String Finger

I watched a little bit of The Count of Monte Cristo, mostly to make note of how different Jim Caviezel looks in it. And it tugged a bit at my nostalgic innards. I watched that movie on a flight to Boston, the day after my birthday in 2002. And I was prickly with that thing that sometimes happens when some sweeping romantic ending looms. I push it away. Reject it. This is not the world and what is real. This is the world through the perfected prism of literature. This is a story. This is rubbish. I don't know the exact dates, but there was a time when a wonderful romantic story sat fine with me. These days, even the crap ones are an irritant.

I wrote a lot in my journal on that flight. The one with the paper and cloth cover, with the screen print of a horse illustration with all sorts of angles and math nonsense written on it. I wrote in it once in 2000. September. Then I picked it back up again in 2001. And I have been writing in it on and off ever since. With very, very small handwriting. Which is why I am only a little past halfway through it. I flipped back to those pages and read some of what I wrote. Nothing I care to publish. Little that I care to remember. That is unusual for me. I am someone who catalogues things with such diligence that to realize one day that I wish I hadn't is jarring. I had the same experience when I was wrapping up some tax things and had to go through my 2002 desk calendar. Day after day of details I'd rather not recall. I have never ever felt that way before. I have always prized my meticulous memory and my ability to relive and recall. Somewhere along the way, the details began to be a burden. Little irritants. Like bug bites you get from your socks.

I don't know why I detect that slightly hostile response where romance is concerned. It seems unfitting for me. I think I am always in love with someone or something. But it has begun to feel like the aftermath of a mouthful of very dry toast. The romantic storytellers imply something with more moisture, I think.

Anyway, it's just a feeling. And they are nearly never permanent.

This was me at the John Kerry thing. Well, in the bathroom of the thing anyway.