KEVIN STANIEC DOT COM

I read with a red pen. Different. Diffident. Dissident.

I run forever through fields stretching far forgotten as a steady slow wind chases my shadow. I swing soft from circles of cloud hanging low above the ground while rain begins to spill upon me. This is my midway morning. I am short of breath, half dead and drowning, suffocating on my still-life surroundings.

I have this theory that the phone company developed a program for people who don’t pay their bills on time. They have an employee, let’s call him the Managing Manager, who sits at an empty desk in the corner of the office. It is his job to intentionally disconnect calls mid conversation just before the person on the other line defines the meaning of life.

Recently I have had a few friends phrase conversation as if ripped from a script that was written for the film adaptation of our life.

After spilling a small glass of ice and Irish whiskey.
Brandon: You see what I did there?
Kevin: I see what you did there.

While waiting for an email I sent earlier.
Kevin: You wear a lot of scarfs.
Chivan: They make me feel safe.

Lamenting over love.
Kevin: It’s called sarcasm.
Joni: I’m not gullible. I just want to believe.

11.26.07 — 5:23 p.m.
To avoid any awkwardness with my own inadequacies for remembering names I have resulted to labeling acquaintances with pseudonyms. I once referred to a former student of mine as “Thermos”. Although she did not however resemble a domestic vacuum flask this handle would eventually replace the title printed on her birth certificate.

The following year an incoming freshman would share a similar semblance with “Thermos” thus taking the designation of “Sippy”, as she was both younger and smaller.

I added three things to do on my “things to do” list:

1. Help hang holiday lights around the house and in the front yard.
2. Hide on the roof. Take a nap behind the chimney.
3. Find a way to make my world smaller.

An edited exchange written while folding pages of her journal at The Continental in Fullerton… completed after night, before morning.

This is my soft subtle story… I sit slowly with a drink and a moment beside me.

“He sits over there with a shrug, like he knows. Smiling usually, judging mostly. There are some things I want to say but they float away towards abandon. So I sit here and wink to myself because I know the joke that no one told.”

Lackluster lavender and lights that dim with thin sheets of laughter. A semi-circle booth-round table, wrapping my thoughts into meaningless chatter… matter, monumental, meander. She sits across the room alone at the bar as I ask myself inquisitively, inquiring… empty. I am the memory of 1925. I am a second past alive. Show me the door. Hold my hand, understand… that this is that and something such and simply put – walk along the street shaping shop corners… downtown, lost, incomplete but perfect… let’s begin the uncertain.

“I resigned punctually: It’s on time, as I sit up in bed, and it rushes on the tiny page. Reflections of tiny letters and moments ticked. Serene acceptance. I wrap myself in soft nothings. Ink floods because I made a promise without saying a word. Uncertainty is so tempting; like believing a lie, like ignoring the obvious, like falling. If ignorance is bliss then I’m curious.

P.S. I like having you in my book.”