a body thats all surface

https://www.smallpresstraffic.org/the-back-room-article/a-body-thats-all-surface


I keep scrap paper and a pencil on a shelf by the shower because my thoughts most often cohere while bathing. It is not possible to carry these ideas out within my body. I’ve attempted to memorize them, but no. I take one of the papers, stick it to the steam-adhesive wall, and write what arrives. The shower seems to be for external maintenance but is more crucially for looking inward. It would be nice if thinking could be done more often while dry. That there are sometimes dry occasions for thought — such as while riding my bicycle in traffic, or kneading dough for my challahs, or not paying perfect attention to someone who is speaking to me — indicates that ideas come best when it is inconvenient to write them down, in the middle of things. I’m grateful that putting a pencil and paper in the bathroom didn’t ruin the shower’s generative properties. Once I’m out I peel my damp notes off the wall and put them in a pile where they dry in rippled waveforms upon which my handwriting looks especially beautiful and illegible. Then I type them into a hopeful cloud document. I have noticed that no matter my purported subject, one of these notes always reads

Sometimes I think in words and sometimes I think in images.

good vs bad art

anxious

Do you think I'm stupid? You must think I'm fucking stupid. Nothing sticks in my brain the way it's supposed to and I haven't read anything and I don't know anything about anything. It's fucking embarrassing at this point. I've gone the past 4,5,6 years without learning what the hell words like proletariat really mean and I can't understand what you say half the time and I'm too embarrassed to ask. They say you should surround yourself with smart people, but that's hard to do if you have a big ego and doing that makes you feel small. I like to pretend that it's all just one large bit-- it's just a test. I actually happen to know everything, I just pretend I don't because I want to see if YOU know what I know. Ok well, at least you find me attractive. Right? Do you think I'm ugly? Do you find me smart? What makes a smart person to you? Do you actually find me interesting, even though we like different things? Why do you care then, if you don't think I'm smart? I can't just be a pretty face to you, right?