an image diary

"And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be? ... You'd be nowhere. Why, you're only a sort of thing in his dream! If that there King was to wake you'd go out -- bang! -- just like a candle!"

"Hush! You'll be waking him, I'm afraid, if you make so much noise."

"Well it's no use your talking about waking him when you're only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you're not real."

Friday, December 5, 2008

. . . . .

IMG_4596


***

From one "Carlos Ramirez" by email 1:57 this morning:

God your blog sucks. I thought you were 18 when I first read it. Turns out you're much older. And gainfully employed. Wow.

You're like sarah jessica parker: explaining the heavy handed. Why not write of something interesting? Instead of exaggerating your life. Honestly, your pictures are terrible. Please relieze this. You cannot pick out things that are'nt pretty.

***

Dear Carlos,

It's true there is nothing very engaging here, most of it said with too much seriousness, most of it nerdy and self-absorbed, I know. Well, it's just a think-space, a personal notebook, and while yours might be wonderful to look at, mine happens to be irritating, like sarah jessica parker explaining the heavy handed and full of pretty terrible pictures. Most people just change the channel, but here you are, Carlos, determined to let me know I don't even deserve my job. That I've got the maturity of an 18 year-old. That I exaggerate. Thank you. Thank you for pausing long enough to point out my shortcomings--the least of them, I assure you, and only a few among those that really matter. You're right: I'm not thankful enough for my gainful employment, or for all the beauty in the smallest things in the world. I do fail, especially here, which, in your good word, sucks. You're also right to point out I should do more to live up to what is interesting, and to suggest that if I am doing the best I can, it isn't worthwhile. You're insightful. You know me very well. I can see clearly now that if I were you--with your perceptiveness, your abilities, your level of maturity--I would snuff me out completely because that's what I deserve.

Well then. What should we do about this?

If there is something here that arouses your kind of loathing, then of course: I should lay the ghost to rest. For I don't want to hurt you this way. But I doubt there is. For as you say, it is not interesting (and so thank you also for digging through my archives for as long as you did: what a great service). It is a dust mote and an eye sore. Maybe, Carlos (see, I like using your name because it is my father's name--thank you for leaving your name), this blog interested you just enough to make you feel disgusted, and angry, and petty because you are already sad about something else. We've established that I'm not very perceptive, so I can't guess what that is, but I hope, I do hope, that as we draw closer to the most expensive season of the year, you are gainfully employed too. That your heat is on, that your babies (for I hope you have babies) aren't cold, and that you wake this morning--or afternoon is it, for you were up quite late writing your message to me--with someone who loves you unconditionally. I hope you wake with the kind of gorgeous blue morning I have now, with trains and crows in your ears, and the snow glowing through the fog. I hope you will wake today ready to be milked of the great book in your head, and that I will read that book someday and be able to shake my head and say wow. My friend Carlos really knows how to hang puppies. And I will share that book with my students at my place of gainful employment and tell them: see, if you can't hang puppies as Carlos does, then you should take up his book and feed it into all the useless pathetic blogs you can find and put a stop to all the sarah jessica parkers of this world. For that, at least, is doing something. And know, Carlos, you must be more blessed than I am. You must be. But I hope whatever is making you sad resolves itself soon. I hope you can sleep when you need to sleep. Eat when you need to eat. Love whom you need to love--and be loved as much back.

***

"and what is the use of a book...without pictures or conversations?"


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