#105

Somehow it doesn't really strike me as tremendously eerie that when I am in my room, where tall stacks of books line each and every wall, more lined up in a booksnake longer than I am tall, more in little unobtrusive shrine-stacks in the floor space (my room contains, aside from books and not counting the closet: a little couch that I sleep on, my desk [sizable, white glass and titanium, the shape of an irregular bean, higher-end Ikea {on its surface; four stacks books, two stacks notebooks, one stack fresh new hard back writing pads, a clipboard with my collection of looseleaf materials | a printout of a short story by Chris Onstad | printouts of loose poems by various authors used in an extended poetry workshop I attended the summer I left high school, printouts of some of the poems I utilized in order to teach high school kids how to write poetry and in some cases pay attention for even one single dang second | a few scattered papers tossed behind the laptop of some kind of adult life importance I am and have been neglecting |, three CDs in their jewel cases, a little box of gray pastels, a little box of color pastels, a little box of artists' charcoal, and a fourteen-inch-by-eight-inch plain aluminum mesh tray with dividers, containing all my pens and pencils and mechanical pencils and brushes and erasers and markers and colored pencils and a kazoo} a rolled-up yoga mat behind the door, two nightstands at either end of the couch [on the surface of both: bookstacks and lamps, and respectively between them, some trumpet mouthpieces, three stainless steel dinner spoons, my copy in pamphlet version of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, and a framed photograph of me at age six with my arms around my two-year-old brother's shoulders] a little wicker trash can under my desk, an unopened bag of Soylent I let my friend foist upon me next to the chair I am sitting on, a designated clothes-bearing chair, my one small bookshelf [which aside from books and three bookstacks piled atop, bears a third lamp, my sketchbooks and artist pads, a Boston-brand lead pointer in its box {New Metal Model! Simplified Design, More Lead Protection} a little bottle of tea tree oil, and a fistful of bookmarks], my acoustic bass in its soft case, my no-guard bokken in a corner, and a rug--so the floor space is quite ample), everywhere the eye looks, it is looking at the echoes of the dead, a plenitude of concrete ghosts; dead trees, souls gone on, echoes frozen, surrounding me.

I believe in ghosts, of course; they simply do not bother me in the slightest.

Anymore.

*

You know what I didn't feel like doing? Describing the lamps. I mean, who gives a fuck, anyway. 

Aw, I'll tell you all about my lamps someday, never fret. Maybe I will also reveal the two objects that hang on my walls. Describing my rug, well. It's a rug, and it is on the floor. There are colors and patterns in the weave. Boom. 

The desk has no drawers, but I have no idea how to fit a lack of something into the above. Ah, but if I have brushes, where are my paints, truly keen readers may have asked themselves*. A story for another day. I keep my horns in the basement. The mouthpieces are old sizes I don't use anymore and one of my small concessions to decoration, because that's what I think is a good decoration: small pieces of metal I used to blow a lot of air through.

Look. All that matters--all that matters--is I got to write, and will momentarily publish, "a fistful of bookmarks".

*

Man, you know so much about me now. This post has revealed me like none that preceded it, and I think I talked about my pissing habits and crying on my floor while the family dog licked me. No, I definitely did that. Being a freestyle diarist is a phenomenal, rewarding enterprise. Never know what you'll find about yourself as you expose it.

--JL

*no doubt truly keen readers are capable of noting many, many lacks, most I am probably blissfully unaware of, some of which I have my reasons for maintaining. Truly keen writers might look around their own rooms and try this for themselves; you might have fun, doubtlessly learn something, and hopefully generate something you don't hate. I know how it is, brethren. Godspeed always.