All i want is love and watermelon.... maybe some old new country on the radio. Montgomery Gentry....

I'm tired of spinning my wheels
I need to find a place where my heart can go to heal
I need to get there pretty quick
Hey mister what you got out on that lot you can sell me in a pinch

Maybe one of them souped up muscle cars
The kind that makes you think you're stronger than you are
Color don't matter no I don't need leather seats
All that really concerns me is

Speed
How fast will it go
Can it get me
Over her quickly
Zero to sixty
Can it outrun her memory
Yeah, what I really need
Is an open road
And a whole lot of speed

i love songs about heartbreak...

Pool party at your mom's house...

I'm lying back on a leather couch, the shades drawn tight to a 100 degree day beyond the glass. We just flipflopped across town sporting slight sunburns and sunglassed to a near limitless blue above. Fucking Turlock fucking California. A sight for sore eyes, a green gem amidst nothing but flatness and agri-lines of corn and vine. There was nothing to be done but step a few streets over from the backyard pool to the empty weekend grocery... in need of banana split supplies and a sixpack.

Its been a busy few days here reconvening with my partner's past, her loving hometown openarms wide and not yearning for detail. Docile and sleepy and hotter than most. Lounging in quiet AC wonderlands, cafe stoops beneath umbrellas and kicking about on airmattresses in delicious blue pools. But beating all aimlessness was last night's drive-in witness of Harry Potter: Order of the Pheonix. If it wasn't enough that Harry is the man and gets some kind action with a young sweet thing at Hogwarts... better yet was our perch from the back of a minivan, seats forward, hatch open and us couched out in blankets and pillows, barefeet in warm night air staring up at the drive-in screen. A balanced diet of queer tasting popcorn, chocolate, beer and dazzling privy to Harry Potter's mad skills in sorcery. And us dialing in the magic via FM radio.

There is a certain lethargy that goes along with this life beneath a baking sun, the Valley of California. No wonder now to the inviting concept of siesta... and better still these long stretching siestas that last the whole of the day. I didn't expect the lush greenery of sycamores and locusts spanning the neighborhood streets, all the lawns freshly mowed but no one around to sit upon them or lounge beneath umbrellas or giant sombreros. Nearly nothing higher than a story stretching out for fifty-thousand souls and their abodes. I think a normal reaction for myself would be that of distrust, perhaps worthy of a yawn or two... some underground disdain or lassitude for the whole grid. But somehow no... i've got love for Turlock.








The shark sequence...

Willy's Barbershop

This morning my baby took a left on Mission, heading for the station... train bound for East Bay. And i took a right toward my favorite barbershop, a small old-fashioned feel with straight edges and men waiting with magazines and tophats. Took a seat while a fellow got finished up on the chair, thumbing through the funnies and crossword. Then he called me up for a seat and wrapped a scarlet curtain around my neck. I started pointing at different pictures strung about the place saying "kinda like that... except shorter on the sides" and he's going "Uh-huh sure thing."

I sat back and watched myself through three mirrors and thought of the pleasant morning with a few birds singing on the apple tree in the yard. Lying stretched out with the bright morning light pouring beneath the raised blind and this new, yet familiar body beside me. A slow uncalculated morning with crossword and american breakfast of potatoes and eggs and toast and peach on the side. And i'm sitting back in this chair, my sleepy eyes perhaps looking upward to the "visual memory" we speak of in elementary school (i guess we must look up, maybe even open our mouths a bit, to contact memory).

Willy the barber finishes me up with shaving cream across my neck and sides with a blade and then this amazingly quick massage, my neck going pop pop pop and leaving me completely relaxed and meanwhile he's done the final style on my hair. All i could say was "woh" and "thanks kindly... it looks great!" Stepped back out into the morning light and took a slow beeline trip through the neighborhood. The sounds and smells of the Mission have grown on me... Something about feeling present and nostalgic in the same moment. And thinking a little of a fond farewell as we ready to move across the bay. To make a home together in the near bright lights of Oakland.

...Hula and the home rule on the 4th of July...

a sleepy morning with the pretty cactus blooming on my doorstep...

...taking a slow dance at the Class of 1997 Reunion with Lewis County looking on...