this is the ease of american life...

I'm on a coffee shop hop in and between the intermittent Seattle showers. My friend M. pedaled off grudgingly toward work after snoozing her alarm twice this a.m. fore finally slumbering upward and out. I tossed any number of things upon my back and set off into Mallard. Beelined for M.'s poor car, which we left last night on a no-name street near the video store. Took half an hour to find it again... sadly abandoned against the crumbling curb looking downhill toward the Ballard locks.

We'd spent an afternoon/evening scrambling some ivy trails at Careek Park on the Sound and had mused a movie night to follow. But returning to the little red sportscar, we found a likely soul given up. M. had miraculously been driving a dipstickless car for a few months, somehow shying a prior engine collapse. And now... the poor thing coughed and whirred, pistons likely locked and dry. Some darling leather-coated, pop-top Saab driver found us home in his shiny five-speed, flirting preciously with M. in the frontseat. I lay back in the body fitting backseat reminding me of a soft version of a police cruiser.

I found M.'s car in a similar state, sadly rooted to the street with mawkish purrs on ignition, clawing for a little life. And it being a Mercury, i thought of the ominous retrograde situation up in the heavens and wondered if any bearing were made on this little four-wheeled motor.

Pressing on i ducked inside a small cafe rocking Neil Diamond and later some delicious electronica full of beeps and flurries reminiscent of Aphex and Atari. And there i am perched still blinking my way through vocational postings and the more enticing chum network. Coffee kindly altering my senses and shining a little light despite the current gray beyond the glass.

... the acolytes happily pay eight dollars a beer...

A brief prayer.

I'm cracked out by exhaustion and severely need a beverage in my hand and a Mariner win this evening. First of all I'd like to thank the tickets that have been procured for this clear evening... seats well situated for such a momentous drinking occasion. The lights of Seattle, its gridwork silhouette skyline will stretch up... and below us our poor five-game skidding Mariners, G-D bless them, will take the field against the even poorer Pittsburgh Pirates. I'd also like to thank accompanying Andrew for his more recent conversion to the fanclub and subsequent recovery as a stalwart Bucs swain. Andrew it was wholly necessary... you are finally a true resident and worthy Olympian.

I'd also like to thank the morning for being over. Its been five days on the rooftop laboring slave-like and i ache such as an ailing gerry might... grumbling, groaning and the like. Roofing is a bear and a bitch quite frankly. My gratitude to Lali Puna (*link through blog title) for rousing some energy and groove this morning, combatting prodigious doubts and motivation. I was not happy about life and needed something in my veins other than blood. It was either music to uplift or some Lewis County product derived from lithium, which i lacked.

Also a thanks to Cat for similar encouragement on the scale of élan... some sweet thing to come. And to Erin Kramer who will likely try my levels of consumption, no surprise there. To M. Holtrop for gracious invitations and a pacific voice for the radio. And of course a big one for the Almighty, who despite my stead disbelief still manages great things.

Contrails. You left one too...

Above the patchwork of hued farmland and stricken cuts along the hillsides, veins scratched from logs dollied upwards. Metal jaws clamping and cinches loosed, the waiting trucks along the yellow-clay roadways. And my lorax northwest analogies... looking downward.

So far below and San Francisco a mile per second further behind. I'm leaving home and going home all the same, the same time. And poor Frank who i left nights back at that social/networking/drinking scene downtown amongst the lofts and industrial hangouts. I think of him and our philosophical discussion, bordering metaphysics and that whole pitfall of sugarcoatedness (which we miraculously sidestepped); his selfless confidence ringing. I always heard the confident tone; it sounds louder on my ears, i always could listen harder. You seem like somebody concerned with the idea of home, he said. I'd known him for only a few minutes. I was on a second glass of overpriced sauvignon blanc, my thirty-sixth hour of wakefulness, thirtieth hour of over-stimulation, fifteenth hour of pollyannaist ga-ga for the world and its inhabitants. The comfort of strangers... a few to mention.

Nearing Seattle, the lowering hum of engines aside me and the left wing stretching out toward the Pacific. I can see the mighty Columbia reaching the coast, its flat slow waters tamed with a shot of soma and hydroelectricity. Let's not save the world, I'm thinking. I'm done with anything even feigning that resolution. Maybe saving yourself... unlikely by abstraction alone, but feasible i guess... and at least acceptable.

Let's not worry that timing is everything. I still wanna hope that it was the right time, you know i do. And despite any leaning theory of governance and guidance, i don't wanna resign myself but rather push it in the direction of my hoped outcome. I'm not worried anymore if I'm lost or found. I'd like to be found, but it's out of my hands. And oh those Olympic Mountains... still white and starked with dark rocks and shadow. Enough to make me forget wholly any point i may have had. The only thing resounding is a sweet contentment...