a. scott white

You can tell I’m a little out of breath. I have a bit of a...

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 07:47:22 -0600

You can tell I’m a little out of breath. I have a bit of a cold. Also I drift a little flat. Oh well.

Jumper

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:32:49 -0500

She lives near the top floor of the tall high-rise, in an apartment her friend once described derisively as “post-pubescent and pre-informed”, words she now has tattooed in Victorian script above her left shoulder blade. The homeless man who watches her come and go from the post of his eternal vigil beside the mail drop box thinks of her as Asian, though she is half Puerto Rican and half American mixto. Her window high above the street is always open, symbolizing the endless opportunity funded for her by her wealthy parents, with whom she never speaks. “I am an artist,” she lies, when people ask her what she does. Sometimes she throws pieces of bread out through the open window at the unsuspecting world below, but this wouldn’t impress anyone as much as a fantasy of art might. Her only art is standing naked with her eyes closed and her arms upraised in front of the blast of harsh, angry guitar raging from her expensive music system, art her neighbors all hate because they only get to hear it, not see it. The music rouses something less dead in her soul, something almost alive, almost vital. It gives her the scraps of resolve she needs to throw on something revealing and head out past the homeless man to abuse herself around town, to let others have a go at her, to crawl home to the elevator that loves her. For her life is an apartment in an empty world, where she’s not an artist, not even Asian. Death is like bread falling naked to the ravenous masses below, guitar music fading away far above.

Farmer's Market

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:58:44 -0500

The farmer’s market was in the middle of strip mall hell. That’s what it’s like around here more often than not. In some abandoned chain store in a suburban area past its prime some ambitious entrepreneur had opened an aesthetically desiccated pragmatist farmer’s market. I turned, deflated at the sight, into the empty parking lot and, controlled by notions of symmetry I recognize though I cannot describe, took the spot to the right of the front door. In a fit of inconsistent environmentalist energy, I had brought my own bags for the vegetables. I think I imagined a place in my mind where a gesture like this made some sense, where it meant something. Here it would just seem and odd and inconvenient bother, I was sure. Getting out and locking the doors of my hybrid car behind me with a computerized “beep”, I carried the bags in through the unmistakable glass door of a defunct 7-11. The inside had been gutted of all the convenience store accoutrements. There was a cash register on a small table along one wall. There were shelves along the back wall with dried fruits and nuts and various mixtures of the two in stacks of Ziploc bags with descriptions of the contents written on white office-supply mailing labels with black Sharpie. The floor space was filled with long folding tables, the kind you see in church fellowship halls, covered with fruits and vegetables in no discernable order. The young girl sitting in a chair beside the cash register didn’t even look up from her book when I came in. She was bookish and tousled, very obviously the daughter of the owner, forced to work in the family business.

As I browsed the wares, I saw the word “organic” scattered here and there on little hand-written signs. My stomach tightened uncomfortably. “There is nothing organic within miles of this place,” I thought. “There is nothing organic in this entire exercise.” I had found the farmer’s market on Google. It was about halfway between my home and office on my hour-long commute to work. Something had compelled me to the notion that I should start shopping for my fruits and vegetables at a farmer’s market. I think I had imagined supporting local growers, as if any of this stuff grew around here. I had imagined an improved quality of life, the experience of the market. “It might be healthier and more economical.” It was more expensive. It was out of the way. None of the produce was local. It wasn’t even very fresh. The girl didn’t think they were allowed to use bags people brought in.

I was raised on convenience store food and fast food, Kool-Aid and powdered milk and generic cheerios. I am almost certain a fresh vegetable was never seen in the house. Packaging, cans and boxes and bags. Pop-tops and plastic wrappers. Never a piece of fruit or a pasta noodle, nothing from a baker or a butcher. We were poor, but it wasn’t just that. It was our supermarket and gas station culture, it was what we knew. It was what we liked, I suppose. White bread and coca-cola and hamburger meat and Hershey bars.

Most of these things I have a kind of aversion to these days, but not for any healthy reason. Some people can embrace the culture of their youth, their provincial past, no matter how out-of-the-mainstream or uncool it might have been. Being a Southerner, a Texan. Being poor. Being me. These are all things I’ve never learned to embrace. So much passionate insecurity giving way too easily to red-faced anger or defensiveness or denial just below the surface of my otherwise calm and collected exterior. Some part of me envies the people who toss their lack of shame brazenly in the face of all judges, owning proudly their heritage of backwards anti-culture. Some part of me longs to feel organic and indigenous, tired of feeling like a pariah in my past and like an imposter in my present.

Around here there are imitations to market to all of the kinds of people you want to pretend to be. They aren’t good imitations, mind you, but who knows the difference? No one in these suburbs and slums has ever seen the real thing.

Susan Update

Sun, 31 May 2009 15:34:39 -0500

Went to M.D. Anderson. They offered the opportunity to participate in a clinical trial, but there was no material improvement in the prognosis, so it wasn’t worth the travel burden. So, they created a regimen for Susan, to be administered by our local oncologist. She starts aggressive chemotherapy Thursday. She already has a cap that says “NO HAIR DAY,” so she’s as ready as she can be.

Hello, friends.

transition

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:50:10 -0500

thistle down blown loose
alone like never before
fall and change and grow

I’m an angry little troll today.

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 08:15:48 -0500

I’m an angry little troll today.

Cheshire Eyes (mine)

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 16:59:05 -0500

Cheshire Eyes (mine)

Presence

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:41:46 -0500

We give gifts to each other, good ones and bad ones. Some that don’t fit. Some we intend to return, but never do. We sit for hours and watch movies or read books near each other, never talking the whole time. We smile and laugh at the same time. Sometimes I laugh and you cry. We give gifts to each other. Presence.

In Your Eyes

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:12:41 -0500

Could it be that I am only what you see me to be? If so, I want to find the you that sees the best me.

It’s been 18 years today. Happy Anniversary, Susan. I love...

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 07:57:38 -0500

It’s been 18 years today. Happy Anniversary, Susan. I love you.

Wordle of my Twitter account.

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:57:04 -0500

Wordle of my Twitter account.

Confusatron

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:54:26 -0500

When I remember lost nights so far from home, wandering the streets in a skin that was not quite my own, I remember you. I remember smoky bars and beers left half-drunk, only there for the bass and the drums and the sax and the humanity thronging all around, oblivious to my ectopic wonder, a man out of time and place. Thanks for that, though you never knew.

Photo

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:10:34 -0500

"All of which makes me anxious. At times, unbearably so."

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:31:00 -0500

“All of which makes me anxious. At times, unbearably so.”

- Double Bass, Gorillaz

Photo

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:45:46 -0500

Photo

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:38:43 -0500

when no one is looking

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:07:46 -0500

i’m contemplating how the mirror reverses things. everything farther behind me is farther in front of me. people think it makes my clever t-shirt backwards from left to right, but it doesn’t. it’s already backwards from where i’m standing. i trace the words from shoulder to shoulder to be sure.

some people look in the mirror just because they enjoy what they see. not everyone feels the need to deconstruct.

i’m looking forward to the window behind me, to getting outdoors in the rain.