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"A friend asked yesterday if this blog is addressed to anyone in particular? I said yes– it’s a love letter to someone I haven’t met yet."
CarrollBlog 2.28
The French novelist Marcel Proust believed people must know and understand themselves before they can know or understand others. He developed a list of subjective questions that he felt would help reveal to people their true selves and the inner personalities of those around them.
IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT YOURSELF, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT?
WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE?
WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE FICTIONAL HERO?
WHO ARE YOUR REAL-LIFE HEROES?
WHAT IS THE QUALITY YOU MOST ADMIRE IN A MAN?
WHAT IS THE QUALITY YOU MOST ADMIRE IN A WOMAN?
WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST FEAR?
WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT STATE OF MIND?
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE OCCUPATION?(WAY OF SPENDING TIME)
WHAT HISTORICAL FIGURE DO YOU MOST IDENTIFY WITH?
WHICH LIVING PERSON DO YOU MOST ADMIRE?
WHAT IS YOUR MOST TREASURED POSSESSION?
WHEN AND WHERE WERE YOU HAPPIEST?
WHAT IS YOUR MOST OBVIOUS CHARACTERISTIC?
WHAT IS THE TRAIT YOU MOST DEPLORE (HATE) IN YOURSELF?
WHAT IS THE TRAIT YOU MOST DEPLORE IN OTHERS?
WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST EXTRAVAGANCE?
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE JOURNEY?
WHAT DO YOU MOST DISLIKE ABOUT YOUR APPEARANCE?
WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER THE MOST OVER-RATED VIRTUE?
ON WHAT OCCASION DO YOU LIE?
WHICH WORDS OR PHRASES DO YOU MOST OVER-USE?
WHAT IS IT YOU MOST DISLIKE?
WHAT DO YOU VALUE MOST IN YOUR FRIENDS?
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO DIE?
IF YOU WERE TO DIE AND COME BACK AS A PERSON OR AN ANIMAL, WHAT DO YOU THINK IT WOULD BE?
IF YOU COULD CHOOSE AN OBJECT TO COME BACK AS, WHAT WOULD YOU CHOOSE?
WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO (WORDS YOU LIVE BY OR THAT MEAN A LOT TO YOU)?
WHO HAS BEEN THE GREATEST INFLUENCE ON YOU?
CarrollBlog 2.27
When I was seventeen, my father was invited to Japan to collaborate on a screenplay with the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. My mother and I accompanied him. It was a crazy, once in a lifetime trip. Kurosawa was considered a god in Japan for having made such classic films as THE SEVEN SAMURAI, THRONE OF BLOOD, RASHOMON, and others. Because he had specifically asked my father to co-write his first Western film, we were treated like mini-gods.
Kurosawa's son was my age and a member of one of the most famous rock groups in Japan at the time. A very good guy, he immediately adopted me and introduced me both to his friends and his life which was fast, glittery, and full of great looking women who smiled a lot but naturally didn't speak a word of English.
One night he said he was fixing me up on a blind date with the prettiest girl of all. I was to meet her at the Hotel New Otani at 10 pm for drinks and then we would see how things went. I asked if this girl spoke English and was told no. But don't worry because she's fun anyway. The implication was clear that we wouldn't need to talk after a certain point, etcetera. I was hesitant but what the hell-- I was seventeen and game for anything. So I put on my best and went to meet her at a hotel which was on the other side of town.
Tokyo is a huge city and to this day I remember how long the taxi ride was. I was nervous and eager and ready for anything. Still, the ride there seemed to take a very long time. When I arrived, only one very good looking girl was waiting in the lobby. Since I was the only blond, 6'4" person there, she came right over and said in halting English that she was the one. The reason we met there was a revolving bar/restaurant on top of the hotel, the only one of its kind in town. If you sat there long enough, you got to see all of Tokyo without moving from your chair.
I think our "date" lasted an hour. I don't remember. Of course it was a disaster and the girl made no sign whatsoever that she was interested in going beyond a drink or two. Silence, smiles, and then more deepening silence. Eventually it became too much and I signalled a waiter for the check. When it came I tried to keep the sang froid but it was hard because the bill was astronomical-- out the window, crazy expensive. Trying to be a 17 year old James Bond, I pretty much kept my cool and paid. Then I escorted the girl down to the lobby and gave her every last yen I had for her taxi ride home. She said thank you and left.
I was seventeen and very unhip to the ways of the world. Never once did it cross my mind that I could take a taxi back to my hotel, ask the driver to wait when we arrived, and get money from the desk to pay for the fare. I just thought "I'm broke so I I have to walk back." To this day I do not know how far it is from the Hotel New Otani to the Hotel Tokyo Prince but the walk took all night, and I am not exaggerating. I walked across that city for hours, having only one thing to guide me: behind my hotel was a huge television tower called, as I remember, the Tokyo Tower. Whenever I got lost, which was about every fifteen minutes, I would either look for the tower way off there in the distance, or I would ask someone. I would say "Tokyo Tower! Tokyo Tower!" in a desperate voice and then shrug exaggeratedly. When people understood what I was asking, they pointed in one direction or another and I was off again. This went on all night. Sometimes I got very very lost but was saved by small police booths throughout the city. Not much bigger than telephone booths, they seemed to be all over the place. In one of them I saw a man on the ground being beaten by two policemen. In another I saw three women, obviously prostitutes, huddled together and staring shamefacedly at the ground while being yelled at by a cop. These booths seemed to be hives of activity. Not only cops hung out there but loafers, voyeurs, and passersby if anything interesting was happening inside. Whenever I got really stuck, I would walk up to one and ask whoever was there "Tokyo Tower!" Some were amused, some suspicious, most people were as helpful as they could be to a tall American teenager who obviously spoke no Japanese.
The funniest part of the adventure happened in one of these booths. The first time I went in and asked for directions, a cop held up a hand for me to be quiet and lifted the telephone. He spoke into the receiver and then handed it to me. I took it and on the other end, a clearly Japanese man spoke a rapid fire English to me. So fast I barely could understand it. But we figured each other out finally and he explained in great detail where I was and how to find the way back to my hotel. But Tokyo is a myriad of little streets and tiny streets and alleys, dead ends, etcetera. So it was a very easy place to lose your way in, even with good instructions. Some time later and a few miles on, I ambled into another of these booths and did my routine. "Tokyo Tower! Tokyo Tower!" Shrug. Again a policeman held up his hand, picked up the phone, and by God suddenly I was talking to the same guy again in English, only this time he sounded more annoyed. Hadn't he told me where to go last time? Didn't I know how to follow instructions?
Around five in the morning when the sky was beginning to brighten, I was really really lost and dog tired and just beginning to doubt whether I would ever see my mother and father again. Luckily another police booth came into view and I dragged myself in. This time I didn't even say one word before the duty cop took one look at me, picked up the phone and dialled.
I took the proferred phone and said "Hello?" On the other end a familiar voice screamed 'WHAT, *YOU* AGAIN?!? YOU ARE THERE, STUPID. YOU HOME! LOOK UP, JUST LOOK UP! LOOK ALL AROUND. GOOD BYE!"
When I did look all around, I saw that the Tokyo Tower and my hotel were directly behind me, no more than a few blocks away.
CarrollBlog 2.26
Everyone has their "that was the most embarrassing moment of my life" story. Here's a great one I heard recently:
A woman was teaching a literature course at an American university. It was a tough assignment because the majority of her students were planning on careers in math and science. The only reason why the majority of them had signed up for her course was to fulfill an academic requirement. She said they were very smart kids who simply weren't interested in reading or talking about fiction and poetry. She likened teaching them to pushing donkeys up hills. Although there was no animosity between her and the students, there was no love lost either.
One night she felt a terrible pain in her abdomen that grew worse and worse. Her husband rushed her to the university hospital where thorough tests were immediately ordered. One of them was of course a gynecological exam. Take off your clothes, put on this sheet, get on the table, put your legs up in the stirrups, wait for the doctor. In pain, but embarrassed as hell too because she was about to be examined by someone she didn't know, she had no choice but to do as she'd been told. In that humiliating, vulnerable position she waited for the doctor to come in. A few long minutes later he entered the room-- followed by his class of medical students. Today he was instructing them in the proper method of gynecological examination. Guess who made up most of the class?
CarrollBlog 2.25
The Loneliest Job in the World
by Tony Hoagland
As soon as you begin to ask the question, Who loves me?
you are completely screwed, because
the next question is How Much?
and then it is hundreds of hours later,
and you are still hunched over
your flowcharts and abacus,
trying to decide if you have gotten enough.
This is the loneliest job in the world:
to be an accountant of the heart.
It is late at night. You are by yourself,
and all around you, you can hear
the sounds of people moving
in and out of love,
pushing the turnstiles, putting
their coins in the slots,
paying the price which is asked,
which constantly changes.
No one knows why.
CarrollBlog 2.24
I knew a guy who owned a moving van. One of those 16 wheel monsters, this was back in the 70's when trucks were trucks and unlike the automatic transmission models of today, it had so many gears that a driver spent most of his time shifting through them when he was driving in town.Once I asked this man if I could drive it and he said sure. My first mistake came within thirty seconds of sliding behind the wheel. After turning on the ignition, I put the transmission in first gear. Sitting in the passenger's seat, he frowned and asked what the hell was I doing? I shrugged because wasn't it obvious? He scolded, "You never start out in first gear in a truck like this! First gear is so powerful and slow that you only use it to go up very steep hills when you're fully loaded, or trying to get out of a snowbank. Put it in 8th gear and let's go."
Today I was watching an obviously brand new couple tiptoeing tentatively around each other both verbally and physically. I thought: some relationships should start in eighth gear instead of first. Those first gears of a relationship-- courting and kissing and petting... can be exciting and romantic, but not always. The fact of the matter is, some couples would be far better off starting out way down in the gears; as if the people had known each other for a long time. They've gotten those first formal introductory chats out of the way, the first awkward fumbling toward sex, the first sex, etcetera. And now their relationship has the potential of becoming genuinely interesting and resonant. Those fidgety, fumbling, fraught prelims are behind them, like the first gears in that 16 wheeler. The truck is up to speed now and can move fast down the open road.
On the other hand, there are those relationships which are always in the wrong gear...
CarrollBlog 2.23
When they were drinking they often played 'what if' games with each other. What if you inherited a lot of money? What if you could change one thing about yourself. What if you could fix one mistake you made in the past. Tonight his brother started off with, "What if you could have sex again with any of your past lovers. Who would it be and why?" For some reason the question immediately disturbed him. Although he came up with some febrile facile answer to keep the banter and playful mood going, he was lying. Because he could not think of one woman from his past that he would like to spend another intimate few hours or night with. What did that mean? What did that say about him or his life choices? Would he like to talk to some of his past lovers? Yes. Catch up on things and see what time and life had done to them? Absolutely. But touch them, smell them, see them naked again? No, he could think of no one. He was sure that said something significant about him, his character, where he was in his life. But no matter how hard he thought about it in the following days, he couldn't figure out what it meant.
3.23.2009
CarrollBlog 2.22
When you hear that I have died, think of this.
Think of cool night breezes while you walk to meet your friends for a beer on a Thursday. Think of waking up in flannel sheets on a snowy morning and kissing someone you love. Think of hung-over diner breakfasts and the best cup of coffee in the world. Think of the sound of tires on seamed highways while you travel, think of French kissing and leather jackets and push-up bras and bourbon, think of the joy of hard work with friends. Then think of me.
Not sad, not the melancholy solitude of empty skies, but the full days and crowded bars and signed contracts, a smile too big for my face, remember I said I stay busy enough to fit three lives into one. When you hear that I have died, know that I want laughter, and dancing, real dancing, to music that makes you move without thinking, you’re wearing boots and jeans and a great t-shirt and wondering if the girl at the edge thinks you’re cute. And you motherfuckers had best DANCE, none of this bullshit rock-nod hands-in-the-pockets shoegazer nonsense, no, make an ass out of yourself, feel your hips, kick off the high heels and sway on the shoulder of a stranger, when I die, you’d better be laughing your ass off on sidewalks, eating deliciously unhealthy food, drinking shots and tipping your bartender well, no matter how much money you make.
And Adam has to read the poem he wrote, and Laura, and June, and Scott Carpenter has to play “Don’t Go Away, Chloe”, no fuck that, every musician I’ve ever made out with or videotaped or road-tripped with has to play, so drink some coffee, baby, it’s gonna be a long night. When you hear that I have died, the best thing you can do is to get laid that night with a comfortable stranger, use my story to get their sympathy, and when you kiss them for the first time, think of me then.
When you hear that I have died, and you will, remember your best revenge is to live well, take risks, save up money and chase your perfect happiness. Beat the system and learn to make your art really support you, craft into something your audience can’t live without. Then make the world an even slightly better place — stop throwing your cigarettes on the ground, vote in the next election, graffiti your life on the eyes of the hungry.
Then just do me one last favor. Please. Love something. Anything. Start with yourself, but find passion in everything, from an apple pie to a novel, make a family, get a degree, walk whatever path is yours with your chin up and feet planted firmly. Have the best stories to tell in the old folk’s home, about lifelong friendships and epic love affairs, about the time you lost everything and yet found yourself happier than when you began.. and remember that time we got in SO much trouble…
Poets.. remember. This is the story that never ends. When one of us leaves, another walks through the door. The pages turn, the sun keeps rising. All you can do in the meanwhile.. is to speak for yourself. Raise your voice high, tell your story, join hands against the dark and sing our souls to the sky. Know the best in me comes from the best in you, that as you tell your story, you will be telling mine, and our lives will be linked together forever, and everyone who hears you will become a part of the change we make.
So when you hear that I have died..
just ….live.
–Gabrielle Bouliane
CarrollBlog 2.20
"A lover exists only in fragments, a dozen or so if the romance is new, a thousand if we’ve married him, and out of those fragments our heart constructs an entire person. What we each create, since whatever is missing is filled in by our imagination, is the person we wish him to be. The less we know him, of course, the more we love him."
Andrew Sean Greer
CarrollBlog 2.19
“Because we don’t know when we will die, we hink of life as an inexhaustible well, yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.
Paul Bowles
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"I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out."
Roger Ebert
CarrollBlog 2.18
Just read an interesting book by Rachel Simon. She has a unique way of seeing life and how to handle its travails.
Have a look at the book trailer:
http://www.rachelsimon.com/videotrailer.php
CarrollBlog 2.17
Cleaning up after the Dog
by Jason Tandon
Pull plastic bag from pocket
and wave it like a flag
or diploma. Make sure many people
congratulate your care
for the community.
Check bag for holes.
Double check.
Inspect stool for odd hues.
Greens, blues, blood.
Evaluate consistency.
You don't want to leave smears
on the sidewalk or grass—no prints.
Getaway must be clean.
Prepare to go in for all of it.
Hold breath.
Grab, clamp, reverse bag, twist, knot, cinch.
Smell hands.
Hold loaded bag high in the air,
assure onlookers that Everything is Okay.
If a cop should cruise by,
his crew cut bristling
in the sun,
hold that bag higher,
so he, too, can salute
your contribution.
The bomb diffused,
the world a little safer, a little cleaner,
will not offend the deep treads
of someone's shoes.
CarrollBlog 2.16
A group of 45 year old guys discuss where they should meet for dinner.
Finally they agree to meet at Kelley's Restaurant because the
waitresses have low cut blouses and nice breasts.
10 years later at age 55, the group agrees to meet at Kelley's because
the food is good and the wine selection is excellent.
10 years later at age 65, the group agrees to meet at Kelley's because
they can eat there in peace and quiet and the restaurant is smoke free.
10 years later at age 75, the group agrees to meet at Kelley's because
the restaurant is wheel chair accessible and they have an elevator.
10 years later at age 85, the group agrees to meet at Kelley's because
they have never been there before.
CarrollBlog 2.15
Whenever he returned, they had a ritual both of them liked to follow: She would pick him up at the airport and they’d go directly to a café near her apartment that served excellent coffee and fresh bakery goods. He usually arrived very early in the morning so when they got to the café the same people were often there: a group of young mothers sitting at the big table who had dropped their children off at the school across the street. A few singles here and there reading newspapers or working on laptop computers. Couples playing hooky from the day who had clearly just climbed out of bed. They wore that sleepy happy complicit look of having shared a night of secrets and busy together. While waiting for their order, she would hold both of his hands and fill him in on her latest news. He especially loved those very first minutes together in the sun-drenched café hearing her talk. While listening carefully he was re-learning her face, voice, and gestures all over again. He knew them by heart of course having memorized so many of her details. When they were apart he went over them again and again in his mind. But this was different. After time away, those first hours together again were like the first moments in your home after returning from a trip. Everything is as familiar as the skin on the back of your hand but somehow new too at the same time. You stand there looking around at that most familiar space, remembering things, noticing, inhaling again the singular perfume of home; all the things large and small gathered and formed into your life.
CarrollBlog 2.14
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. Hand this poem to someone you like a lot and tell them they're the aces.
Song
by Edwin Denby
I don't know any more what it used to be
Before I saw you at table sitting across from me
All I can remember is I saw you look at me
And I couldn't breathe and I hurt so bad I couldn't see.
I couldn't see but just your looking eyes
And my ears was buzzing with a thumping noise
And I was scared the way everything went rushing around
Like I was all alone, like I was going to drown.
There wasn't nothing left except the light of your face,
There might have been no people, there might have been no place,
Like as if a dream were to be stronger than thought
And could walk into the sun and be stronger than aught.
Then someone says something and then you spoke
And I couldn't hardly answer up, but it sounded like a croak
So I just sat still and nobody knew
That since that happened all of everything is you.
CarrollBlog 2.13
It’s been snowing in Vienna.
Some thoughts:
No one looks chic or fashionable in a real snowstorm. Even when they're beautifully dressed, their scrunched faces betray them.
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Heavy snow at night is romantic and mysterious. During the day it's mostly just snow and quiet-- sort of like an old person, napping.
--------------------------
No one has more fun in the snow than a dog.
--------------------------
I pass a blind woman on the street and think if she lives alone, how does she know it's snowing outside?
Does she always put her hand out the window to feel the weather before she leaves her apartment?
CarrollBlog 2.12
“Bud, a bull terrier was smuggled into France during World War 1 when America joined the Allies in 1917, by ‘Slats’ Slattery of the 82nd division, 325th Machine Gun Company. Bud was gassed in the Argonne and subsequently wore a special gas mask, took part in a big engagement on the Somme and learned to flatten with the men when the shells came over… He managed to fight alongside his master throughout the war, returned home with him and lived to a fine age of thirteen. When he died, his heartbroken master wrapped Bud in his old campaign rug, placed him in a rough pine box and took him to a war cemetery nearby. While he was digging the grave, one of the cemetery staff strolled up and, sensing the ex-soldier’s desolation, unearthed an old rusty bugle. As Bud was lowered into the grave, the last post rang out.”
from the book DOGS AND MEN
CarrollBlog 2.11
Dogs carrying their leashes in their mouths as they trot happily down the street next to their owners.
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Groups of people standing outside buildings, smoking hungrily around a single large overfilled ashtray.
--------------------------
bums carefully arranging stuff inside their many plastic bags
---------------------------
the small wonderful talent of a waitress bringing six different people their coffee and cake on her two extended arms at the cafe.
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the sound of a train whistle in the air when you are nowhere near a train station or tracks.
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the momentary mysteriousness of hearing someone talking on a cell phone in an exotic sounding foreign language.
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When you are very hungry, the thrill and delicious anticipation of the moment when the waiter finally brings your food to the table and you see it for the first time.
---------------------------
the pleased look on the faces of old women leaving a beauty salon with a new coiffeur. Their hair looks either like frozen cotton candy or hedges that were just trimmed.
CarrollBlog 2.10
Searchers
by Jim Harrison
At dawn Warren is on my bed,
a ragged lump of fur listening
to the birds as if deciding whether or not
to catch one. He has an old man's
mimsy delusion. A rabbit runs across
the yard and he walks after it
thinking he might close the widening distance
just as when I followed a lovely woman
on boulevard Montparnasse but couldn't equal
her rapid pace, the click-click of her shoes
moving into the distance, turning the final
corner, but when I turned the corner
she had disappeared and I looked up
into the trees thinking she might have climbed one.
When I was young, a country girl would climb
a tree and throw apples down at my upturned face.
Warren and I are both searchers. He's looking
for his dead sister Shirley, and I'm wondering
about my brother John who left the earth
on this voyage all living creatures take.
Both cat and man are bathed in pleasant
insignificance, their eyes fixed on birds and stars.
CarrollBlog 2.7
"She gave only what was easy for her; what came naturally and instinctively. What she had always given of herself to past lovers, but nothing more.That was usually enough for them, at least in the short run, because she was very special in her way. As a result, she never made any genuine effort to go beyond her old safe boundaries, the first layer, below the thin topsoil of her limitations. She probably believed she worked hard to make their relationship succeed. Look at what I’m doing for you and all that I’m giving of myself. But it was no different from what she had given others in the past. Had she really made any new effort, gesture or concession? No. It is not hard for a person who knows how to waltz to waltz again. But if they have never tap danced and are asked to learn, then dancing becomes both difficult and challenging. She never attempted to dig deep within to find any latent qualities that might have helped her to grow and become more whole. It takes real courage and effort to mine undiscovered parts of ourselves and then use them. Because in truth we do not want things to change. We rarely choose to do it voluntarily. Because change invariably makes waves in our lives and the higher they are, the more they scare us. To attempt to become better (stronger, wiser, more understanding…) than we were yesterday means swimming straight into those waves. If she had looked and found such things, such potential, and then had the guts to put them to use, it might have changed everything.
from the new book
CarrollBlog 2.6
For some reason, I've been a frequent witness to different groups of rowdy teenage boys lately and I've come to at least one general conclusion about them: in most groups of more than five, there are almost always two recognizable types-- the sound effects guy and the Karate Kid. Inevitably there is one boy who makes an unending array of sound effects to match whatever is going on: If the gang are all hurrying to get on a subway, he's the one who makes the 'vroom-vroom' or tire squeal of racing cars. Or if someone in the pod is being teased by the others, Mr. Sound Effects always offers up the convincing 'rat-a-tat-tat' of a machine gun mowing the poor guy down, or the sound of some other incoming explosion to match what is happening to the victim. Mr. S.E. is also adept at beat box, lions roaring, jungle birds or monkeys screaming, seven kinds of whistling, trucks reversing 'beep-beep-beep', etc. The other inevitable type in these guy gangs is the one who never stops throwing fake karate kicks and chops at others in the pack. Sometimes he's good-- you can tell he actually takes karate or tae kwon do classes. Most times though he's just the one who's the most Attention Deficit/tightly wound member of the band who best expresses himself by constantly whipping out flying kicks or Bruce Lee-like punches to either scare or impress his peers, particularly if girls happen to be around at the time. More often than not his buddies roll their eyes when he starts as if to say uh oh—here he goes again when their very own Karate Kid flares into action.
CarrollBlog 2.5
Ex-Boyfriends
by Kim Addonizio
They hang around, hitting on your friends
or else you never hear from them again.
They call when they're drunk, or finally get sober,
they're passing through town and want dinner,
they take your hand across the table, kiss you
when you come back from the bathroom.
They were your loves, your victims,
your good dogs or bad boys, and they're over
you now. one writes a book in which a woman
who sounds suspiciously like you
is the first to be sadistically dismembered
by a serial killer. They're getting married
and want you to be the first to know,
or they've been fired and need a loan,
their new girlfriend hates you,
they say they don't miss you but show up
in your dreams, calling to you from the shoeboxes
where they're buried in rows in your basement.
Some nights you find one floating into bed with you,
propped on an elbow, giving you a look
of fascination, a look that says I can't believe
I've found you. It's the same way
your current boyfriend gazed at you last night,
before he pulled the plug on the tiny white lights
above the bed, and moved against you in the dark
broken occasionally by the faint restless arcs
of headlights from the freeway's passing trucks,
the big rigs that travel and travel,
hauling their loads between cities, warehouses,
following the familiar routes of their loneliness.
CarrollBlog 2.4
The mind is like a detective-- it wants facts and figures. But the heart, its perennial sidekick, keeps shaking its head and smiling: There was no way in the world they were going to find the facts and crack this case.
CarrollBlog 2.3
The subway doors open and a crowd of people pour in. One of them is a man wearing a long beige winter coat covered from top to bottom with blood. It takes seconds for the realization to hit you—THAT’S BLOOD! Then your eyes jump up to his face. A raggedy street person, he’s clearly been in a fight and didn’t fare so well. There are cuts all over his face. One of his eyes is already beginning to swell. But it’s the bloody-massacre coat that is most shocking. I peer around at those nearby to see what their reactions to him are. Mostly it’s sneaked peeks/look-look away-then look again. Manners or decorum or simply embarrassment, almost everyone who has seen him cannot look directly for more than a few seconds. Except for the beauty. There is a really beautiful young woman standing in the corner who cannot stop staring at him. Her eyes are almost bugging out in wonder or incredulity and she obviously feels no shame looking directly at him for as long as she likes. It is such a contrast—beauty and the beast, but it is the beauty who is fascinated not the other way around. The tattered man hasn’t looked her way once.
CarrollBlog 2.2
The expression on a person's face when they've run to catch a subway or bus but just miss it and the doors close on them.
The expression on their face when they watch puppies play together on the sidewalk.
The expression on their face when they walk out of a public toilet, visibly relieved and bleary eyed.
The expression on a child's face when it is being scolded by an adult.
The expression on a cop's face when someone is explaining to him why they're not wrong.
The expression on a grandparent's face while they watch a grandchild eat ice cream.
The expression on both lovers' faces when they are having a heated argument.
The expression on someone's face while they wait for someone at the airport, then see them emerge through the exit door.
The expression on a man's face when he is listening to his new love explain something.
The expression on a student's face when they suddenly understand a difficult concept for the first time.
The expression on your face while you read this.
CarrollBlog 2.1
Someone told me they read on a blog that two people had tattooed on their wrists the phrase "Hope gleams in the idiot heart," a line from the Russian poet Mayakovsky that they found in my novel THE MARRIAGE OF STICKS. I have always loved the permanence of tattoos, the conviction by the person who gets one that they will be happy to have this thing on their body ten, twenty, thirty years from now. But besides the stupid tattoos I see all over the place today, I have yet to see or think of anything I would want on my skin forever. However hearing about this tattoo today I thought, that's a pretty cool idea. A good permanent reminder that no matter what, there are almost always surprises around life's corners and we should keep our heads up to see them coming.