fun and easy to look at an illustration or a photograph and most importantly it is very quick. It does not take long to look at an image and appreciate it in full or pick out some part we find interesting or well-done and comment on it or not comment on it and scroll on.
But if it's an audio clip, or a video, or a written message longer than a limerick... I filter a lot of those out. I think a lot of people do. That shit takes time and in order to make sense of it you probably have to listen/watch/read it in a particular order, and maybe you don't want to do that either. And everyone can write these days, so what worth is it if I do?
So I usually feel like it isn't worth posting things I wrote unless I have something particularly insightful to share. And even then I don't expect anyone to read it, or to grapple with it, or even to skim it. The clock's ticking and most people don't barrel through text with the rate or recklessness I usually do anyway. And as a note I would suggest taking such an approach here because it's not worth taking this in slowly, and if there is something in here worth lingering on I am sure it will snag you as you tumble on by.
I didn't expect to tack on an additional five paragraphs of preamble. Here's the context for this: I had a pleasant interaction at the store the other day. The cashier, V-------, struck up conversation with me about my day, and I told her I had driven a couple of hours to return from R---------, and she said how strange -- she's from R---------!
How serendipitous. But yeah, we hit it off well. She told me about a couple of local joints to check out. I told her I had in fact gone to one of them this morning, a donut shop. She told me that was the donut shop she grew up on and she got real fucking disappointed with the average donut when she had the misfortune of venturing out to other donut shops. Naturally, I didn't trade phone numbers with her; I don't ask people out while they're on the clock. It's a rule I have, because I am as oblivious as I am perceptive and it is sometimes difficult for me to judge if someone who is paid to be friendly to me is showing a kind of interest that is outside of their pay grade.
But anyway, I wrote a letter to her, that I do not intend to send but wanted to post here because I am trying harder to express myself and my feelings and it is not of particular consequence if anyone sees these thoughts.
I want to spend more time with you. I guess to talk to you about myself because you seemed pretty cool and interested in sharing your own self with me. And I thought you might be interesting too or even if you aren't I want to know what other people are doing and thinking and feeling -- if you're boring I want to know why you're boring.
I'm crying as I write this. This isn't why, or it is. I already had like four ideas about things I wanted to write this morning. I wake up with zero responsibilities and a writhing mass of duties and messages and needs.
I wanted to write a letter to my cousin. And to my grandfather, to my partner, my other cousin, and I wanted to be more verbose about all that because the repetition of sentence structure makes me feel like it hits on something harder but I've been doing that shit too much lately and it has tired me out.
I am hungry but I do not want to eat. I don't know if I want to starve myself. I just want to change my body a bit. Maybe I want to pass out at an inconvenient time. Maybe I want to create problems like everyone else seems to get to do.
I want to take you on a date to a parking lot. I know just the one. I used to live next to it all the time. This time of year it's empty, barren. This time of year it's nothing but lines and poles and an absurd strip of grass that I pray one day spills over and breaks apart the curbs that contain it and the squares and squares of concrete that surround it. I don't even like grass. I was struggling to say something nice about it but I don't have anything.
We would meet up there, or somewhere else before, at a time of day when it feels most bearable. This time of year I don't know that there's anything like bearable so we would have to settle. It would be bright and hot or dark and humid and hot anyway or maybe we could get there at sunset and it would be light and hot but the oppressiveness of it would be tempered by an evening breeze or at least the fact that the sun would no longer be directly shining upon us.
We would maybe talk about how the view of the sunset isn't very good there, but at least the dusky lighting would make the clouds look tangerine or crimson or Dark Lavender, which isn't a real color but it's the best I could think of since I don't know many purples.
I would tell you that I listened to a Tegan and Sara track like 50 times the other day. The original meaning of the track isn't even something that resonates with me at the moment but there is an energy and feeling and hypnotic repetition to it that just makes me want to hear it over and over, and what they have to say kinda hits anyway. I would say it's silly but we all get like that sometimes, we've all had that kind of feeling about a song sometimes, and I would ask if you ever got locked in on a track like that.
I don't know what you would say. But if you had one I would want to know what it was, and why, and where you were, and what you were feeling, and if it helped or not, and if this helps or not.
I would nod as if I learned something I could use to solve a math problem instead of nodding as if I got to have a person share a part of themself with me. I would change the subject or you would change the subject.
If it was me I would talk about why we're at a parking lot. In the spring and autumn -- the tolerable and messy seasons -- this lot and the other three lots fill up with all kinds of oversized, unwieldy trucks, sport utility vehicles used for neither sport nor utility, unremarkable sedans, occasionally something that stands out like a jeep-ass jeep or a classic car or something.
I would stand up and point, or if we were already standing I would stand up on something nearby and point and point and point. "As does that lot. And that lot. And that lot." I'd point at lots we can see. I'd point at lots that are obscured by buildings. I'd point at lots that are obscured by the terrain.
If you called me on it I would say that I can probably approximate all the lots that are in use here. I'm sure I would forget a few but the city is always being smoothed out by the university; of course another dying house collapsed and left behind an empty lot.
Anyway, the point is the vehicles. The lots grow lousy with them. Have you ever seen how an overgrown pecan tree will produce too many nuts, and it will droop and droop and droop until the branches get in the way or slump on the ground or snap a branch, and that branch falls to earth and if you're lucky or unlucky it will take out a flower bed or a fence or a person?
I wonder if these fields which spend months getting to do nothing but soak up and reflect solar radiation, and then suddenly have to bear dozens, hundreds of tons of steel horses... if they will ever cave in as disastrously as something like that. Then I remember I'm a geologist and I note that it is unlikely (though I suppose not impossible) that any of these were built over a future sinkhole.
I guess that's probably a good thing. I wouldn't want anyone to fall into a stupid pit and be crushed to death by a bunch of extraneous vehicles on their commute to composition or calculus or some shit. What an ignoble and senseless death that would be. It would be more preferable to be killed in combat, by a driver who was drunk or texting or eating or sleepy or just decided to do something really curious with their car.
I would apologize. That got gloomier than I wanted it to be and it wasn't what I wanted to talk about anyway.
No, what I wanted to talk about was a recurring daydream I have. In it I pick a night that I stayed up too late or woke up too early, a kind of night that is fairly abundant. I dress in black, and for convenience, and for utility -- so, like I usually do -- and I bring gloves and goggles and a knife to slash tires or a bat to smash windows.
And I would slash and smash and slash and smash until I got tired or got caught or felt I was pushing my luck. I would prefer the larger trucks and SUVs, since they're literally the biggest problems, but I wouldn't be picky and I know assholes can drive anything anyway. Poorly, maybe, but yeah, anything with an engine.
You'd probably ask, well, how do you intend to get away? I'd say I haven't figured it out yet. I guess slashing tires would maybe set off less alarms. But smashing windows would be more fun. And I don't know how to slash a tire anyway.
So maybe I could slash a reasonable amount of tires and slink away and hope I don't get caught by a camera. Or that if a person saw me they wouldn't rat me out. I have a good reason for what I'm doing, and if you knew what I knew and cared how I cared you'd do the same, or worse. Don't trick yourself into thinking you're making the world a better place because you're making it a more lawful place. Anyone with enough experience can tell you that there are damn good times and reasons to bend or break a lot of the rules we have supposedly agreed to.
But anyway, you would ask why or I would just go on and say why, which is that we have twisted ourselves in knots around the motor vehicle and that slavish devotion, which is not natural to us but is beaten into us by advertising and palm-greasing and geography, that slavish devotion is draining us and poisoning us and killing us. I would bring up Unsafe at Any Speed. I would ask rhetorically why a book like that is so expensive, uncommon.
I don't have anything after that. I don't need anything after that. We would have enough to talk about, not least because you would have brought anything you were willing to share, and it might or might not be as geographically relevant but it would maybe be just as delinquent or painful or altruistic. Or maybe it would be selfish or loathsome or apologetic. Or maybe it would simply be mundane.
But if you had had the kindness or intrigue or paralysis-through-concern to stick around through all that, the least I could do is repay the interest, even if what you shared was mundane.
