I note; just as an aside, that it has been a few swift hours since yesterday was what today is now.

Words still are stuck in the throat,perfection of verse is hard to strive for on all the poetic days.

The roads are vases of glass filled with foliage, green transmuted to red, that tremble in the wind.

The white noise throws it's shadows across the floor, lest silence,pure and naked be too difficult to bear.

And if I strive,I can perhaps listen to a barking dog, cars on the street, and your silent breath whispering something to me.

Within today, As yesterday.

2001.11.07 15:45 Atlanta
For Doc

That was ten years ago. The sound that was echoing in his head right now, it was from then. It was a Counting Crows concert, before they were as big as they were now. It was a dark club in which they were playing. He was in town on a temproray assignment, to troubleshoot a piece of intractable code. His mind was numb from staring at the screen. It was that period of time when he had left the university again and was working with a monastic fervor to stop darkness from seeping in. Music was the last barrier, the thin boundary where life could be still heard beating against this onslaught.

He remebered staring at this fairly tall woman. She had a very short hair, she was a dyke perhaps, she had a bandana wrapped around her hand and was with another woman. Both of them once had pink hair, he could remeber that. The dye had washed out of the hair, still remainingin traces close to the scalp. He wouldn't have noticed her. Usually he didn't go to concerts for people spotting. "To get washed in a washing machine of sound", that's what he used to say to his colleuges who thought his fervor for music to be a little strange.

But he noticed her as she was whistling, just like a man and the way she smiled was inconsistent with her sad eyes. He was struck by this moment of beauty. A guitar riff had just ended, it was played dazzlingly fast, it was beautiful. And she whistled again. People started moving around and he was standing next to her. He could smell cigeratte smoke. Malboros. And again that full pitch whistle, that he could never be able to do with his rather thick tongue. He stood there staring at her. Maybe she had noticed him before and now she knew he was staring at her. She moved a little to the side away from him but in the process turned her head and smiled at him, waving a fist in the air.

Behind his thick glasses and dark circles under his eyes he could feel loneliness moving in waves, he wanted to touch her skin, her face with the tips of his fingers. It was more than two months when he had last picked up that woman in a San Fransisco bar. That wasn't too difficult. Not as difficult he imagined it would have been some years before. People came their to loose themselves, their small sorrows and their small lives in those places. He doesn't remeber anything about this woman except that she had a birthmark on the side of her waist shaped like a Texan square.

He remebers smiling back thinking that he saw that or something like that elsewhere, before. Then gears of memory click into place and the web because taut with a single word, Varsha. She noticed that sadness in his eyes and maybe because she knew this language very intimately, she started talking to him in the lull between the reprise. She said her name was Tracy and introduced her partner as Maria who waved at him.

Hooper: Check this shit. You got cracker farm boy Luke Skywalker, Nazi poster boy, blond hair, blue eyes. And then you got Darth Vader, the blackest brother in the galaxy, Nubian god! Banky Edwards: What's a Nubian? Hooper: Shut the fuck up!

Banky: Alright, now see this? This is a four-way road, OK? And dead in the center is a crisp, new, hundred dollar bill. Now, at the end of each of these streets are four people, OK? Are you following? Holden: Yeah. Banky: Good. Over here, we have a male-affectionate, easy to get along with, non-political agenda lesbian. Down here, we have a man-hating, angry as fuck, agenda of rage, bitter dyke. Over here, we got Santa Claus, and up here the Easter Bunny. Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first? Holden: What is this supposed to prove? Banky: No, I'm serious. This is a serious exercise. It's like an SAT question. Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first? The male-friendly lesbian, the man-hating dyke, Santa Claus, or the Easter bunny? Holden: The man-hating dyke. Banky: Good. Why? Holden: I don't know. Banky: Because the other three are figments of your fucking imagination!

Banky: All every woman really wants, be it mother, senator, nun, is some serious deep-dickin'.

Alyssa: I love you, I always will. Know that. But I'm not your fucking whore.

Banky: I feel a hate crime coming on.

Holden: So, uh, what do you wanna do tonight? Banky: Mmm, get a pizza, watch "Degrassi Jr. High." Holden: You got a weird thing for Canadian melodrama. Banky: I got a weird thing for girls who say "aboot."

Silent Bob: Bitch, what you don't know about me I can just about squeeze in the Grand fucking Canyon. Did you know I always wanted to be a dancer in Vegas?

Alyssa on the phone with Holden after she paged him. Alyssa Jones: One minute and five seconds; you are such my bitch.

Alyssa: For you, to fuck is to penetrate. You're used to the more traditional definition -- you inside some girl you do, jackhammering away, not noticing that bored look in her eyes. Banky: Hey, I always notice that bored look in their eyes.

to Alyssa

Alyssa: Are you an authorized dealmaker in this establishment? Do you have the power to negotiate?

Cashier: You wanna haggle over the price of your French Dip?

Jay: So why the long face, Horace? Banky on the rag? Holden: I'm just, ahh... just havin' a little girl trouble. Jay: Bitch pressin' charges? I get that a lot.

Banky: Archie is NOT fucking Mr. Weatherbee!

Jay: Jedi bitch.

On his lovemaking approach Banky Edwards: Like CNN and the Weather Channel: constant updates.

Alyssa Jones: So, you've never been curious about men? Holden McNeil: Curious about men? Well, I always wondered why my father watched Hee Haw.

Alyssa Jones: Why are we stopping? Holden McNeil: Because I can't take this. Alyssa Jones: Can't take what? Holden McNeil: I love you. Alyssa Jones: You love me? Holden McNeil: I love you. And not, not in a friendly way, although I think we're great friends. And not in a misplaced affection, puppy-dog way, although I'm sure that's what you'll call it. I love you. Very, very simple, very truly. You are the epitome of everything I have ever looked for in another human being. And I know that you think of me as just a friend, and crossing that line is the furthest thing from an option you would ever consider. But I had to say it. I just, I can't take this anymore. I can't stand next to you without wanting to hold you. I can't, I can't look into your eyes without feeling that, that longing you only read about in trashy romance novels. I can't talk to you without wanting to express my love for everything you are. And I know this will probably queer our friendship - no pun intended - but I had to say it, because I've never felt this way before, and I don't care. I like who I am because of it. And if bringing this to light means we can't hang out anymore, then that hurts me. But God, I just, I couldn't allow another day to go by without just getting it out there, regardless of the outcome, which by the look on your face is to be the inevitable shoot-down. And, you know, I'll accept that. But I know...I know that some part of you is hesitating for a moment, and if there is a moment of hesitation, then that means you feel something too. All I ask, please, is that you just, you just not dismiss that - and try to dwell in it for just ten seconds. Alyssa, there isn't another soul on this fucking planet who has ever made me half the person I am when I'm with you, and I would risk this friendship for the chance to take it to the next plateau. Because it is there between you and me. You can't deny that. Even if, you know, even if we never talk again after tonight, please know that I'm forever changed because of who you are and what you've meant to me, which - while I do appreciate it - I'd never need a painting of birds bought at a diner to remind me of.

Alyssa Jones: You know, I didn't just heed what I was taught, men and women should be together, it's the natural way, that kind of thing. I'm not with you because of what family, society, life tried to instill in me from day one. The way the world is, how seldom it is that you meet that one person who just gets you--it's so rare. My parents didn't really have it. There were no examples set for me in the world of male-female relationships. And to cut oneself off from finding that person, to immediately halve your options by eliminating the possibility of finding that one person within your own gender, that just seemed stupid to me. So I didn't. But then you came along. You, the one least likely. I mean, you were a guy. Holden McNeil: Still am. Alyssa Jones: And while I was falling for you I put a ceiling on that, because you were a guy. Until I remembered why I opened the door to women in the first place: to not limit the likelihood of finding that one person who'd complement me so completely. So here we are. I was thorough when I looked for you. And I feel justified lying in your arms, 'cause I got here on my own terms, and I have no question there was some place I didn't look. And for me that makes all the difference.

Holden McNeil: It's not who you love, it's how.

Banky Edwards: I just have to get something. Pulls out a huge stack of porno books Holden McNeil: Who are you, Larry fucking Flynt? What are you going to do with all of those? Banky Edwards: Read the articles. What do you think I'm going to do with them? They're stroke books. Holden McNeil: You've got like thirty books there! We're only there for two days! Banky Edwards: Variety's the spice of life. I like a wide selection. Sometimes I'm in the mood for nasty close-ups, sometimes I like them arty and air-brushed. Sometimes it's a spread brown-eye kind of night, sometimes it's girl-on-girl time. Sometimes a steamy letter will do it, sometimes -- not often, but sometimes -- I like the idea of a chick with a horse.

Holden MacNeil: How do you manage to get away with this all the time? I mean, shouldn't the cops be busting your head open right about now? Banky Edwards: Wrong coast.

Hooper Lamont: I need to sell the image to sell the book. I mean, would the audience still buy the whole black rage angle if they found out the book was written by a... you know... Banky Edwards: Faggot? Hooper Lamont: When you say it, it sounds so sexy. Kisses Banky.

Indicating Holden. Hooper Lamont: See that man over there? He the Devil! Never take your eye off the man.

Hooper Lamont: Honey, don't give me that "all for one" shit. I got to deal with being a minority in a minority of a minority, and nobody supports my ass.

Hooper Lamont: All the boys need to feel like they're Marco Fucking Polo when it comes to sex.

Silent Bob: You're chasing Amy. Holden MacNeil: What? Silent Bob: You're chasing Amy. Jay: What are you so surprised about? The fat bastard does this all the time. He thinks just because he don't say anything, it'll have, like, this huge impact when he does open his fucking mouth.

Silent Bob: But, by the time I figured this all out, it was too late; she moved on. And all I had to show for it was some foolish pride which then gave way to regret. She was the girl. I know that now. But, I pushed her away. So I've spend every day since then chasing Amy. So to speak.

Holden McNeil: If this is a crush, I don't think I could handle it if the real thing happened.

Banky: Who was that? Holden: That was Hooper. He invited me to a club. Banky: Man. When's that faggot gonna learn? You like chicks. Holden: It's not that kind of club!

Hooper: Archie was the bitch and Jughead was the butch. That's why he was always going around wearing that crown-looking hat. He was the king of queen Archie's world.