2002-11-19 3:42 p.m.
small world, after all

The world just got smaller.

My friend J is in the Air Force (Intelligence), and just emailed me from the field where he's "freezing [his] butt off in one of the trashcan-i-stan countries right now."

I'm not comfortable about this. A lot of this.

I've never wanted to be a soldier. Christ, I'm writing a play about a man who's forced to go off to war and dies there, at least in part because of the fact that I think our government's bloodthirsty pursuit of oil and global domination (hilarious in the face of what they're doing to the economy; who's going to buy the cars if we're all broke?) is such a hardcore farce and monstrous manipulation of everyone that it makes me want to puke blood. I don't like the fact that our government is leading the way in a "war" on "terror," two words which seem to have endless permutations of meaning, and I don't like the fact that a friend of mine is doing intelligence work for this bullshit.

I haven't seen J since the end of last year, which was really nice, if a little jarring. He told me all of the crazy, specialized skills he's picked up over the years in intelligence training. He just got married a while back, and would've invited me if he could've found my address.

Another friend's wedding I've missed. I wonder if I'm ever going to make it to one of these. I missed Clay and David's, Shaggy's, now J's...

I'm sure he'll be fine. I'm just worried on a lot of levels these days. I've really had enough of this "war." Shit, I'd had enough before it was declared one.

One odd thing, though: I don't doubt for a second we're going to stay friends or that he's going to live through all of this. Call it a leap of faith. (I also think the wee mister J is going to grow up to be president. I've thought so since he was 17.)

Reading lots of short stories lately. A new site of note is Small Spiral Notebook, an online lit mag. Diane Bechtler's "Child of Mine" is a tight little piece about a teenager's suicide, punched some of the same buttons as K. Kurosawa's film "Pulse" (Kairo) or Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain," a thin rivulet of pain just beneath the text, only pushing its way up to the top at a few points.

May I learn this kind of precision.

I'm learning patience. Had a perfectly long, luxurious date this weekend with Baker Baker.

(Feels funny calling her that in here, as I neither love Tori Amos anymore nor does she bake as her primary occupation (just as her day gig).)

She's bright, funny, full of different but complementary tastes in life, and we never seem to run out of conversation. Even if I don't know what she's talking about, I know how to coax a description (or formulate one myself) out of her that'll get the point home.

She always worries about leaving work stinky (which she doesn't). She likes noses. Her visual imagination makes me stagger (she showed me photos of her man-sized puppets and light sculptures from college).

And she gives great early morning cuddle. So much yet to come.

She's been writing at odd hours, telling me that she's been beaming/smiling a lot lately.

The old heart's felt pretty heavy in the past little while. It's nice to feel someone juggle it back into the air like it doesn't weigh anything...especially if that someone's me.

I miss Atlanta. Georgia, really. And driving.

D asked me a few days ago if I was done here...I don't know.