(no subject)

[xinjinmeng]

:
Fearing that I might have the sick-gray face as warned by Whitman, I lifted my coils and descended from the aleph to the middle kingdoms, and then a step below.  Perhaps I would sleep close with other sleepers, and dream their dreams?   One wonders what he would have made of these dens of inquity?  As a man travels through the ages, he becomes different people.  I could hear the young, vibrant Walt exhorting a stream of consciousness over the throngs ... and I could see the old, ravaged Mr. Whitman looking on, the fatigue of his long years imposing his physical exile, serving as a crucible for his green-eyed denouncement.

Crossed paths with E___, which (in all candor) was less serendipitous than I would have had them believe.  Our conversation was more meaningful for the pauses between the words; our intercourse began hesitantly, until we were able to pierce through our eminence fronts a bit and reach a consensus.  It was the right amount of good, an epicurean amount. It was good to see them again, and it was even better reciprocated.

Hours later, to maintain my balance of both recluse and gadabout, I attended this month's Klatsch die Uranodioningine.  I was immediately introduced to several newcomers, though inside I am rarely sure if I am considered starlet or sideshow — as with most things, the truth is probably in the middle.   My embarassment continues in that I could remember neither who had invited me nor who the host was, but it didn't seem to matter; even noses less discerning than mine would easily detect that the mugs passed about were more cherry brandy than Kenyan roast, and there was a high degree of jovial inebriation.  Lured to the cantilevered balcony by promise of a spectactular view of my valley's water margin, my composure was visibly broken when I saw N___ M___ there, conversing with a masked hypertrophic.  My first thought was how easily she projected the idea that the sun brought down its lemon-yellow light just for her, and she was generously sharing it with us.

My surmise has long been than she and I grate so easily upon one another because we are so much alike in many, many ways.  While I want to continue to believe that she does not really enjoy the attention she receives, the fact that she continues to manufacture it would either make her willfully blind to it all or a shrewd manipulator.  To continue the metaphor from above, it invokes the two Whitmans within me -- the young, eager poet who seeks the contact of others' psyches; and the older, acrimonous veteran who has been rebuffed one too many times, lonely and angry.  Finished as I am in conversational etiquette, I remained polite and mingled competently, ignoring the tightening in my craw.  As N___ M___ continued, my usual emotion of remoteness came forth again.  Playing off my chagrin, I made an excuse relating to my with difficulty of metabolizing caffiene or sugar, declared I was unwell, and departed. 

Am I too sensitive? It is a strange feeling to feel slighted more by indifference than by actual malice, as if somehow the indifference is worse.  I am familiar with enough theater to know that hate and love are not opposites -- there are so many enablings, so many ruinations, so many tragedies on this issue.  I had resisted the impulse to write this until a whole day had passed between the incidents, that I might have time to reflect. 

I must find out who the host was.  The one rumination I bring away from that party that warms me is the thought of them bent over the railing of that wonderful balcony, enjoying the view as well as myself.