Wow. I certainly have ignored this blog of mine, haven’t I? I believe it’s about time I began writing in it again, and not simply to chronicle the day-to-day events of my life...that kind of thing gets boring after a while. That is not what I set out to do; I set out and created this account and blog to capture ideas, constructs, poetry and memory—yes, memory, but only in its proper course. My life is not interesting enough to exclusively write a blog about, but when you add my ideas…well, perhaps it can be. Anyway, let’s pursue this, shall we?

The Village. Every city has one: an area where the rancid, diseased, scabbed-over aspects of urban life burst out into the open and bloom into something that’s strangely wonderful. A pub, clubs, bars…the pus of society gets drained out in these little triage centers, trickles away, carrying the infection with it. Most assume that this saves the rest of the populace; the poor, sickened souls that inhabit those locations are too far gone to ever recover, to ever survive, and so they’re left alone. We let the drunks and junkies slouch away and simply keep a tighter grip on our purses and wallets when they slide by us. It’s too late for them, poor things, why can’t we help them? They don’t want to be helped…however can that happen? What drives them to stay in the red-light districts and bars?

It’s simple, really. In the cold, bright symmetry of the skyscrapers, the 24-hour days, the glare of florescent lights…you freeze. That fire in your gut gets snuffed out; ice is jammed down your throat, numbing your lips and tempering your tongue like red-hot metal in the waterbath so that argument overcomes words of kindness. Your highbeams get turned off, and you cannot see ahead. But alcohol and laughter, rowdiness and obscenities, the deep bass beat of a good techno song...that makes the cold go away. You warm up to strangers, reach out and touch them and find something real and unbound by a nine-to-five schedule and set rules of conduct. You sing, make stupid jokes, try things you know you’ll regret and laugh it off as it happens. The tentative friendships—tiny heartbreak and comradry to lend more weight to the friendships back home. It’s so personal and impersonal, so dangerous and foolhardy and addictive; it’s better then the mundane. Sometimes it’s better to be transitive. Sometimes it’s better to be out on the street or at the bar; to be irresponsible and id-driven and ready to go out in a blaze of glowsticks and glory.

We need to have a little sleeze, a little disease in our lives. Something cancerous and warped out of shape, to offset the monotony. Sure, it’s dangerous and toxic, and it can build up in your system—I know that. I’ve been nearly claimed by it, and every time I go to the city I’m reminded of the danger by telephone booths, prepositions, the rubbing of cloth against cracks and scarring. I know that it’s stupid to get drunk and show up somewhere and talk with people I barely know; I’ll never see them again, and who knows what their intentions could be? That makes it so much more precious, though! What’s better? Having the time of your life, even if it claims it, bursts it and burns it like powder to match, or burning slowly and emotionlessly? Apathy or annihilation?

Both, I believe. Both.