I ate the last of my acid today, at this place in Hawaii called Fox's Landing (I think) near the Kalapana lava flow. Fox's Landing is this awesome little black-pebble beach in the middle of a coastline that looks like it was made out of giant Legos. The road to the beach is blocked by lava rock ... a flow ran over it (apparently back in the 70's or something) and now you need to hike probably a quarter mile over lava rock and through mangrove jungle to get to it. It's a great place to go for shells.
(Running count on how long it's taking me to write this post: 10 minutes so far.)
I got trashed by a wave today, I was behind some rocks and bending down to pick up a shell and it hit me more or less like a truck. Once I was certain I wasn't going to drown, it was actually a lot of fun except for the bruises. It must have been pretty scary to my friends at first ... I know one of them was running towards me when I stood up again. We all had a good laugh about it once it was clear I was safe. I'm actually pretty lucky that I didn't get ripped open ... there are some places where the lava rock hasn't gotten worn down much and it's basically a cheesegrater. You don't want to get thrown against it at any speed.
(15? Ish? I don't know anymore. I put on "Tales of the Inexpressible" and it's already halfway through "A new way to say hooray" and I'm pretty sure I started this post relatively soon after putting the album on so ... 20?)
Basically I am tripping pretty hard (I had 2 1/2 hits) and I'm still shivering from the ride in the back of the pickup truck back from the lava flow. Once it got dark we all went down to watch the lava ... we didn't get close enough to actually lay eyes on a literal river of molten rock, but we got close enough to see the glow and the fumes and all in all it is pretty cool to realize that I'm basically living on what is, from the perspective of the planet, a moldy scab. The biodiversity around here is ridiculous. There is a plant that will recoil and fold up if you touch it (it has little spines to protect it ... it unfolds again after a minute or so). There are precisely zero predators unless you count house cats and mongooses. Come to think of it, humans were the first mammals on this land. That's amazing. People literally got here before rats did. I wouldn't be surprised if people were here before cockroaches.
(Halfway through "Room 23" means ... 25 ... ? I kinda wish ipods had an option for checking how far through a playlist is or something, just because it's fun to try to keep track of this.)
It's really hard to move without dancing right now. I probably look like a damn fool.
Edit: apparently the guy who lives next door to me has one of the most extraordinary singing voices I've ever heard. Furthermore, a message board post that I made a long time ago is the object of my attention now and I am treating it like a voice recorder. Cool (this might not actually be cool). (It's been a while but I'm a little self-conscious about double-posting. Why? (this is an open question)).
It occurs to me that if there is a question in my mind as to whether or not I should post, on the internet, about myself posting on the internet, which is what I am doing, then I probably shouldn't be doing it.
On the other hand, this is a creative opportunity and I have no reason not to follow it.
The creative direction the message board post (in the look-I'm-under-the-influence-of-god-knows-what thread) takes me is ...
This? (At this point imagine the text above this paragraph break turning a different color.)
Bah! [generalized feigned(?) discomfort!]
I guess I must be proud, on some level, of what I've put in here so far, or else you would not have read it by now ... which is a choice I am still making right now, because I have not yet hit the "save" button on this little scrap of digital canvas [when did I turn into a poet/pretentious twat?] (I just documented that thought. That is why I made those keystrokes.)
I will now hit that button, after typing the period at the end of this sentence, but without the promise that I will not go back to edit it later on.
Hit the edit button again. 3rd try? Just wanted to put in here that my thought process goes like this right now ({trip} = moment of becoming self-conscious about something, in this case):
{trip}Thought!(Reaction: document! ---> I can document this on QC drunk thread post! Reason: tripping.)
Commence drunk thread posting.
{trip}What does it say about me that I am doing this right now? [::self-judge::] Why bother with brackets? (Oh right, because they mean something to me, even if they won't to anyone else. (they probably won't when I'm sober. Oh well. That's not the point){trip}) the point IS that I want to be accurate about this. That is why I am doing this right now, to accurately ... oh, this isn't working, if I just lay it all out in type it doesn't work.
Why bother? Oh right, to use the creative potential offered by the message board post. Why shouldn't it be art in some way? I got a Dan Simmons book today and started reading it and it's basically a massive crazy sci-fi epic thing that is also in some way about the Canterbury tales. It's a pretty impressive piece of work and I don't think I'll understand a lot of what he's doing with it, but that's cool because it's such a massive crazy sci-fi epic thing that it's entertaining anyway. It touches off the art sensor in me like crazy, it's been a while since an author of fiction was so good at grabbing me and making me want more of their books.
I am strangely satisfied with this post at this point. In fact, after rereading it, I am suddenly precisely the opposite of satisfied, which I suppose brings me back to the [::self-judge::] point on this post, closes the loop, and lets me post with a promise not to edit it (which was the point of the whole thing!).
