they did not expect him.

it's solstice today - skullfest 2006 - Year 5, Day 1 today. wow.

the title is a link to my favorite painting of all time, and especially for today. it's by ilya repin, a russian cat who, with this painting, put the cap on the ideological russian movement in russian painting. but i don't care about that. what i care about is that i'm teaching a theory of mind lecture this summer, and if i had an hour and 50 powerpoint slides to explain to you the subtleties of theory of mind---your ability to imagine what's going on in my head---i could not do better than to give you 5 minutes alone with this painting. it's stunning. it's a russian populist dude, i forget his name, who the czar's soldiers took away in the pogroms 8 years ago. everyone thinks he's dead, and now he just walks into his house; even little girl who is too young to remember really; everyone except the boy, with his gleeful, vindictive grin. told you so.

marsha marsha marsha.

man, i'm getting tired of my clingy issues. i go through my days, looking each of my three issues in the face. i try to do what's best, to foster a sense of independence so that my issues won't need me anymore. i pat each firmly on the head in an admonishing but hopeful way, and at the end of the day i send them off to bed. i wake up in the morning; and one, two, three, me---there we all are. same f'ing issues. can't get through the first cup of coffee before they're blathering; it's like ... sometimes it feels like my issues aren't even talking to me, they just want to talk near me, you know? so juvenile, they're so loud. f me. it's so hard to get some time for myself. but tonight i've hired a sitter, and at last i'll be able to get some breathing space, some time just for me, when i can go up to the bar, have a few beers, and hold a bible in my lap while i tell cute girls of how i'm holding myself back. what a relief that'll be.

this song is not a rebel song.

it's wednesday afternoon. just got done with boni, my therapist; i spent a lot of time peering at the radiator just behind her left elbow. but then her small eyebrows furrowed with worry, and she very quietly asked after a very noisy thing. and soon enough i was laying down that i want there to be law for myself--how does she manage to make me do that. and man, i can't explain my knowledge that there's a melody just out there--just away there--waiting, for me to strike it. a song my voicebox was made to spell. and it's not a lullaby, it does not lilt. i want these baby teeth out of my head. my throat is sinking, is deepening down to its resonance point. i don't know much else, but i know. this song is not a rebel song; this song is.