Casa Robino

Hello. This is Bill. I just need to talk to somebody and this tape recorder is all I've got right now. I haven't been funny in a long time. I haven't come up with new material in a long time. And I'll tell you one thing - there's nothing scarier, especially for me out here forsaking college and an easy life, coming out here...what happens if I'm just not funny? I have nothing.- Bill Hicks talking to a tape recorder, age nineteen.I haven't doubted myself so much in a long time. But even at the height of my stumbling, there are certain explosions of clarity.Write. Find a way to keep alive and write. There is nothing else to say.-James BaldwinThis is what I must do for the rest of my life. Write. But what else? How do I keep alive?In the kitchen last night, there was silence for a long time. I'd already fallen into the volcano. She had barely greeted me when she came in and it sent me there fast. My breathing became real heavy and my lungs couldn't catch up. My head was splitting open, I was sure. So this is what a panic attack is, I think. It seemed to be a kind of end. Somehow. An end at the ends of the world. In a large, grey decaying building. I think of the cry of the cicadas and smile. But be joyful now. Enjoy it and everything that is to be felt. The easy life will never be my life. You choose your way regardless of what is before you. Give yourself to it entirely. The breaths don't want to come out. A thought - there is a dodo inside of me. The last one, and it can't get out. It's taking up all of my air. And then I separate myself from my body.  Everything that goes through me is from a distance. I am not my body and you are not yours. And old man stands in the doorway and he has no tongue. Venera stood by the kitchen sink. In this moment, looking at her, breaking open, hovering just outside of myself, I wanted nothing more than to go over to her and hold her. Even in great turmoil, there is tenderness. That is a sign, more than anything. Take it and keep it close to you even when everything is falling apart.We go to bed and in the kitchen cleaning my teeth I look at the note I'd stuck to the mirror for her and it seemed like some lost forgotten map.Believe me that all is not easyand I surely adore youwinter and daytime, too-Frank O' Hara