Oh the bittersweet taste of our feet.

The following is an assignment we had to do over a month’s time, which I did in 2 hours. We’d try to think about our senses, and write about it. I also tried to make it seem as if I had been doing it for a month, but I think I failed.

5XFIVE SENSES JOURNAL
by Jon Strong, mind you.

Taste.

I just drank some coke. (Do we have to date these?) A girl I did bad stuff with last year, her mouth tasted of coke. It’s all she would drink, I think. I would kiss her, and it wasn’t bad or good (I thought I loved so it didn’t really matter, but would now), but after a few months, I said “coke! You taste like coke!” and said it like a compliment. I’m sure she took it that way, but I didn’t really mean it like that. It’s just the best way to say something bad is to say it as vague as possible.

Touch.

I was so tired this morning, I went to the shower to wake myself.

I stood under the spray and for the first time I felt it on my cranium, I guess. It felt wonderful, like a full cranium massage. I moved in different ways, twisting so it’d hit here, or a little there. I felt every drop touch me.

I tried it again tonight, and it felt good, but not as good as the first time.

Smell.

Memory entry. A girl who likes me, and I can stand her (I sound so full of myself, but I’m not, trust me, I don’t get many girls, but I’m also judgmental, which I’m trying to stop) she wore this perfume or spray that smelled exactly like this girl in high school.

It reminds me of posh, of Trying to smell good, of thinking you are hot. This girl in high school, we dated for a few weeks, I learned to make out with her, I wouldn’t say she poured the stuff on, but it was her smell. After I ended it (again, sound full of myself, but this is only one of like four minor relationships I’ve had in my life) that smell always made me sick.

I think it made me sick during it. I can stand this new girl still, but I don’t talk as much when she wears that.

Touch.

This is personal. Tonight, I was flirting with a girl and I started tickling her, and she’s very ticklish. Well, it turned almost into like…massaging? I don’t want to be sexual, especially to you, but I mean, it was sexual caressing of her body. I could feel the things that would soothe her, and when it stopped working as well; I could feel that. So I would move to a different part, different motion, and I could feel it. I like that, I guess humans can transfer feelings through touch.

Sound.

Today at work, there’s this Snoop Dog song called “Drop it like it’s Hot.” The fact that I’m admitting this, that I know it, is ‘cause it’s catchy. Well, at work, at Publix, there’s a part where in a really high pitch, almost not human like it goes “SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooP” (the little oooo’s are a higher pitched OOO) almost like a kazoo? Anyway, I was doing it at work to make my co-workers have fun, and some black guy subconsciously heard me, ‘cause I saw him realize it was in his head, and he didn’t realize I had done it, and he looked at his friend: “SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooop” and his friend joined along in the middle.

Touch.

A girl at work today, she’s 27 and about 5’1”, and Spanish and so cute, and we’re friends and she has a boyfriend. Anyway, she was feeling sick and I went up and gave her a hug. It felt really, really good. I haven’t had that same sort of reaction to another person’s body being close in what feels like years, like a chemical thing. I said “that felt really good” and she said “yeah it did.”

Later, a few minutes later, I stepped in front of her while she was walking with my back toward her. She walks right into me and stopped, and stood there for a moment close. Same, good feeling. Now, I find her cute, but I’m not the type of guy (anymore) who would do stuff with a girl when she has a boyfriend. I don’t think she’s attracted to my body, or my face for that matter, anyway.

Smell.

It was so nice outside today, cold, etc, and you can smell it. It’s clear. Clean. It’s amazing how New it feels and smells, it’s ALIVE. I feel alive when I feel the cold.

Smell.

I don’t know what my breath smells like, and being a self-deprecator I’d be the first to say maybe I have bad breath but I just can’t smell it myself? I try to eat gum when I can, but my acting partner Phil, it’s not horrible, it’s just not great. I feel so strange smelling people’s breath, to me it’s like knowing something about them I shouldn’t. It, with Phil’s breath, is the opposite of Wintry-New-Cold-Outside, or any not-perfect breath. It just smells like a mouth.

Brian’s did too. Actually, his wasn’t as good as Phil’s. How do people get mates?

I think I have a thing with breath’s (the coke thing a while earlier, and now Phil).

Touch.

I’m trying an experiment this time, I’m feeling my skin, unadulterated by clothing. I don’t know how to describe it, it gets warmer if I do it too much or go too fast. I can squeeze and it takes a little while of slowly putting on pressure before I really start to feel anything other than hand on skin, where it starts to pinch a tad. My hands are a little dry, actually my fingers. Some tiny pieces of skin scrape a little. This has happened before with those girl massages. I stop using that finger immediately when it does.

The skin actually reminds me of the top of Thanksgiving day meal, one of those green marshmallow things? I closed my eyes and that’s what came to mind, while I rubbed my flesh. (There was a joke in middle school: You’re epidermis is showing!)

Touch.

Yesterday I was on my friends motorcycle, on the back, wearing shorts. He was going so fast it was actually slapping my tiny little legs hairs against my legs, it stung a bit.

Sound.

Again, at work, with the sound. For some reason with one of the customer’s I brought up bad old songs, and started singing “The Train”, you know that song: “Come on ride the train; and ride it. Come on ride the train-it’s the choo-choo train.” Flashback, right then: 6th grade Mardi Gras dance where I was voted king of 6th grade. (It’s only because the only other person running had some skin disease.) My first kiss was there, she kissed me and my friends and her friends watched (it was as everyone was leaving the gym, OH THE GYM, I remember being outside and being with my girlfriend who I loved, and she told everyone we had sex, I found out 8 years later, because she was so embarrassed that we hadn’t even kissed in our entire 5 month relationship. She broke up with me, and it hurt me BACK TO ORIGINAL MEMORY) and we pecked, long, and I felt this weird wet thing on my lips, and I had no idea it was her tongue trying to French me. I was kissing with my eyes open, I remember, and I never opened my mouth. And her friends started giggling, I couldn’t understand why.

On the way home my friend told me she was trying to French me. I told him I thought she was just a wet kisser.

When I got home, I stood in my hardly lit living room, in my dress clothes (with a tie) and looked at myself in the mirror, and reenacted kissing her. She dumped me on Valentine’s day.

I saw her last year at my old job, and she had gained weight but was very pretty, and we got into a (half-joking) argument about who’s fault it was, and the kissing incident, and the breaking on Valentine’s day thing. She said I stared too much at the lunch table.

We just really had not much in common, and I wish I had frenched her now. Heck, I wish I could French any girl right this moment. (But not a 6th grader.)

Sight.

Experiment: closing my eyes. I see a neon line going across the middle, a little watered-out though. In the middle is a small neon waterfall, it’s turned now into more of a sand-keeping-time glass. I’m getting visions of a lion crest, like something on a Duke from the 15th century. I keep saying “I love you” in my head.

I’m lonely, and I want to cuddle.

Now it’s a shining sun.

Sight.

I saw Ocean’s 12 today, and it’s visually brilliant. But at one point they show a shot in Paris in front of one of the big train stations, with Matt Damon walking up to it from across the street. Cool thing is, the building he’s walking from is the hotel I stayed in when I went there this summer.

Cooler thing I just realized.

On my first day there they were setting up to shoot something, some people and I didn’t think much of it. I thought it was some stupid commercial or something. I just realized, that shot placement was what would be in the movie. Wow. I was there.

Sound.

In Ocean’s 12, in the theater my friend, every time a cool shot would happen (which is often) he would make a small orgasm sound, but obviously making it loud enough so I would know how much he likes that shot.

One shot lasted for 12 seconds. So did his “oohhhh….Ohhhhhh my ga..OOOOOOhhhhh….WooooooowW……wooo…..” It was one of the most annoying sounds I’ve ever heard.

Taste.

I’m going to lick a piece of paper.

There’s really no other way to describe it then that it tastes like you’d think paper would taste, and I’m not just saying that. No real aftertaste.

Sound.

It’s almost soothing to hear the sound of a real telephone ring now, as opposed to a cell phone. Even if a cell phone has a “normal”, house phone ring, it still sounds like it’s trying to be that.

A house phone, man, that sound, it just reminds me of my mom, and when I lived with her, I guess, and that vibe, and that phone call, I can’t explain, just so easy and simple.

My friend, by the way, always gets into relationships with girls who are…they have deeply rooted problems, and he, or they, make me think: “oh what a tangled web we weave”.

Touch.

Speaking of, spider webs. The mere touch of a spider web on my body and I go crazy. This summer, it was midnight or 11, and I was rushing through a park with some friends, and there’s was this tree and a basketball hoop about 20 feet away, and in between an amazingly big spider web. I ran flat into it, the web went into my mouth, I could feel it on me for hours afterward, isn’t it funny, feeling-wise, that if we feel like a bug is on us, or just see one, we want to itch it off? A piece of hair will be pushed over by some wind and SMACK we’ll hit ourselves because we think it’s a bug.

What, and you don’t?

Taste.

McDonalds Egg Nog Shake: the worst. I tasted it, it tasted like some plastic concoction of my favorite holiday snack. (Realizing it’s a liquid, I still stick by that comment.)

Taste.

McDonald’s made up for the Egg Nog today. I went with a girl who is pretty and the guy at the counter seemed cool, and they flirted, and he gave me a Great McFlurry, oreo. Every small chunk of cookie, just, ah, lingered on my tongue, like those flavor crystals in gum, how they release this cold feeling or something, this Oreo piece released endorphins. I haven’t ever had a McFlurry that tasted that good in my life. Life is so long. Life is very short.

Sight.

Having a man’s eyes sucks sometimes. I look at girls and without thinking about how good a body is I’m thinking “man…what a nice body”, it’s like breathing, it’s like blinking. Well, this girl caught me, and I’m mortified, and the looks that eyes can give. God, it seems in the Old Testament at least, loves punishment. A girl’s eyes can give so much. What a look this girl gave me, at one time saying “why?” and at the other “fuck you” and then “you couldn’t have me if you wanted”. I know.

Nice face, though. Good looking girl.

Sound.

This room I’m in. The sound of my lap-top whirring. (I’ll close my eyes to hear better.) The air conditioning (or is it furnace?) I’m rubbing my face and I hear the sound of my scruff. Sounds like a saw cutting wood.

Taste.

Went to church today, had some wine for Eucharist (that’s the name of it right? The bread, the blood?) Tasted like mono, to me.

Just kidding.

Touch.

I’ve done enough touch ones, but I just want to say, I miss French kissing with a passion. Sigh.

(You lucky lady, married and all, I bet you French all the time, you Gagne you.) Her name is Mrs. Gagne. I call her “Gagne” a lot. She’ll laugh at that.

Sight.

It’s amazing what seeing the number’s “666” (or even writing them just now) or “911” can do to you. At Publix, every now and then these numbers will come up for totals for change, and every time, WithOutFail, I’ll become uncomfortable and say “Ooooo, well that’s weird.” 3.14 whatever, Pi. 0, operator. Numbers can bring out emotions too. No one gives numbers enough credit.

Smell.

The scent of the inside of my work shoes is horrible. Let me smell: hmm. Like wet dog, or dog pound. Mixed with Nacho Cheesier Doritos. With wet socks too, it smells like wet. It never goes away.

Sight.

Teeth! I cannot stand when teeth are discolored. Not that I won’t like you, I just won’t like you like that. A girl at my work, nice, straight teeth, but near the tips it turns a different color white in splotches, like paint got accidentally spilled. Cute, girl, and everything, and no-chance-anyway-Jon, of course, but I can’t like her, because she has that. Second, crooked teeth. Now semi-crooked’s alright, I’ve become better with this part of the mouth, but if you have a tooth missing or it’s black or decayed (which would lead to smell, as well) how uncomfortable would that be? I wouldn’t be able to look you in the eye. Well, maybe after a while. If I truly cared about you.

Smell.

Of a girl’s hair. I smelled a girl’s hairnet at work today, kidding around, and it smelled good. It reminds me of my best friend, a girl I was in love with for 3 years (we never went out) and I’m still not sure of my feelings for her, but hugging her, smelling her hair, it’s always Hers, Sarah’s. I hate romanticizing, but it smells like love, for me. It smells like a pillow should.

Taste.

You know you’ve eaten too much ice cream for one day when it stops tasting Great. (It’s even the Reese’s Peanut Butter kind, too, I mean, come on.)