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texting, out of time

July 28, 2006

ok, it's been a busy week, so not much writing. but here's something i sort of found tonight, one short page in the notebook that i'm just starting to use again because kerbey lane doesn't have wireless. it makes me think of being in kerbey's not much better twin, magnolia cafe, a year ago. this year, tonight, i'm listening to thom yorke's new solo album, but last year, i was listening to him singing with radiohead.

things are better now than then, but that night was a very good one.

Here I am, alone, but not, sitting at the counter, the café full around me, but i’m a party of one, alone, but not. thom yorke is in my ears and head, but no one else can hear:

I’m not living -
I’m just killing time.
Your tiny hands,
Your crazy kitten smile.

The phone flashes as it receives another short burst of text from far away, a long evening’s silent conversation continues. Flirtation, honest questions, some censored, some dodged with a laugh that I can almost hear. I wonder what she hears, a thousand miles away, sitting and playing hearts with her family, glancing from her cards to the phone on the table beside her, smiling, I hope, when it lights with new words from me, from where I am.

I want to laugh out loud. I’m enjoying someone who isn’t here, laughing with her, lounging comfortably in the remarkable paradox of being here in my own world, but feeling so close, feeling not alone. All this, even as I know that this joy, this exhilaration, this quiet warmth I feel close about me is something that I can never have, that can never be.

And true love waits
in haunted attics.
And true love lives
on lollipops and crisps…

Luckily, this place always maintains its share of crazy people, folks quietly taking joy in the impossible, kept company by soft, unheard voices from the unseen.

Posted by Rob at July 28, 2006 09:47 AM

Comments

Reading between the lines of this post, I can see that what you're really saying is that you want to burn me a copy of the new Thom York disc. Sweet! Thanks in advance, Rob. :)

Posted by: Ami at July 30, 2006 01:39 PM

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