Save something, man

I was rummaging in my garage when I saw a guy with a clipboard across the street. I quickly looked away after momentarily locking eyes and pretended to continue a serious search for something in the closest box. I wasn't finding anything but kept looking hoping he would spare me.

I heard his footfalls across the street and an all too expected hello from the garage door. Here we go, game on. Berkeley people are trying to save the world; they're trying to do good, and they're often good people. They want my money. That's the part that always gets me. The first sign is the clipboard, complete with a few laminated papers with lots of pictures, perhaps a diagram or two. What they really wanna know is~ are you a good person? It reminds me of recent times at the checkout line. Seems whenever I hit Safeway these days the cashier asks me if I'd like to donate to blah-di-blah fund today. Um, no ma'am I'm a heartless person. I'll pass. It's such a tactic.

Anyway, like I said, this guy was a nice person and I didn't have the heart to just brush him off completely. Instead I wasted his time, so that we could at least share something together. After all it was his first day on the job, recently finishing a gig for the DNC doing the exact same thing. Good god what an existence. Did I mention that I detest canvassing?

It reminded me of myself on the streets of Orlando doing the very same thing. Essentially selling a product that I didn't understand very well. A good question for this scenario is: What's better? a lot of poor representation or a little solid representation? I'd go with quality over quantity myself. It also reminded me of a recent story on the radio about the dangers of voter machines. An aspect I'd never considered is that maintenance has to be handled by specialists from private companies. Whereas before poll workers could handle the fine-tunings of the archaic puncher. With so many poll stations on election days, makers and technicians of the voter machine find themselves spread thin. So what do they do? They hire a bunch of techs the day before and hope they hit the ground running the day of. One can imagine the results. It's like seasonal positions gift-wrapping at the mall except these positions are crucial to our system of election.

It feels at times that I'm out on sojourn for good running parallel to nothing, and everything keeps moving, including me, but goes nowhere. I'm forever temporary, moving. And it so happens that my track runs along many and we merge, almost all by choosing. These are the things that pass my time, waste my time- these near fictions that I keep my mind busy with.

All the nothing sports that take my time and beat my heart to their rhythm. The nothing jobs and nothing fancies in nothing towns. The something people, I don't know what, but something. Like a dream with meaning and you don't know why, you just know that it meant more than just a phantom, fantasy. It's got to, it's all we got.

I forget them too when they pass. The something people. Isn't that sad, I've forgotten everyone but one... and she too is almost gone. I pretend the rest. What does that say about me, what does that say about us? Am I heartless, feckless, cooling? Am I any representative for something more, or does my track run somewhere astray? Not unique, reckless and runaway.

It's the passage of time. Maddening if you pay attention. The where, what, and especially the why that wrecks the brick that builds. I get drugs. That makes sense. I don't get people that don't get drugs. And more, I don't get those that don't get people that get drugs. Where did they come from? Happy on this narrow plane called life and living, this sliver called love, and this one called communication. Good God what are we doing? Scraping inch by inch for even the scantest gain.

Having to so brutally earn not having the sonofabitch named John McCain as our president. There's an example from hell. Every small gain so dearly fought to quickly slip with too high expectations, the facts, and a pat on the back as oil drops below $70 a barrel and life returns to normal. Nowhere. That's where we're going. A massive delusion. And so I watch baseball, football, shit whatever damn sporting event is on, unless it be hockey (though I tried) or that stomach-turning ultimate animal fighting of men and women in great big cages. What is that? Give me a gun, put them down.

Beyond all the memory of this and that, those beautiful landscapes out there... God there's so many of them. And the faces with me there, they're nice too. Beyond all that, I miss me. I always wanted to keep myself right. Right in the head, whatever. Right in the spirit, in the heart. It's hard isn't it? With all the lying. Keeping it straight, face-forward, hands and arms, and heart beating right.

The End of the Innocence

There's only so much talk of the economy that one person can take and so I flipped the dial to the wholly uncreative realm of modern disc-jockeydom to catch Don Henley's billionth royalty roll of End of the Innocence. I've always liked the song (it's kind of shameful), but I do. I get those goosebumps sometimes along the back of my neck and upper arms. Such a sad song.

What's funny is its been the feeling and not the lyrics, which are terribly dreary as well, that effects me most. I never caught the politics of Reagan and the USSR, inner/outer turmoil, and youth awakening and wanting to go back and find that one place where they can't touch. I'd put my own meaning behind the words, meanings more convenient for me. I do this with much of the music I listen to and I'm sure it bleeds out into other facets of life, redirecting many people's actions and intentions to fit something more palpable for me (Sorry everyone about that bummer). Perhaps it's an effort to remain sane. To think of all the things I intentionally miss... sheesh.

Innocence. A recurring theme in every coming of age story or discussion. My kind of talk. I began to think the other day of what it means and toss the notion it has anything to do with virginity. Fuck that. I think it has to do with hope and optimism and feeling oneself to be unique. When those things begin to go, when it cracks ever so slightly and the light gets in, or the dark gets in... now we're talking. It's a kind of losing. Losing a bit of yourself each time and becoming less innocent for it. Knowing too much, that guilty hunger for that which brings you grief.

I lost something abroad a long way from home. I was nineteen and on a bus and some loud pan flute music was bumping this Blue Bird crawling up the switchbacks of a mountainside. Clouds formed from the breath of cordillera trees generating a peculiar microclimate in the dripping canopies. As we came to the pass in this rich jungle the road dropped away and the clouds parted and I saw a great swath of destruction below me stretching for hundreds of miles. Biblical shit. Slash and burn, cattle farming, tightly packed banana plantations, and the shanties. I could never not see it again and it was everywhere, it followed me. The garbage, the poverty, the ugliness, the lack of stewardship and responsibility and all those big words and ideas of the haves. The essential knowledge that racism is not nearly as important as the civil unrest between the caste systems. The glaring distrust and hatred between the haves and the have-nots, and the haves welcoming the bickering between lower classes as fodder for distraction from what's actually occurring: subjugation of the poor's labor and land. Bummer.

It didn't tick right for a while and never again ticked the same way. And there was home and relationships and the bitch which is high school. I watched my friends and acquaintances become cruel before my eyes, for nothing. I couldn't figure why some newly developed muscles and a patch of new hair between the legs could be reason enough for being a dickhead. And yet, there it was.

Growing up is never easy and some of us are still doing it, or at least trying. What's funny is the place I always felt purest and most hopeful was the place I was taught (and thank G-D I wasn't raised Catholic, can you imagine?) could bring the reckoning and an end to innocence~ in someone else's arms. Innocence is some hokey shit anyhow and its pursuit and attainment is as likely as individual predestination, Calvin-style. Talk about setting yourself up to get pummeled.

Rent-a-Relic

Cubby, our little Toyota Echo, is trying to get into other people's lanes. The front right shock is dust and with every bump the nose drags starboard. I quickly straighten out and prepare for the next bump. There's always something wrong with our car and this is just the latest.

I have the best mechanic ever. I mean ever. You know how the disembodied television voice recommends you talk to your doctor before considering anything? Well, I never got that, I've never had a doctor. I had a dentist once and then he retired. Now I got Johnny and he's smarter than most doctors I've met.

I finagled my way out of work today and drove the car in this morning to the auto shop. Cubby's gonna have to spend a few days away from home so I had to rent a car. Luckily Johnny had one out front belonging to a rental agency up in Berkeley. He gave the guy a call and I drove the rig over. The car rental shop is called Rent-a-Relic specializing in old crappy Ford sedans with no pretensions in a wide range of hideous colors. I instantly loved the place.


The latest line of Ford buggies.

The one I got isn't in the picture, it's around back. An old Escort beater with loose brakes and a hot pedal, painted a green that doesn't exist in nature. I love it. All the stations on both FMs are tuned to Mexican circus music and AM is of course drivel on all dials anyhow. I tell the guy I love this car. He challenges me to try to lose it in a parking lot. With that color it's impossible, he says. He's right. It's the color of 80's leggings, Teenage Mutant Ninja-style shag carpet. This guy's great. He's wearing what looks like an Indian Nation hat with mixed up dreamcatcher peace sign and the word Oakland below it. I get a few stories, nice ones... about how he met his wife and what it's like pushing customer service all day. I give him a few stories of my own and a handshake.

I drive out of there with the windows down into the Berkeley land mine of speed bumps. It can be pretty overwhelming turning down a street and seeing twenty speed bumps ahead of you. I think of all the pimped out Buicks and Cadillacs, butt end dragging with hydraulics pumped to the hood. It makes me feel better. I hope the homeys drag their fenders off every time.

Oh and get this, the best part, I'm paying forty bucks for three days. Nostalgia for the days I never saw.

I want a quiet place with a cold drink under some small tree with a simple breeze, nothing special. I want to listen to nothing and be content with it, maybe just the crack of ice chiming on glass. Make that a double.

Giants V. Diamondbacks

We went to see the boy from Bellevue, the next Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum, do his thing against the Arizona Diamondbacks. After tonight he's 16-3 with a 2.49 ERA with 225 strikeouts. Amazing. twenty-four years old. A lot of fun to watch. I'll try not to think about Mariner scouting now.


...borrowed from tonight's photographers

Dear Seahawks,

It's been seven months since I last saw you. There were times when I profoundly missed you and others when I felt like I finally had a life. But, you're back again now and I find it's hard to see you with others. It's strange, you aren't the bully you use to be... you're almost gentle the way you let other people push you around.

I know, I know. You had to get up at five in the morning and it was raining. Buffalo can be a very cold place and it was kind of creepy with the thousands of ponchoed voyeurists watching. They were enjoying the spectacle. It didn't feel right the way you didn't protect yourself and couldn't break free on short slants or upfield. It was shameful the way you fell down on the slippery grass and watched them run by you. It wasn't age or experience, no... it was cos you suck. I could name names, but I want to love you again and feel the way it use to feel.

Next week I want you to stand up for yourself. Remember last year when we hurt people? Yeah, that was good. Flex your muscles, be yourself. It's okay to be a bully. Sometimes it's necessary. I know your mascot is imaginary but there's something real about you. You're not like the others, they're so hard to love. Let's hurt the others, cos they aren't beautiful like us.

It's funny, one day you're the best there is and the next you suck. But look on each side of you. It feels good doesn't it? Those others closest to you suck even more than you do. Take heart in that... and punish them.

Yours forever,

Jesse

Slowdown

I haven't had a thing to write in weeks. Do you ever have a spell where everything seems done? Every thought you have and every idea you try to put down? As if someone else had done it, or maybe even you years back. I think the feeling is called unoriginality, or at least it should be. Utterly normal, average. That's me.

A very anonymous thing. Like walking in the woods and hiking up to some nice overlook above the treeline, so there's a goal, and then all the beauty along the way. In this environment for some reason it's an easy feat to drop all the self-conscious blather and walk natural and think better, meaning less. Obliteration to the unique, destruction to comparing everything to things actually unalike (doing that human thing where you spin it closer, as if things shared a shred of common ground). Lowering the goddamn bar, for everything.

Hey Andrew! Alterum ictum faciam. Which is to say, I'm going to take a mulligan. And why not?

In this episode Cubby manages to lock his own doors and consequently me out of the car

I was on my way to work the other day, heading up to a new site along the ridge looking down toward the Pacific south of the city. We just put in twenty traps near a tree farm recently bought by the Open Space Trust. They do nice things like that, buy up land and make it public. Sometimes they take everything out and restore it with native vegetation, which can be pretty intensive. I like it when they let it just go wild, let it go. I'm hands-off in most scenarios. Abbeyian ideals of just closing off the road, let the treeroots break concrete, bridges chip and crumble, let the invasives go... I think they'll eventually lose.

This tree farm is up on Skyline, a beautiful winding road leading the length of the San Francisco Peninsula. It's a long way from home and with a few cups of coffee in me I was struck with a desperate need to pee along the way. I found a side road, turned off, and quickly parked against a wall of willows. Leaving the music a little loud and car running I broke into the willows. Returning to the car I found all the doors locked and my cellphone inside, brilliant. One of those moments where you just know memories will be made. My coworker was expecting me up at the worksite and I couldn't reach him without the phone, not knowing his number nor having the means. What I did have was my hoodie and after a little searching I found a big slab of concrete that the road no longer needed. Wrapping the chunk tightly in my sweatshirt, I wound up and gently kissed the backdoor's small window practicing my aim, then slammed the chunk into glass. A hollow thud resounded and back my concrete chunk was bounced. I did this four more times giving more hmpff with each blow and each time rejected by the mighty glass.

A car on the road now. I flagged down the quintessential elderly affluent caucasian in generous luxury automobile, returning from a friendly tennis match I learn. He cautiously looks me over and listens to my story, his dentures gleaming in the sun. The running car beside me helps my case. He decides to take me up to the mcmansion, but won't let me in. Instead brings me a phone book and a sterilized (thank-god) bottle of european aquifer water. He's alright though, just has to keep an eye out for all his shit now that he has it. Gotta protect the casa, you know the story. I work it out with my insurance company and beat my chest once for the big guy (not really) and that extra ten bucks I paid for roadside assistance.

The towtruck guy finds me and has a laugh at my story. Apparently I tried to break out the second most expensive window in the car. You wanna break in he asks? Just kick this one in here, he smiles pointing to the passenger side. I didn't tell him I hadn't planned on paying for it, I imagine he assumed so much. He deftly inserts a sheet between my doors and pumps it up, creating a good inch of space into the car. Checking the blood pressure, he grins. I wonder how many times he's said this. I have to say though, this guy is good. He then chooses from a variety of rods that he's rolled out on the hood, exactly like a chef's knives. A true artist of the trade; he inserts one and opens the door.

August and Everything After

It was good, don't deny it just because its ridiculous now (perhaps Adam Duritz was a little whiny). Always is easy looking back on things like Hungry Man (people still eat that!) and 80's hair (Mexicans still wear that) and making a final opinion on it, forgetting the initial hysteria. That makes up many of the chapters of my life, somewhere with someone and me making an ass of myself, that's how I remember it now.

It's August now. What does that mean? Well, I guess it corresponds with the coming NFL football season, which for some reason is very exciting. That's me right there, by the way... me, being true to myself. So be gentle. What else? Where does time lead? Seems like us Americans tell time by stretches between vacuous holidays. Bummer when you despise each one of them. I use to be partial to a few, Halloween and Thanksgiving or some such thing. I'm moving on that. I like good times, give me that... skip the holiday, whatever. The Holiday: as if to say, oh I almost forgot... I love you or I care. Remember love forget the rest.

Here's something to look forward to: clouds, rain, weather patterns. Give me autumn, I'll look forward to that. Color and contour and shading. Steep hills with moist soil that gives to the boot and knees. Wetlands and reservoirs filling up (maybe even the aquifers too, for those suckers who believe in such things). Good things to come.

Another letter to M.

Dear old friend M,

It's been two Christmases since I wrote you, not counting the note I didn't leave when I slipped out and down the old creaky steps to the street. Two holiday seasons now without word and only this water between us and a bank of smog across this vast coastal empire. You were at school, art school, the worst kind, probably continuing our previous night's conversation about Christo and how he's an environmental artist, please. That was a lousy conversation and it proved to be our last.

I was excited about you. All the books you sent me that winter made trips to the post more frequent. They kept me up at night, those god-awful long Alaskan winters with no reason for anything. You kept me good for a while and then brought me home, and I guess I owe you a thank you.

I work for a herpetology consulting group now. We drive around and look at things and then write them down in yellow notebooks. I really like it and think it's going to last longer than most things do. I still think of you from time to time, but not often. I know my friendship was tinged with an urge to get in your pants and I'm sorry about that. All in all, I just wanted to be your friend. You were so witty and full of what old people call spunk. It drew me to you and sometimes I wonder now if I read you right. Or if all along it was just my energy driving the two of us. That can be tricky. It's unfortunate remembering you in such a light.

Today I thought of you and all the books I'd tell you to read. And you're the type that would actually read them. Do you know how unique and hard to find that is these days? I wonder what you're reading now, probably something lighter than the shit I've been dabbling in. You were always the pithy urbanite author reader, the McSweeney's novel type. And me, god I don't know. Maybe I always read what I thought would get my heart closer. What I thought would help me understand that which I want to become.

Still M, I am a sheep among lambs. Someone spiked the grass, it doesn't chew right. The shepherd's not here and sometimes I wonder if there even is one. I'm leaning toward no. So I continue to do what I do.

In another field,
J

Ante meridiem

Cool morning fog. Dark sky and soft gray clouds slowly crawling from the Pacific. They made it this time over the Santa Cruz Mountains, often dissipating on the eastern descent. Hiking up there on those days, looking skyward and seeing the thick wisps disappear into the atmosphere. It's eerie and unnatural, like a wave that never breaks.

This is my favorite time. I made the coffee just right today. I couldn't sleep and disabled the alarm clock hours before the set. I don't think in overwhelming thoughts at this hour. Everything is manageable. I sit back in my chair and picture myself in the day's activities. I walk myself through each one, little pictures along the way that show me where I am. And then I try to time it and make sure there's no overlap, no feeling of being rushed. I can't be rushed. It kills me in restaurants especially, or sometimes in the right space at the grocery where shoppers demand that you edge forward with every available inch toward the register, everyone's personal bubble already popped from years of city, unaware and okay. Me in the middle, screaming inside. I plan the day on my terms. I'd rather wait an hour than be late and rushing across the city powerless to the whim of traffic. I say, bring a book.

I dreamed that streets were shiny with fresh water running down to pool in the flats and further on it filled the thirsty arroyos of the impossible Southwest. I imagined the plumes of dust and ash rising with the pattering of droplets on the burnt paths of the California fires. Half-awake I knew it was the fan that likely sounded of rain, but I let myself drift back to a better thought and watched the water clean this city and fill our empty reservoirs and water our vegetable garden.

Still life with car and traffic.

Driving home today over the San Mateo Bridge, with the wind catching our light car and shoving me into the other lane, I was hit by a wave of contentment for the work I'm doing and for the home I'm heading to. There's always something with me; never a moment that I'm not agonizing over a thought. A thought which pushes me toward some drastic solution that I fantasize about, often revolving around a plan of escape. It's been the school, the job, the town, the person, you name it. I took a moment to enjoy this feeling and then lost it.

Everything gets muddled doesn't it? Who thinks straight any more? I watch the politicos on the tele and wonder how they manage to deliver on such concise terms, although often saying absolutely nothing. How do we stay on track? Where did focus go? I'm thinking this when a little flimsy Ford Focus flies by me (always on the right in California). Oh, the transparencies in the domain of motor vehicles! Give me your Excursion, Explorer, Land Cruiser/Rover, Escape! As if to say, Let's get the fuck out of here! Or for the impotent ashtanga-spiritual deskjockeys the Insight, Focus, Breeze, Elantra (sounds like elan, elation!). And on a side note I'd like to mention that new Dodge models have the most powerhungry homoerotic names possible: Magnum, Nitro, Caliber, Avenger. Like petnames for military toys.

I'm thinking this and checking out the new billboards. I have them all memorized now along the great Bay Area loop from the Bay Bridge to the San Mateo. I, along with other drivers, enjoy the respite of new media and relish the experience of new eye candy. Carrie Underwood smiling with her beautiful symmetrical face and breasts at the Bay Bridge merge, I was sorry to see her go, but it never made me want Vitamin Water. Let me tell you, we all are very much over the Apple billboards with silhouetted dancers kicking and shaking. Currently a 30X20 smiling face of Kevin Costner looms over 101-80 interchange, goddamn is that unsettling, especially since it explains nothing about his coming movie. He's happy? Is that it? I bet, he's filthy rich and a self-proclaimed director/actor extraodinaire. Dances with Wolves was good, I'll give him that.

I turn on NPR and try to drown out the stop and go. Cathleen was telling me the other day that an international news mediasaur haunts the airwaves on behalf of the United States, informing the world on our national affairs. There were two things that interested me the most about this. First, apparently it's illegal to broadcast this media source within the nation, a perfect framework for unchecked misinformation. The other is that the broadcast conveys everything using 1500 words, a strategically whittled down vocabulary for communication purposes. I'd really like to hear one of those programs. For now I roll down the window and turn up Talk of the Nation.

There's a giant dispassionate looking dude leaning back in utterly useless pearl clothing with a giraffe chilling behind him on the plains. Abercrombie & Fitch. Grisly technique those fuckers have. I'd take the elite trophy whores of Bebe over them any day. It's okay though cos this billboard lets me know I'm close to home.

Looking back i've always liked what i was doing, at least for a little while. Mostly for the experience, more often for the preposterous unexpectedness of it, for example: slinging dishes in Portland, delivering soda and other junk food in Sitka, accepting donations in the frigid Jackson winter, picking up litter on the interstate. Less often it was the love going on: watching birds in Idaho and Alaska, getting my eye and loupe to the ground in good old Washington State. I'd like to welcome myself back to a good job. This week's highlights:


coast garter snake


santa cruz garter snake


juvey rubber boa


psychotic killer alligator lizard

California is on fire again. Its been an ugly week and beyond the haze mixture of smoke and smog, I hear (and read) its getting uglier. Cathleen found some rare ears of corn for us to eat last night. I drove out this morning into rush-hour traffic and cut work early to avoid it on the way home. We try to continue doing it our way here in California, and beyond the enormous guilt and unease, I gotta say I'm enjoying this life.

America is the vampire of myth that can't be stopped with the regular slug of firepower. This devouring machine needs something special to slow it. I don't know which element it'll be that brings it to its knees. I must say that whole Mayan 2012 thing is shaping up nicely.

Road Rage: Quiet style

If you want to see what humans are capable of on the level of shameless and selfish, I recommend you go check out rush hour in the Bay Area. Every day thousands of motorists use light Exit Only offramps until the last minute, before cutting in on thick bumper-to-bumper traffic where cars have been crawling, pushing it back further every minute with cheaters. Sometimes right before they almost plow into your bumper or reduce your one car-length to nothing, they use their blinker. I really appreciate that.

Across the bay in the Walnut Creek area one can witness a stream of jerkoffs exiting to quickly reenter Highway 24, gaining at least twenty carlengths in the process. What ever happened to good old ass-kickings? Who wants to join me? Lets wait for these people. Meet me at the first Orinda exit outside the Caldecott Tunnel. Bring your own weapon. No more anonymity you bastards! I want guilt, I want shame! Blatantly cheating your fellow man and wo-man.

Day One

In the inner recesses of Hayward, California. A flat-out ugly city teeming with traffic and life. I found the office again in the maze of industrial buildings, alleyways and cul-de-sacs. Wandered in to meet a few co-workers and find a seat at my desk. I worked through the morning signing autographs for permits and tax forms and allegiances to the state mandate.

In a back room a grid of caged snakes reach up toward the ceiling. Mostly garter snakes: San Francisco, giant, aquatic, and the especially striking red-sided. All hanging out in their confines waiting for the next meal. In one bucket I have a bunch of goldfish and in a small pitcher I have some tiny minnows. Watching snakes eat fish has to be one of the coolest things ever. I'm use to the squeak and thrash of rats and chicks going down the gullet of our old pet Burmese Python. That's great and all, but can turn a stomach caught unawares. This on the other hand is awesome through and through. I'm holding Mario the office gopher snake and watching this slaughter go down in the serpent highrise. The coast garter snake just ate five large goldfish and has an equal amount of bulges along his frame, Damn!

I'm putting together my field bag equipped with PIT tagging syringes and microchips for implanting the poor slytherines. Scales and probes, loupe and gps. I feel prepared for anything like MacGyver or Jack Bauer. Heading out in the morning for my first field day in the Oakland Hills.

South to the city.

The last week on Angel Island boiling in my Tyvex suit beneath an angry sun. An island of abandoned buildings and fields of thistle, an old immigration station now a historical site, and the empty bases where cannons were placed facing the Golden Gate. Angel Island is wasted. So much for stewardship. Across the water in Belvedere a moderate 3/2 is listed for 37 million. Tiburon prefers to be with like-minded individuals.

I quit again. Tomorrow a new one begins. I have the coffee table littered in plant and herpetology books and filling my brain such as a night before exams. Cramming, what a bittersweet memory.

Tiger and Rocco are facing off in the U.S. Open playoff and soon Euro 2008 will volunteer its distraction. There are always good excuses for letting the mind wander.

Thanks, Mr. Hipster Record Store Clerk.

Date: 2008-02-26, 5:25PM PST
A quality excerpt from a Bay Area Craigslister:

Dear Hipster Record Store Clerk,

Thank you for judging me on the CD I bought yesterday. Our passive-aggressive altercation made me realize how conformist I am for buying an old Rage Against The Machine album. Your condescension was just the intellectual wake-up call I needed.

I discovered a new me yesterday, and my eyes were opened in a new way. Thanks to you, I realize now that the key to enlightenment is reading Pitchfork, watching High Fidelity, listening to Velvet Underground, having a tattoo of a star on the inside of my wrist, growing an ironic mustache, living in the Mission, and wearing a too-small sweater, multi-colored 70’s ski-vest, chunky plastic-frame glasses, a high school sports T-shirt, air-tight black jeans, and Nixon-era Chuck Taylors.

I had it all wrong, man. You showed me that a skilled job and a comfortable living is just a lie. I need to go to art school, have my parents pay my rent, join a Joy Division-influenced band, and wait for a record deal, like you. I’m totally missing out in life.

So thanks again for mocking me. I mean, at first I thought you were just a pathetic, frustrated musician trying to feel better about yourself. But now I see you’re an uncompromising visionary.

No one will ever understand you. You’re so different.

Signed,

Everyone Not Like You

The Incident on Lakeshore Ave.

I wasn't even supposed to be there, I should have been at work. But, early as the sunrise, 5:30 am, and my mobile is chirping and I'm fumbling for it on the dresser. It's my boss. He pulled out his back the other night and says stay home. He says, write it down like you went in to work anyway, and I say, of course you got it. Hell, it's not his money anyway but I appreciated the gesture. I thanked him and wished him well then sank back into my pillow.

Now it's afternoon and a friend and I are playing frisbee down at the panhandle park on Lakeshore Avenue. The grass is dry and brittle beneath my feet and the wind is gusting toward me. I catch the frisbee and have to really wind up to get it back to her. I almost hit a BMW across the street on a wild arc.

Our bag of groceries is nestled in some shade by the sidewalk next to my sandles. And here comes the frisbee far to my left, riding low and fast. I run to my side for it, but it's already behind me. Picking up speed I reach out for it, maybe even touch it, when out of nowhere comes an electrical transformer box and the full brunt of the corner tears into my sternum, square in my chest and ripping downward like a record player needle coursing the groove. My feet go out and I'm leveled on the grass, wind gone... breath shallow and sharp. Scared as hell I manage to sit up, feeling the shape of my ribcage. I'm not ready to look at the damage yet so I lay back down and try to fill my lungs. Gina is at my side now and she's saying something, I don't remember what, and I get hysterical and the laughter feels like a fillet knife between my ribs.

I'm imagining the all too common shtick of hollywood comedy, some wimp watching a beautiful woman right into a pole. I'm that guy. And that gets me going again. Gina is eying me now and I'm worried now either that I'm half-mad or have a bone sticking out of my shirt.

She helps me home, stopping on the hilltop curb. A numb across my chest is starting to fade and a throbbing pain is coming through. Gina hands me cherry tomatoes and keeps me talking. We're sharing embarrassing stories, we're talking about our childhood, and despite it all... it feels good, something real about the exchange and the sharing of a ridiculous moment.

Hooks in the water

With so many hooks in the water, it's hard to tell what will come up first. I find myself applying for positions that make no tangible sense regardless of the number of times I read the description and qualifications, skimming downward to compensation and noting a few keywords along the way, I apply. It's kind of fun... these many interviews always on one side of a long meeting-room table with nothing beside me but empty chairs, no lawyer or agent to assist. And on the other side, the business trifecta with stapled pamphlets in their hands, smiling and nervous. My last interview they were more nervous than I; that was a first.

They always come in threes. And I'm clueless to everything but the fact that they need to like me, the bottom line, and anything concerning my credentials would be a bonus. The next one is in a week. I'll crawl back to my old job until then and make a few dollars. I'm on a slow tour, my publicity is growing I can feel it. Makes me miss Idaho. It was so easy. Cold can beer fishing and never catching anything. The Bay Area tugs the line. I'm the fisherman that comes up with a dripping shoe, sole peeled up from the toe. I always liked that old cartoon cliché.

I was sipping a gin gimlet in the early Scottsdale evening with my feet dangling in the pool. Too Slim & The Taildraggers were managing to rock pretty good for a small group of businessmen and women, their spouses... all getting a little sloppy drunk at this point. Somewhere in the upscale community a neighbor is dialing the police for noise ordinance violation and soon a few uniforms will be at the front door. Back in the moment, life is serene and beyond doubt ridiculous.

New lows for Richie Sexson and the Mariners

The other night the Mariners extended their scoreless streak to 22 innings. Richie Sexson vented his frustrations on a run-of-the-mill high fastball above the plate (*click on title for link), choosing the most rash reaction by charging the mound. I've silently fumed about the past two weeks but now am fully ready to give my top five solutions for righting the ship.

#1- Get rid of Richie Sexson, freeing up millions of dollars and the hearts and minds of Seattle fans which have not seen one ounce of production out of this guy in three years.

#2- Fire McLaren and reinstitute a coach that's comfortable with breathing down the neck of pitchers and the pitching coaches (no more sitting back while relievers like Baek and Rowland-Smith put the game out of reach).

#3- Stop fucking with the rotation. Let hitters get in the groove a little bit and stop starting Burke one night and Kenji the next. A little consistency please.

#4- Bring back small ball. With extra speed in the batting order, attempt a bunt once in a while and start executing the hit-and-run (once again~ note: Mariners coach John McLaren couldn't pep up a fucking little league team).

#5- Pray things get better.

Shomer Shabbos...

Cathleen is watching the plants grow out in our new garden. That's what she said for the third time walking out the front door, I'm gonna go watch the plants grow again. And that's what she's doing.

A few weeks ago we enlarged our tiny garden to a small garden by pulaskiing the heck out of a thick line of African Lilies that were choking out a line of earth along the far wall with our neighbors. Now we have rainbow chard, carrots, spinach, lettuce and tomatoes poking their heads from the soil and the final crisp pods of snap and sugar peas growing on some stunted vines in the flower bed.

She found another sprout of one of her mystery plants growing from seed on the balcony. These starts are surprises and she won't tell me what they are. Perhaps a superstition to my hampering their growth if I only knew what they might be. Whatever the case, she tries and succeeds in making my quiet life interesting every day.

Lately I've been a real pill, carrying an erratic mood about me all this past week. Today I feel it breaking away and am happy for its riddance. The stress of job searching and the panel interview are behind me. There's nothing to get your blood moving like three interviewers all eyeing you curiously and frantically scribbling answers to methodical questioning. And knowing in that mid-afternoon screening that matters had proceeding exactly this way since early morning; the only difference being the person in the chair I was seated in. Phew! The bay area has many ways of wearing a person down.

And so there hasn't been quite the spry step in my gait lately. Instead I've been kind of bitching and temperamental and not really doing much other than following the NBA playoffs, shopping for groceries, and for the most part eating them.

Today has been beautiful. The summer warmth we felt last month has returned and plenty of bugs are finding their way inside our home. We ate Lucky Charms Cathleen bought from the pharmacy and walked down to the Saturday market. We bumbled around the stalls for a while and bought some minneolas and then headed over to the library and lakefront. On the way home we had one of those coincidences that make a person feel kinda special regardless of whether they actually are. Stopping at a yard sale we found a brand new hand-capping instrument for bottling beer (which we'll be in need of next week, considering our current one is on the fritz). We also found a trivial pursuit board game for a buck, which has been on the list of things to purchase. Plus a few non-necessities that yard sales are known for. I know it doesn't sound like much, but I know the Great Magnet when the Great Magnet comes to pass.

From the Oakland Zoo the other week. We set up a booth near the chimps, representing the Jane Goodall Institute and its Roots & Shoots project, by handing out stickers and drawing pictures with kids... occasionally mentioning ten-dollar words like ecosystem and conservation.

Next!

It's nearing 80° in metropolis. We found our way home through the network of streets, baking slow rotisserie-style in the black confines of our car Cubby. Bellies full of tuna melt from our favorite cafe, Lois the Pie Queen, aptly named for its fabulous sweet digs, though a sprite and melt always suits me fine leaving little room for yam or cream pie.

I'm a free man again, though you wouldn't know it the way I kowtow to my baby day in and day out. Yesterday I shook a few hands and wished the small company I was selling myself to a fond farewell. No more Dickies blue jumpsuits, gloves, and giant Lawrence of Arabia hat to block the sun. No more picking on non-natives that'll die and grow back next year. No more blue herbicidal mist cascading across steep stretches for the reception of a poor broom or gorse.

Let em live I cry...cry all our tears cry them all out now. Let them flow down and clean all the rivers. And the evening sky is the reason why I'm going driftless. We're the same people that miss the clean rivers our mothers swam and grandmothers drank. And yet this is our solution for habitat restoration~ herbicide treatment and the rare case of hand-pulling. And we do this with the complete knowledge that disturbance creates the ideal niche of invasive weeds. We know this as we tromp heavily weighted on steep sliding slopes. We work in wet ravines and in the rain leaving deep prints in the soil. Weeks later the treated plants brown and we look at our work and say effective. Six months later a barren circle where it once was; and, one year later a giant clump of thistle. It's replacement. Translocation. Favoritism. And, quite ineffective. Creating future work with present work. I'm out...

The good news: everything. The bad news: none. A few fresh checks in my pocket and a few interviews ahead for possible vocations. Battlestar Gallactica, the sweetest sci-fi show ever made (minus The Next Generation) is on tonight and a few couples are coming over to beveragify and throw popcorn at the tele. Modern traditions are perverse and wonderful.

Cathleen's starting dinner now and I'm melting in the heat writing. If by chance I'm correct in sensing a cowboy pastlife, I must've been the mountain Montana-type wrangler up where moose and antelope roam. I marvel at 90°+ days and seeing the Latino community walking about in boots and black jeans, button-up western shirts with ten gallon hats on their heads. I mean, what in the flying fuck, right? I'd be sneaking across the border for different reasons, looking northward to the crisp air of the Rocky Mountains...

Ridiculosity

The anniversary of ridiculosity. A couple hundred strong near the steps of City Hall to commemorate five years at war, if you don't count Afghanistan. What was I thinking?


A fine specimen looking on from the lower left...





...as if to say, Get me out, please...

Selling it...

I awoke this morning at the beautiful hour of 9:30 am without qualm or worry for a day of duty to the man. Thursday, my Friday, I arranged my absence for a top-secret job interview downtown with the City of Oakland. In evading the boss-man's know of my being still on the market, I told him of an appointment but said no more. Luckily he didn't ask for details and so I didn't lie.

I shaved and got my face real close to the mirror to inspect for cleanliness and made looks of sincerity and honesty in preparation for my interview. A three-person panel would do the questioning again... just like last time, three months ago. I showered and then combed my hair with my fingers and put on the only shirt I find semi-respectable and hurried out the door.

I left the car a few blocks away and found my building heading up to the third floor. At the proper desk I announced my arrival and took a seat. After a few minutes a woman named Joyce informed me that my interview had been canceled and that a message had been left for me. Back in her office we checked the telephone history on her computer (which was pretty hi-tech, I felt, considering the junk-show I was experiencing in HR). On the way out I found myself in the elevator with a young spruced up businessman; we headed down to street level together in deafening silence. With the ding and the doors open we both hesitated offering first departure, psyching each other out a few times, Two polite people... we'll never make it in this world! he shouted after me.

Out on the street I felt a little better. It's funny when you catch yourself thinking of the money you could be making in your free time. That's what I was imagining... the two-hundred bucks I could've made today, instead of wasting my time in dressshoes downtown. Time is money. I always disliked that saying. How do people find so many opportunities to use it? I tried to think of something smarter.

Down half a block I waited for the walk sign and the loud chirp that now signifies it. A leather clad motorcyclist pulled next to the curb wearing a keffiyeh about his neck. He put his gloves on the seat and helmet on the handle, knelt to the rock and tar of 12th street and bowed toward the Pacific Ocean. The electronic bird began chirping in my ear and I headed across the street. I looked back from the adjacent corner and found him still praying, his head only feet away from the wheels of traffic.

Transplantation

We're on the steps of Mount Diablo, a beautiful four-thousand foot bump overlooking Walnut Creek and the Bay Area. Dow AgroSciences are blessing us with a 125 gallon concoction made of Transline, an herbicide for the control of broadleaf weeds. The enemy in question is yellow starthistle, which blankets the grasslands of northern California and ruthlessly strangles out native vegetation. Starthistle arrived via alfalfa seed contamination from the Balklans and now rules many miles with little hope of letting up.


That's my gloved hand there letting out the four-hundred foot hose to work a stretch of rangeland. The ground is tore up pretty fierce in some places where feral pigs, also introduced (obviously! from the Russians and Spaniards), have ripped the shit out of the earth with sharp cloven hooves. Further down the ridge wild turkeys are gobbling loudly cos it's mating season and the gobblers are all tricked out trying to attract the positive attentions of some hens (also introduced by the Spanish, thanks! with an origin of yes! Turkey!).

And so we have the generator on and pump running, spraying out gallons of blue-dyed herbicide into the grasslands. A few coyotes are hanging out by a rabbit hole down the trail, very unconcerned as to what we're doing. The Bay's spandex community of bikers are drudgingly climbing the mountain, each with a million-sponsored jersey and every conceivable gadget, up-to-date in every possible way as they time their heart rate and circuit length on this, their 800th ascent of Mount Diablo. I love biking, but there's something severely perverted about today's techni-decked road bikers on $5,000 jobs financed by the stock market. Sometimes I get the feeling that simplicity is gone and won't return anytime soon.

I also think about nativity and subsequent homeland ownership and find that I struggle formulating an opinion on who holds the rights. Sometimes I think of the Holy Land, but rarely, and then of America a nation of once non-native immigrants. And more, the originally occurring flora and fauna of the lands I know, fighting the fight with non-natives and invasives.

How long does it take before we're home, before we belong? Take all the pride of one with generations back in the same place, is that really something to brag about, or is it more to unease the veritable newcomers? I can feel the pride... though my roots don't go much further than the bend. I can also see... there's a light in the immigrant eyes that we misplaced long ago.

The case that is me

I recently received an email from an old friend I met traveling in Colombia. I forget the circumstances of our meeting, but I remember finding him to be a very unlikely friend to have. A dutchman with stringy hair in loose curls falling past the chin. A prominent beak of a nose and goofy smile. And the strange compliment of an incredibly chiseled body from weightlifting, and a playful egomania to accompany.

We ended up traveling together loosily for a week or so... a few days together in a city, a few apart while we wandered off into the sticks. This happened a couple times until I took a more lasting leap to some islands off the coast and he headed into the dense rainforests of Ecuador. We just got in touch again and this is what he wrote:

Hi there mister Encyclopedia! That's what I called you, but I am not sure I shared that piece of information with you;) You were that guy who had an answer and explanation on everything, highly annoying! You were that existentialist who was questioning everything. Pretty stressful! But somehow I thought you were a special kind of type. So I am happy hearing from you! Whats up, what became of you? Still chessplaying?

I am happy in The Netherlands, and working for an American company. Making lots of money, but it doesnt satisfy me anymore. I am planning new careers, will tell you one day if my plans succeeded...

Ciao Jesse

Warm regards
Jurre

I was a little shocked at my quick reaction to this note. Honestly, I have to say it broke my heart a little and caused a hollow wreck inside my chest where I leapt between a few thoughts, searching for an explanation. The first was, Well my God... he's exactly right! That was me and is still, regardless of the years passed. And is that how he really felt? Was I unbearable? Another was dull rage at his approach, shouting inside me, I was 19 years old! It was appropriate the way I felt, the way I voiced my opinions, and believed that things were happening... actually happening, and that I played some integral part in its evolution. I was a kid, give me a break! And you Jurre! Should I even start? Womanizer! Egomaniac! I talked that stupid girl into trusting you, that Colombiana that you bedded and left! The one with the doe eyes and vacant brain cavity! Oscar Wilde wrote, I am not young enough to know everything. Exactly! A rite of passage! A sad sad, yet hilarious privilege that was mine!

And so I raged for a spell and got it out of my system. I came back to the letter a few days later. I could still feel some self-pity crooning down deep and mulled on it for a while. It's a bummer to realize you've been a pain in the ass and that your personality can be trying; and, that someone you reserved judgement on, didn't do the same for you. But I had to laugh... at my sensitivity, and at his choice of words and the obvious fact he had meant no harm and was merely pointing out a fact or two. I also laughed at the likelihood that I would still, never write back.

To all those who grew up with me and had to field my manias on a daily basis, I apologise and thank you for bearing with me. And I won't pretend that I'm not still a trying bastard when it comes to opinions and matters of intensity. I'm indebted to your patience and support. I take a low bow now and quietly backpeddle behind the curtain...

Greeley Hill, California

There's a piece of land up near where the Sierra Nevadas rise from farmland patchwork seamed with canals and fenceposts. In the valleys the farmers want to sell their water instead of watering with it this year, it makes cents they say, as if the water running beneath the land were theirs to sell. It reminds me of concert and sports ticket scalpers asking for a good sound beating, ruining the essence by ruining the audience and the people's trust in other people. I think Arizona might take a bid on the water or perhaps Nevada would be happy to, now comfortably quadrupling their carrying capacity.

This land is above the thirsty plains, filled with white and doug fir, live oak and ponderosa pine. It was in the family that I've now become a part of. I think of it often; what I'd do first in maintaining it, tending to the himalayan blackberries along the fenceline and ivy at a giant's base. I think of it when the first hour elapses in traffic cos the Bay Bridge's construction continues its plight beyond three years and continues daily bottlenecks of five to three lanes, backing up for miles. I think of commerce and economy and financial security... and then I think of running.

But I imagine too much and it becomes difficult to evaluate my most sincere reactions to the elaborate fantasies I inhabit. Would the quiet become deafening? Would my thumb turn green if I read enough, tried enough... would I try enough? And when the creek dries up in the summertime, could I find water like Cal in East of Eden following the footsteps of his wife in the drought, up the still slippery moss of a giant boulder (one of the best books I've ever read)? Steinbeck always developed that sacred space for his character, a place for respite and refuel and sometimes, for sacrifice. And it's that fear that drives us for freedom and yet, warns us of the way.

I think of the porch and a number of nice places to sit. A cribbage board and bottle of wine, make that two bottles of wine. I imagine something that's not, and perhaps something I don't even want, couldn't handle. Like the southern songs of men being driven crazy by the call of the whippoorwill. But the idea is still there and I do my best to welcome it. One day my hands will have calluses again and maybe my beard will grow in finally. I'll have smooth red lines on my shoulders when I take off my suspenders at night (ha!) and dirt under my nails that'll never come out.

The democratic nomination is candy and I eagerly await each state's results. I like the blues and reds on CNN and that crazy new technology they have, zooming in on each district with Apple products and the whole triangulation of gender, race and social status. I like the way newsrooms all look like Sportscenter with up-to-the-second tickers and bar graphs, with an occasional pie chart of approval. Wolf Blitzer is Michael J. Fox on a full moon night. Anderson Cooper is George Clooney smocked and running down a hospital corridor. Lou Dobbs is Rodney Dangerfield under wraps, a slob in a three-piece suit.

I stirred some gin and soda together and sat down with my baby. The house is cozy and the ten-hour work day is over, rush hour traffic an afterthought to consider again tomorrow. Tonight's race is with Hawaii and Wisconsin, and God bless Washington state, a true stand-up motherfucker for the Dems. I'd like to send a few shoutouts to my political junkie friends... one in the Middle Nowhere, Jordan. Here's to the red, white, and blue and Tom Petty Half-Time Shows. And one for the Olympian, enjoy the mayhem.

Delegates and superdelegates are fucking bologna...

A long time coming...

Every epiphany is hard to hold onto. Within seconds i can feel it drifting, more difficult to grasp. And this one: that i've found what i wished for. And though i've been happy, i didn't realize until now that what i wished for was granted.

It struck me driving across town today on a shopping run for provisions, food and drink. It struck me that i was so happy with my life. That whats come to pass in the the last year was exactly what i'd wished for. And then i went about my day forgetting this strange elation.

2007, another kaleidoscope year like the one before, refracting upon itself, the events and projections melding into one jumbled mess of living. I think that every aim whether gained or lost must still face the scrutiny of what is worthwhile. So often i've managed a feat of stability in reckless moves and undertakings that would otherwise be a success in abandon. Endlessly i have questioned each place and each job and the faces around, contrasting them with something that has never occurred. Production and success, as if i knew what such things meant.

What i wanted all along was to find a place that felt like home. A place where regardless of my job and placement upon the planet the feeling of home would resound. A counteraction of the temporality that i felt. The only way i can find my place again in this monologue is to course myself back a few years. Beautiful Idaho, greens and blues and the sandy earth sliding beneath my feet walking downslope. I filled pages then in notes to self and letters posted to other states. And every song i listened to seemed to put to words what i was feeling and how i was struggling to find the way i was feeling, what i wanted, and how i would go about realizing what exactly i was doing with my time.

And i don't know what i was doing. I believe i was trying to keep things going, to keep that forward progress and optimism rolling until something happened. Every step back into introspection and analysis seemed dangerous and threatening to stability. Minimizing the ripple effect of poor decisions and turnouts. Trying to stay on my feet and keep coming up with plausible plan Bs.

Here it is. Perhaps i tripped upon it, i don't know. It feels like i came the hard way. I can't say i deserve it, but i know its been a long time coming. I'm feeling home again.

"...in her spare time Cathleen enjoys saving baby seals along the Bering Sea coast, putting in time at the local orphanage, and fishing garbage from the banks of Lake Merritt."

Jesus Christ! Pt. II

Last week we did a good deed and were rewarded with a free dinner of our choosing. The afternoon was getting on, the horizon paling salmon and orange... I was enjoying the Cowboys defeat on the tele, Cathleen was pulling clothes from a box rummaged in the garage. I was voting on each shirt, boo or somebody's gotta like that, get rid of it and occasionally, oh, very nice. We went through a few boxes and then hit the drawers. Despite the twenty shirts Cathleen tried on... oh, and the thirty hanging in the closet, and handful in drawers, she made mention of being short on shirts. This is an outline for future discourse on the subtle differences between women and non-metro-men.

Anyway, we got hungry and thought to cash in the karma ticket at this sushi place we've never tried. I thought it also sounded good cos I was feeling thirsty for sake and this place in particular has the bottomless option and is known throughout the neighborhood for its strange staff and owner who push exorbitant amounts of rice wine on the meek clientele. Well, so it goes... we walk down and the streets and shops are slow or closed cos it's Sunday and people are chilling in their homes and on patios. We find our joint and have a seat up by the chef and commence with an honorary, hands-behind-the-back sipping of our sake from square wooden receptacles (a sake ritual for first-timers apparently). The food is good, we order in waves and I'm really digging on the salmon cuts, but meanwhile every time our squares get lower they're filled again. The deal is, if you don't flip the fucking thing over they will be very pushy to refill it, no matter what level it's at. So we get trashed, unconditionally. Near the end, I'm starting to fight it a little bit and the lady of the house tells me she doesn't speak english, Only the Japanese as she fills my square for the umpteenth time against my wishes. I've always been part of the clean plate club... I just want to put that out there... in other words, this is a potentially disastrous situation for me. Somehow I manage to finish that portion too and quickly, I mean quickly, flip over my square. Cathleen does the same and we're having a good laugh at that cos we're having a nice evening, and the social lubricant has abounded. That's when the owner comes over, a slender smiley grayhaired man and he comes straight over to me and flips my square right side up, and refills the fucker. My reaction time is pretty slow at this point. The lady of the house is telling us a story about people not being able to find the door. Jesus christ!

We thank everyone and sign up our bill and head for the door. There's like eight people eating and eight people serving. The staff is shouting goodbye and we're doing the same. Just as we're getting a few paces from the place, the lady of the house comes running outside with a big smile and shouts after us, Can you walk straight? and all I can think to shout back is, You are such a bad influence! We stumble home in a drunken fashion discussing the restaurant approach of getting your customers shithoused and what that does for repeat business, and/or will they remember how the food tasted. It's called Coach Sushi cos the old grayhaired man use to be a baseball player, and then a baseball coach back in Japan. Now he's the coach of this restaurant, the supercute blondhaired hostess tells us, and I'll get in trouble if he sees me not keeping these full of sake. She has a wry smile as she says this, she knows where this is going. These people are crazy...

Justice is served

Did you see that?

Four news stations spouting garbage on the Seahawks upset-to-be, meanwhile playing at home where only one game has been lost? Redskins Win won for the Gipper propoganda, a ridiculous proposition following the death of their gangster, try-to-kill-em hitter Sean Taylor. Did anyone see one of the best passers in the game, with little credit behind him, come back in the fourth and demolish the Skins? It was a great game on both sides. Even in closing thoughts, any credit?... no.



Did you see that?

Hines Ward in the endzone Fourth and Goal, a hand in the facemask, a hand grabbing the shoulder? Defensive pass interference? Bumblebees getting a first down and going on to take the lead in closing minutes because of the bullshit call. I'm not seeing any mention of it in ESPN recap coverage. Are you kiddding me? Someone should be fired. Is this the fucking 2005 Super Bowl? Eat me Pittsburgh! Eat me officiating crew! It was hard earned tonight by the Jacksonville Jaguars. They had to go through multiple teams and they earned it. So let it be known, 2008 predictions are tried and true. Bumblebees fall and that is justice served!

Deprivation on so many levels...

I am taking a deep breath now and contemplating going back to bed. I've fulfilled my duties: stirred awake a friend upon the couch, put coffee in our delirium tremened hands, and managed to drive him to the airport. I rewarded myself with a shower and breakfast, a second cup of coffee.

I am looking at the calendar now. Cathleen has merged our lives such that a Gmail calendar foretells future plans with family, friends, and places along the way. We got nothing, it's beautiful. The only plan we had was called off this morning when I awoke hungover with a voice of gravel, foreseeing a day of Battlestar Galactica and new-fashioned ready-to-eat packaged food.

I have nothing to do. Future possibilities in employment lie dormant, hibernating through the annual budget analysis and holiday hangover. I spoke with a few employers yesterday, kind bored HR types issuing dates of the ten-step hiring process, consulting mundane calendars. "Thank you Mr. Reebs for applying. We felt your interview went very well and would like to string you along for another few weeks before a follow-up interview. How does that sound?"

I made friends last night. Local Oaktowners with major promise in vocational connections (through one's Daddy) and a future tennis partner to take the strain off Cathleen, who I daily ask for a tennis match requiring her to more often than not decline. It was a big dinner party at a friend of a friend's restaurant in Sebastapol. Four courses and forty dollar bottles of wine lining the table. Great conversation and a little yo-yo in the bathroom compliments of the chef. At a local watering hole we played shuffleboard and drank cheap bourbon. I somehow managed a lightning sobering act and got us on the road after one, pushing south 101 to a car filled with chatter and deafening music. Life can be so good.

I want to thank friends for a wonderful week. The love helped me stave nausea for Christmas, my least favorite thing to do... right up there with selling narcotics to children. I want to take a deep breath and manage to cleanse the temple a little bit, lay off the sauce until football rolls around. Want to tell the Bobicks that I respect their guys out there doing battle on the gridiron. May the best man win. And if you got any more lip, eat me.



My baby likes mimosas...

2008 predictions Pt. I

Seahawks walk over Redskins in a 2005 fashion.

2008 predictions Pt. II

Steelers fall early. Roethlisberger can't take the heat.

2008 predictions Pt. III

I will continue to eat and drink copiously of G-D's finest in the coming year.





This year's brewing will be better.

2008 predictions Pt. IV

Baby will buy us a goat farm up in the rugged hills of Carolina.



She'll be briefly be checked into a mental hospital following a run at modeling and the big lights of Los Angeles.



Balance will be regained and a life of love and leisure will resume.