Aphasia, Apophenia, Alacrity

My secretary seriously referred to me as a "growing boy" in reference to the sprawling Thanksgiving dinner that my brother is preparing. Indicating that I can and should be eating multiple servings like a teenager. This was the first thing that has offended me in a long time . . not this presumption that I'm young and healthy and can eat recklessly. This declaration that I am not an adult. My counter is that I'm more of an adult than many twice my age: I know what I want. I'm willing to make sacrifices. I haven't fallen for the social chicanery of television/children/religion/consumption. I'm not afraid to be injured or inconvenienced. I have overcome some palpable shit in my day. I am well-educated. I'm master of my domain. In what ways, exactly, am I not an adult? Hell, I'm the aforementioned secretary's BOSS. Because I haven't had children yet doesn't make me immature, it makes me rational . . .the best reaction is no reaction I suppose . . .

When in the midst of writing or pacing through the increasingly ritualized process of preparing to write, this odd thing happens. I start to form sentences and connections in my head that I would never make otherwise. There is suddenly something poetic about how I fill my water bottle, some metaphor in the way the wooden stairs creak underneath me, the cold night air a reminder of my soft humanity, every instant dredging up some long-forgotten image or sensation. The scratchy resonance of Burial like edgy dawns I never slept for. The ache in my bones from self-destruction now existential, because pain is the proof. The filth of my chamber evidence of some grander futility. And then this natural transition into writing in this mode. The contrivance and fabrication suddenly more honest because it reflects this system of pattern recognition that is firing on all cylinders. God it's a beautiful feeling.

In 40-some days I will be in Africa. Starting in a city dubbed Nairobbery by tourists. A place famed in the western world for pickpockets, violent carjackings, and the drug trade. Reminds me of home. After that I'm climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with a hand-picked team; starting in equatorial serengeti, tromping through muddy rainforest, hiking parched through alpine desert, and then watching the sunrise at 19,000ft and -20 degrees. Afterwards champagne and local beer in exotic bars and laughing about how nothing and yet everything I've ever done in my life has predicted this. And then a trip out to the birthplace of civilization to see if I can't find some long-dead grandfather's initials carved in an extinct animal's femur. Somehow I think seeing this place will put a great many things in perspective. I'm losing sleep as I think about all the tendrils this trip has telescoping and writhing out from it. I can barely fucking wait, counting individual days like I haven't maybe ever. On top of all that, I miss you.