So I turned around and before you know it I haven't posted anything until like December, which is largely due to the fact I lost the password, then lost the password for the email for this (after I had remembered it) then had to go through each of these entities of communication making up for lack of commitment to the process...such is modern existence that your methods of self expression are limited by your commitment to your e-mail inbox. Not that I see this blog as my principle form of self-expression, that's lame dude....
I think I might post about some actual things soon - possibly some geekabytes I've picked up from my toilet reads (downstairs toilet hosts both Buddhist quotes AND scientific 'did you knows' published by New Scientist) - or some other thing so people can really gain an insight into me, me, me from here.
In the mean time, I wrote this story/monologue type thing a while ago, was going to edit it and add to it more, haven't....but I think the moment for it has passed for now. I want to make it into some sort of a film maybe. Might include nudity. I had some non-nude photos to go with this but the only scanner in my house is this really peng super-hybrid one that's been sitting new in its box for a year, unused, and I think that's quite an achievement in itself so I'm not about to start.
Anyway, here goes.
I was born in the bath
I was born in the bath. There's no rhythm there; even the weight of breath is suspended above air. Beneath the surface is only to be felt. Sensations give you everything of themselves, at once. Opening your eyes in the bath is near impossible. The warmth is cradling, and movements are always accompanied by the presence of water. The bottom of the bath is flat, but curved at the edges. You can rest in its white palm. The posture of the bath lets you rest or push your tinny elbows against it. It knows your shape. Leaning back swoops warmth over your chest, sitting up loosens the new air down your spine.
An ideal bath is big. Long enough that you can stretch out so that your toes can stay outstretched underwater, or bob above like tiny, fleshy soldiers. The gaps in between them look like sand dunes, but where the water can rest. The bath is the only place where you are airy enough for your lower back to receive that gentle push from underneath. Sometimes flesh appears above the surface, glistening and surprised. In the bath, each man can have his own set of islands. The ideal bath is warm enough for a pink tinge on the bottoms of your legs, any hotter and your thighs turn a brash, unwelcome red. The ideal bath is warm enough for comfort.
Baths supply all your needs. Or, at least, suspend your needs. Your senses are rigged together in some glorious understanding. Something is greater than you in the bath. It is this that keeps your there, innocent. It is impossible to leave your tracks. I was in the bath. That's why I'm such a good swimmer, I joke. A bath has no memory. The water looks after immeasurable moments. Nothing is fragmented.
At some point I saw a film scene with a still of a man who had killed himself in the bath. Detectives, none of whom knew him personally, came searching for him. He lay in a freestanding bath, close to a window in a bathroom painted a shade of mean green. The light was bitty and drained. The bath, that monumental life giver, full to the brim. A thin hand stretched over the side. What stays in my memory was the crimson of the water. It made a bold, hard surface where his body was submerged. The whole bath was full of red. The room, with the pale faces of the tiles on the walls, the open window, bled from the bath out. I imagine onwards: when they pulled the plughole, the bath had turned to guts.
***
I'm going to devote myself to the timelessness of the bath forever. The basin can heal my oddities. I can almost see it now, from memory, carefully folding and holding my bones together like a quiet mother. I can feel the water lapping my shoulders. A gentle, sobbing pain on my neck. Tired of resting my head on the edge of the bath my legs are curled like a foetus. At some point, the water will drain away and my body will hug the air, still, a strange echo.
***
Another great bath image:
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