So.
I met somebody.
He was a strange nomadian from a place which is cold and spiky looking on the maps. On all the globes it’s ridgy under your thumb, so you think there’s prolly lots of cavey places to hide and stuff.
He went into the weird Ginsberg place in my mind. Other boys go there too. An artist friend of my father’s. I made a crack once in a hot tub about François Gilot and Picasso and I was not trying to be cheeky or disrespectful, so I suppose it was not a crack, really. I think I was just observing the way humans are with other humans.
I don’t know. I’m a little odd.
I reached my 5000th tweet today in the Twitter-verse. Perhaps this is a bit ridiculous. Who knows these things? I wanted to say something significant, rather than just an @ reply that was “@mike_mcalli yes, I’d quite like a taco on your way home, blah-blah-blah” (no, tacos are NEVER insignificant, yes I REALIZE that was borderline blasphemous, I will eat several tacos at the dinner party to make up for this breach…) .)
So I said:
“I love you. If you think I might be talking to YOU, I am. It’s EXACTLY why I write songs. &if you know me, you know EXACTLY what I’m saying.“
Was I thinking of a specifc person. Yes and no. At that particular time, I was thinking of four specific people, for four different reasons. Mostly because I was in the middle of the fact that they were right in front of my eyes. But I loved all of them.
One was Chelsea. It’s because I just made her a video. She is gorgeous.
One is my husband. It’s because I was tweeting with him.
Well, he’s my husband.
I love Joe, because … well – just LISTEN, okay? 
And you know we can probably get better at it too, given more time and more agreement on things. It takes practice and stuff. Maybe someday we can get it a little more gell-ed or something. He needs to probably sleep more or rest or do whatever it is healthy-wise he needs to do. I can’t say much. I never sleep.
The other is Kevin. I don’t know him nearly well enough yet. I am just tickled though, that Sammy makes videos about him talking to the box-dude. I think it’s perfect. I love that too. I love a lot these days. I loved last night, talking with Travis and Sammy, about this exquisite little short film.
Right after that, Jules tweeted me something, and I thought, wow – that’s how I love her too, because she is so very particular about so many little things and it’s very endearing a lot of times … and then later Caleb said something that day, and I thought of how we talked about the piano. And I tweeted Brett back too and thought of how conscientious he has always been about responding to me and being nice when I am out in the middle of crowds at things, when he has such a crowd of people around him. And how much fun we had just hanging out those couple times and how really oddly quirky he is.
But after tweeting my 5000th tweet and thinking about all these people and also Dave and Alyssa and the 3-Travis-teers as well, and the other people I am constantly in a low-grade state of obsession about … NOT TO MENTION the book I could write on the new people I see and touch around here (!!! – I’ll get to that, MAYBE!!)
… I thought for a long time about what that means to him (we’re back in northern europe with the musician with the loverly echoey vocal now in my meander), as opposed to what it might mean to me. What could it mean to both of us? How could it intersect. What could we possibly have in common. Why was there this odd little rapport? Did we really feel the same way at all about anything? Why did I sneak back into his last gig and sit on the couch right before he went back to Europe? Why did I cry?
I was alarmed to find that he was so much younger than me. I mean, very-truly alarmed.
I think that I actually have a very young spirit. Not young as in the way I just made it sound. I think I am just so very often so surprised at things. So very taken aback. Things often catch me unawares.
I held back this week. I don’t like to get attached to people. I don’t like to need people. I’ve met people before and since. Other people. I meet many people. I love.
I am a lover of love. That is how I am. It does not seem odd to me, to love to the point of distraction. I try to put a cork in it so as not to disturb the peace though.
It’s hot here, in Austin. I wish it would make up its mind. The back of my neck is unpleasantly sweaty and you just can’t go to a dinner party in that sort of condition, once it gets to a certain point.
I think I cried because I do get so very attached to people. And I think it IS because, of what he said to me, in his strange beautiful language, in his facebook message. He hadn’t said it yet.
I think he understands that when it is your lot in life to observe the flow and ebb of human traffic, and comment on it in whatever your fashion – maybe he knows there are certain … feelings that you hold in you and that they are intense. He saw me dealing with them. My pain and my incredulity and my sardonic mocking and my delight. He was encouraging me on all of it with his Sun Ra and his Tim Buckley. And I don’t get that nearly often enough. And now that I find people that do like my “strange consideration”
… I will remember to keep liking it too. Because he told me to keep telling the truth. And people who tell me to keep telling the truth, THOSE people love me.
