...excite the membrane, when the sense has cooled...

We have not reached conclusion, when I
Stiffen in a rented house. Think at last
I have not made this show purposelessly
And it is not by any concitation
Of the backward devils
I would meet you upon this honestly.
I that was near your heart was removed therefrom
To lose beauty in terror, terror in inquisition.


We tried Neruda, it didn't cut it. The day called for Eliot, what could I do? He talks a lot about aging, this one. Which is seemly, because I feel old. Old and unbelievably young, impossibly small. As evidently paradoxical and hypocritical as my very nature, it seems.

I spent a good 20 minutes tearing my parents' basement apart because I was positive I would find there an envelope which held inside a passport application that I had picked up from the post office a few weeks ago, and not filled out. This application, I had decided, I would take with me tomorrow and get signed by my uncle by marriage who is an orthodontist, and thus a professional who has known me for at least two years. Clearly, I am beyond help.

Allow me to segue here if you will - tomorrow we are going bowling. All of us, the cousins, the aunts, the whole kit and caboodle. This is what my family does. On holidays or nights before holidays (foreign holidays only - we celebrate with zeal the Iranian ones) we go bowling. Quality family experience + rented shoes. The potential for entertainment is paramount.

I didn't find the passport application, in case any one was wondering. What I *did* find:

i) "Searching for God: A Youth's Guide to Salvation" - given to me by Dee Lorusso's father when I was 15. He is a minister. I think he feared my soul was in danger. Or something. It wasn't.
ii) A card from my OAC French teacher - "Avec qui parlerai-jai le semestre prochain apropos des films? To aimes te plaindre (insert: it's true), mais tu fais tout a la perfection."
iii) A handful of stale Hershey's Kisses. Which were promptly eaten.

There's more, but it can't be now. Because my head (read: Farnam) has to go through it all first, and I am tired (read: she is not around).

In the meantime, I also found an old Faramarz Assef tape and I am shaking my groove thang around the guest room, in old grubby clothes, to Kamar Barik because I love it, and him, and everything in the world.

Even Kristen's rabbit, who chewed through my blanket, and thus is the devil.