Anonymous Signature

I’ve started writing on my next story, and conceptually this is based off the idea of writing your name somewhere no one will know or recognize it.  I’m interested in what I’ve been refering to, in my private journals, as the Anonymous Signature paradox.

You wrote your name down, so shouldn't we all know who you are, Tommy?

Putting something uniquely your own in a place where it cannot be identified as such.  Like signing your name in a random library book, or taping a picture of yourself to the inside of phone booth while traveling, it’s an act of commiting yourself to (vain) anonymity.

I got into this idea when I was reading an article on the Mayan languages.  One of the reasons why the written Mayan languages took so long to translate is that the characters don’t stand for a single sound, but for several.  Symbols can be multisyllabic.  They can be drawn in different ways by different people.  But what I find most interesting is that Mayans were expected to add their own personal touches to their script, so the reader could know who wrote it for a fact.  The goal of having your own unique way of writing in a common language spread throughout a very large population strikes me as a very Western, familiar idea I’ve grown up with.  Writing in English as I’ve known in my time has been a task of telling people just the facts while simultaneously defamiliarizing extremely trite, overcontemplated concepts.  My script, however, looks the same.  I write very plainly, in neat print – and if I write in cursive, it’s sloppy and bubbly, but hardly is it in any artistic way unique.  My sentences, and by extension my complete thoughts and stories, tend to sound conversationally my very own. I might discuss a lot of trite subjects but I hold one compliment dear to my heart, that I have my own voice in how I do it.

The Anonymous Signature is the idea that you can make something familiar your own, change it completely and leave it touched by your language, while still providing the common, understandable-to-anyone-and-everyone foundation.  Making your signature something everyone in some way recognizes as a name.

On top of this, I find myself confused about the Mayans.  Mostly, Central Americans are associated with the Aztecs, who lived in modern-day Mexico.

Mayans lived below that, taking up a large area from southern Mexico through Guatamala, Belize, around northern El Salvador, down through Panama.  But most of El Savalador and a small bit of Nicaragua belonged to the Pipil tribe, which I am descended from.

These tiny little child-like people still exist and speak Nauhtzl, which my Great Grandmother, Nena Pauola, still speaks.  I look very much like everyone else in still-existing pockets of the Pipil.  There is a lot to say about what I’m trying to write/get across when I talk about this Anonymous Signature paradox.  I want to relate it back to my experience as a foreigner nearly eveyrwhere, and I think there will be more to come in following weeks after I am done with finals here at Reed.  As of this post, I have only 19 more days until I leave for Berlin.

Is this a grocery list? A poem? A prayer? A confession?

_

You’re a Thief

Originally it was called Through Haunting, then Modern Love is Rubbish, and I am releasing it here and now as I am (Not) a Thief. It comes with my notebook blank ink art and musicality aplenty.

San Francisco, 2002 – After Oblina’s sister goes missing, she intrudes upon her former English teacher’s flat during the December break.  A pathetic and unemployed redhead, he finds Oblina’s attention flattering but troubling.  Concerned for her well-being, however, he keeps her.  Oblina records their every action in her diary for fear that no one will else will remember him in the future despite his talents.

I’ve been keeping detailed notes on every single thing that has happened to me in the past few weeks, and drawing extensively.

Smile, then - I am recreating you.

All I ask is that you keep coming back and keep reading, and that if you like it, you drop me a line and say so.

***

In other news, I am removing myself from campus this weekend and will return Sunday.  Recently I have been extremely depressed, to the point where I am considering taking a leave from Reed with a friend next semester.  My travel plans this winter are especially motivating for me right now.  My only point of conflict in taking time off is my financial aid, and I want to make it so I can come back with the same full aid I have now.  I also just want to graduate because I feel like it would allow me to write more, but that probably isn’t the case.  As always, there’s heartbreak behind this but I will simply continue to write until I have nothing left to say on the matter .

Places Where I Live

Happy endings are the bane of every character’s existence.  Nothing’s more troublesome to the importance of single moments like the long-term circumstances of a story.  In my life I will find a loyal human being who adores me something similar to the way I adore him.  We will argue mercilessly, travel irresponsibly, distrust each other, tolerate and come to accept the shortcomings of our relationship.  I already love him, already fault myself for doing so.  I’m not in this for the tenability of such a fantasy, I just need something to keep me going.

With such a notion of long-term goals, it seems absurd to lose any substantial amount of time mourning short-time affairs. This process goes something like:  Another one will come sooon.  He wasn’t very nice anyway.  You deserve better.  So why was he the one to leave you?‘

I have the habit of only starting relationships (romantic and otherwise) with people I wouldn’t mind exchanging lives with.  I don’t get involved with people I feel any form of distrust or reluctance towards.  I don’t change my mind very often.  I don’t keep acquantinces.  I have close friends, lovers, and enemies. My friends are like family – they should be comfortable scooping my body off the pavement in case it’s ever required, and I should feel like I could return the favour.  My lovers wouldn’t choose to be single instead of being with me.  The only reason I’d be left is because they felt more passionately about someone or something else, and they would be hard-pressed to find themselves interested in anything as much as I am them.  This is, of course, ideal.  I have never been left for any other reason than someone changed their minds.  That they liked me at first but no longer do.  I have never changed my mind about anyone I’ve loved until after they’ve left, in which case I am an incredibly soar loser (only to linger over my feelings for months on end).

I attach myself to people like others attach themselves to places.  I identify with individuals, wish I could claim to be “from” them, wish I could declare someone my hometown.  I act differently with individuals as if I were in different countries, and accordingly I speak different languages. When I lose someone, especially a lover, I feel as if I am exile, and for this reason lovesickness is like homesickness for me.

There’s a kind of homelessness to my existence, what a friend once called beign a ship with no harbour.

I write this now because I have recently come into a place of complete lack of accountability of time and location.  I don’t look forward to seeing anyone, I have no place I any longer feel like I am returning to, and my work is suffering.  There is a story coming out soon, from my thesis, that is a last note to my old home.  I hope my readers, those close and otherwise, will make an effort to stay in contact with me even if I’ve drifted away or if I’ve never had a strong interction outside of my writing with you .  Human contact can be more than charity if you’ll give me a chance.