Going for a walk.

There's this saying that i've been fumbling with in the past few years: When it goes wrong, it really goes right. And there's been variations on the wording but always the same idea. I've used it to brace myself against the fair travesties of events like Jackson, Wyoming ... a haven for cloned melo-emotions and me smack in the middle. Or the night i walked home drunk through a Maine blizzard and got pneumonia, but kept working my three jobs all the same. I remember holding a cough and running into the kitchen, donned in my serving tuxedo monkey-suit, and nearly falling over as i convulsed in the pantry. Then there was a morning on the ferry, i was sitting atop my backpack on deck looking through the rails; watching a side of wake and the town beyond i was leaving: best friend, home, and job.

We all could use a hand and who better than ourselves to give it. So i devised this saying to explain the true efficacy of otherwise sole negative haps. My brother tells me that a Libran Sun and Leo Moon proves caustic to my goal of stability. That's kind of a bummer if it's true, though it would put some discourse to the whole of my life. Astrologically-challenged may be a future term if a polite and liberal society like San Francisco wins the masses.

The essence of my personal adage is: despite a turn toward the less-desired, hence it goes wrong... at least an answer has been reached. And as human beings, we have such ruthless faculty for cataloguing events as they pass into our own history. It's nearly alarming how we can remove our sentiments and file away any occurrence resolved, if we see so fit. More misgiving is the unanswered thing in my life; i don't know what to do with it. Tricks to bring peace of mind, maybe that's what this is about.

I have this new friend. She's this engaging canuck with a sunny dispostion, who allays the usual histrionics of conversation, inviting ease. I went to pick her up the other day for a trip out of town. Backpack full of food and water, thermos of coffee strapped to the side. My car made five blocks and then stalled on the corner of 22nd and Folsom. All i could do was laugh as i pushed my car three blocks toward a vacant spot, drawing eyes of passerby with my push through a major intersection. Out-of-state plates. The early morning light still throwing shadows over much of the neighborhood grid and down on the streets. I left her there near a crumbling curb, beneath a tree scattering brittle leaves.

My friend came and picked me up and we drove across the bridge into Marin, through the rainbow tunnel. And the smooth ascension northward, not looking back except to laugh. Loosing any achievement for a day or two and feeling glad to be sharing this space with a friend. The stupid luck of knowing something went right.

Kairos on the corner.

We're covering new ground here... the brave beyond that i've been cautiously awaiting. Stretching out the fingertips, and most especially~ the mind, toward this feeling of home that's coming over me, gently. Was pushing across the Mission with a case of beer atop one shoulder, connecting the dots for proper consumption. Pantlegs rolled above the ankle, shirt-sleeves, and looking forward to the sandals at home.

It was down on Folsom crossing into my laundromat district, watching the tumble dry from midway over the yellow hashes. And as i regained the sidewalk i noticed a few buds sprouting on a treebranch overhead. Yeah that's right you fucking nerd, terminal and apical meristems giving it up for another swing through the seasons.

This new green above me, whorled and alternate and opposite, on some tree or other.... and then the grand scheme, sort of similar to when you dial in a raindrop or a snowflake falling from the sky. Then WHAM! focusing in... you can see a million of them. But, you have to recognize that first one, like this here meristem i was refering to. So i craned my neck a while, i've been told i look like a bird before. Perhaps that prehistoric flightless fucking thing from New Zealand. Had scales instead of feathers and stood ten feet, or some crazy shit like that. Giant peckin' Big Bird. Remember Follow That Bird? Goddamn... what a movie. I'm gonna park my kids in front of that one. Might wait on the whole Labrynth thing, lest they wish conjecture on Bowie's pod.

Anyway, i was stopped on the corner sidewalk musing this line of no-name trees, cos my botany is pathetic in the California + Ornamental department... and it struck me that i felt a maddening affinity for this neighborhood. It was beginning to belong to me, or me to it... whatever the case; and, moreover, noticing a change upon it was endearing of all things. Kinda like your little cousin learning how to shamelessly flirt with girls and convincing them he's worth their time (... really hope you're reading this Sam, you're pivotal in all things progressive).

There's so many things that i don't know and those needn't be addressed (cos i surely haven't the time to list). But, for what i do know... i find they must be constantly reaffirmed or i lose the meaning, and more so, lose the feeling of what it means to know them: bodily knowledge. And for me, i can't think of a more heartening thing than feeling that i belong (which i know is fiction...), and for just a moment in a day to be present. For one instant only, i was content and philistine with something as simple, and yet crucial, as a coming season. Lowering the bar cos it must be done.

This quickening...

A dear friend of mine has termed this blog San Franciscan Ruminations and i feel that i've never truly delivered the product promised by those words. I wish to finally do so...

Narrowing the limitless options of self-definition: my person must represent either some aspect that we all carry in regard, or a certain personality confined to a body, absolute. And needing to choose so deliberately for this endeavor, i select the pollyannaist whose over-optimism is both easily dissuaded and shied by hindrance, as encouraged by ease and fluidity. This personality is seemingly vulnerable to subtle fluctuation, but spared many distresses self-inflicted. And this in tow with my particular upbringing creates a metropolitan anomaly, maybe.

I'm gaining and losing here in this city; it's mostly velvet as the gamblers say: i think i'm winning. This ability to be both anonymous and gregarious at whim, near simultaneously, is the heart of my heart in San Francisco. To satisfy both of these wants, and likely needs, is a momentary gift that i hold onto. I feel in some part, that i have a secret that distends my appreciation for this city life. All that i've ever lived, until now, has in some way been diametric to this paved grid littered with life. This tight mixture of sound and smell, the sweet and the fetor together, combine into something almost richer than the pure beauty i've often been surrounded by. There's something more believable about this unification, as it encompasses the human being too~ both gentle and fierce.

But, what i'm losing is my sensitivity and mild candor for all. As the world grows bigger, i grow smaller and for whatever reason, i feel less. It's survival in an overly-stimulating environment that begs for attention. We harbor more unconsciously and find safe doses for semblance and sentimentalism alike. I don't know if i really buy what i'm writing, but part of me knows that my skin is thickening. That what remains untouched is my deliberateness and calculation, but what narrows is my aptness for affection. Not absence, because it is my core, but quicker reluctance to showing it. And not just showing it; feeling it.

I remind myself not to hurry. All these things around me i've wanted at some time, and now they're here with me. Perhaps it's just an apprehensive time and all of us feel our steps are hurried, whether they are or not. Perhaps it's some American way of living. Either way, i trust it... that which threatens me and holds me strong, reassuring.

Rolling In Washington.

Once when I was ten years old I mistook the sun for the moon. It was a breathless winter day in Chehalis, a small town in southwestern Washington State. The cold seemed to absorb all sound, making it ring hollow. A high bank of altostratus clouds could be seen through the gaps of gray cottony, cumulous that hugged the land. The high clouds were smooth and taut, tan like the color of skin. The lower clouds were dark and ruffled; I swore I could touch them from a rooftop. The sun's play through the two banks created an illusion. At one point I looked up and cried, “There’s the moon! It’s full.”

I was with my mother and father. It was an early Saturday morning; we were driving into town. I was in a league bowling tournament and every Saturday we went to the alley. My parents laughed until I understood my mistake. I turned red alone in the backseat. That made them laugh harder.

They dropped me off at the front door and went to find parking. I was late. I ran inside and quickly slipped my bowling shoes on. I found my teammates right before the first game started. We called ourselves The Scorpions. We thought it sounded tough and intimidating. Our first game was against The Alley Cats. We all had a good laugh at that, as if team names would determine the winner.

Most of the kids were my age, but a few had reached the glory of teen. We looked up to those ones, admiring their developing muscles and sprouts of hair beneath their arms. Although we didn’t share the same age, we all held one thing in common: our parents were alcoholics. Even at nine in the morning, already many of them were on a second or even third drink. Cans of Miller High Life and Rainier lined the countertops, cigarettes burning in the ashtrays. Most kids only had a mother or father watching, but not the two together. In that way, I was different. My parents were seated together in the second row. I could see them already rummaging for the wine they’d brought along.

Bowling was never a popular sport in our town, as it likely wasn’t in many towns. It was more of a weekend activity, or a place for highschoolers to bring their sweethearts. We played it as a sport though. We rolled the ball with intensity and determination. We calculated our spin and aimed for the third hash mark. Adrenaline pulsed our veins as the ball drove into the center pin. It was a poor kid’s sport and it made sense, because we were all poor. Our team uniforms were homemade. We’d drawn scorpions on the front of three red t-shirts and wore black pants. Seattle was an hour away. Only an hour to find our heroes: the Butthole Surfers, the Posies, Black Flag, or Nirvana.

Maybe other kids saw us for what we were, poor goodwill shoppers with a permanent marker. But I don’t think so; we were all on the same train together.

We rolled a good game against The Alley Cats. We taunted them with weak meows on every strike or nine spare. We were ruthless and cruel and having a good time. The final decision was ours and we moved to the next round.

Our next opponent was The Kingpins. They held a town legend on their team, a scrawny redhead named Paul. He was seemingly harmless, but looks deceive, and man could that kid raise hell. His father was the leading alcoholic in the crowd. The man had more drinking experience and no-how than everyone combined. He liked to hit Paul a lot and many Saturdays Paul would show up with bruises about the face. Rumor had it that Paul would soon be a father to a fourteen year-old across town by the name of Lindsey Taylor. We were all in love with her; she was sweet and incredibly sexy. And now Paul had knocked her up. It’d also been said that Paul had once vandalized Sheriff Hamilton’s patrol car in the 7-eleven parking lot. Old Hamilton was likely filling his mug with coffee and talking some questionable material with Sue behind the counter. Little did he know, while he was trying to get laid, his car was in the hands of Paul. The car was a canvas, and Paul the artist held his tools: spray paint and a switchblade.

Paul was a fighter but he bowled like a lover. He would caress the ball before gently laying it down with such quiet force upon the lane. He had the most wicked spin; the ball would cut so hard at the last second, driving into the side of the kingpin. In that explosive instant, pins would leap in every direction. The invisible dust would settle on a lane lay barren of pins. Paul didn’t show emotion when it came to bowling. He would casually approach the scorecard and place an ‘x’ in the frame, before taking a seat.

We knew we needed a better game to beat The Kingpins. We played our hearts out, withholding our usual taunts and name calling for another team that didn’t have Paul on it. My teammates were Jared and Sarah. We were all in the sixth grade together. At school we were friendly and would pass greetings in the hall. But the true friendship lay at the alley. Sarah didn’t have the physical strength to drive, but her accuracy was astounding. That girl could draw a strike from the slowest roll. Jared, on the other hand, would throw the ball so hard he sometimes lost his balance, falling over the line and drawing a foul. I once saw Jared roll it so fast into the gutter that it ricocheted into a strike. Jared was strong and sloppy. He reminded me of Jose Canseco, either a homerun or a strikeout. There was never a medium. Jared either fit the gutters or blew the pins away.

The game was neck and neck. Sarah chipped away on spares, making a pair of incredible splits that drew a few “oohs,” “aahs” and scattered claps. Jared played his game and somehow managed more ‘x’s’ than ‘0’s.’ I rolled in between, grabbing a few strikes and a handful of spares. It was a tight game. The Kingpins held a small lead throughout the match. On Jared’s final frame he stunned everyone present with an incredible assault upon the pins. His ball became an amazing missile in his grip, detonating on impact sending ‘x’s’ across the board. It brought us to a ten-point lead. We were excited, but far from convinced as Paul stepped up to the lane. It was all up to Paul. A strike would send us to our knees; a spare would only extend our certain death with a third roll.

Paul was nervous, everyone could tell. He looked back toward his father, who bellowed, “Whatya waiting for kid? Roll the ball! Beat these little shits!” He was tanked. I saw my dad take a good long look in his direction. My dad wasn’t far behind, having just polished the bottle of pinot noir and currently moving well with the cabernet.

Paul returned his gaze to the alley. He shuffled four methodic steps to the line and let roll a spinning ball of fury. The Scorpions gasped, every last one of us. The pins exploded, but as they cleared, we saw the corner pin standing. It wobbled slightly and then stood strong.

“C’mon boy!” Paul’s father shouted. “Don’t wimp out now!”

Paul remained staring at the pin as it settled, rooted to the lane. He was fixed and deaf to everything around him. He held out his right hand to the air vent, collected his ball from the shoot, and took his position once more. He must have stood that way staring down the lane for thirty seconds. His eyeballs were drying out in that determined gaze. He stepped forward and let fly another spinning mass. Paul’s ball kissed that pin; I mean, it was that close. I’m sure they touched one another on the way to the rack. But, there the pin stood and The Scorpions were victorious. We politely shook hands and then wiped the sweat from our foreheads.

“Come here Paul!” I look up to see Paul’s father beckoning him with a strong hand. Paul walked toward him with his head slightly bent. That’s when a loud slap resounded in the alley. Paul’s father stood there with his hand still outstretched, frozen in place, as his face swelled red.

“Hey! Whatya think you’re doing?” I heard my dad shout.

“Mind your own business, why don’t ya!” Paul’s father shot back.

“I’ll be minding yours real good if you do that again.” That’s when he shoved Paul to the floor and pulled himself to his feet. Everyone was quiet and watching. Not a single ball fell to the lane, not a single beer was cracked open. All eyes were intently observing this scene unfurl.

I had never seen my dad this angry before. He was a simple and peaceful man. But on this day, I don’t think anyone bore witness to that. Within a split second my dad was on his feet and in front of Paul’s father. My dad’s fist slammed into his chin and Paul’s father fell back against the row of seats. His Pabst Blue Ribbon was knocked to the floor and made a puddle beneath him. My dad stood over him with his head cocked to the side, his right hand still hanging clenched to a fist. It reminded me of the famous photograph of Muhammad Ali standing over Joe Frazier daring him to just try and stand up.

We left early that day, the three of us nearly running out of the bowling alley. I don’t think my father was worried about getting in trouble, he just thought it was the right thing to do. No one liked the man who still lay sprawled across the seats. No one would help him to his feet.

I remember watching Paul as we left. His face was expressionless, his mouth a thin straight line, as he studied the crumpled body of his father.

The drive back home was silent. My mother was furious. But by the time we reached home we were all laughing. They congratulated me on the game, patting my back as we stepped inside.

Upon Waking.

The first thing i think upon waking: the light and how it passes through the fabric across my window. I wonder of the sky and if it holds clouds or lets fly the sun unhinged. This light, dull or bright and the short cold trees, leafless in the backyard. I'll reach for my clock and bring the tone, this hue faintly illuminating me upon a square of crumpled bedding... put it alongside the actual time of day, make sense of it. Then rising, go about my routines of boiling water and washing my face, grinding the beans and musing the shelf for breakfast.

Every single thing touched or turned over needs another thing, thought or remembered to somehow verify it. And especially in the morning, nothing stands alone as just itself. The coffee is the wakefulness and it needs a cup, the cream already poured and waiting. The oats, a pot and water rising to bubble and steam.

And as clarity comes on (whatever clarity is~ perhaps a raveling to this reality i've adjusted to), these physical items i hold in my hands become links to seemingly unrelated memories. The keys jingling in my pocket on my way to work... i think of our dog Dawson running ahead on the Alaskan trails, a bell about her neck signaling bears of our presence. Or all the classroom smells at my charter school: freshly washed heads, the sweet smell of paint in the artroom, sorry lunchroom memory of fishsticks past and disinfectant. Every smell conjuring something... and me standing there peeling a tangerine while the kids find their friends and tear into paper bags, lunchboxes, or the prepackaged solids a meal ticket receives. And the Japanese girl in my mind, years back telling me how to peel with the intention of gathering one rind, one strip of orange citrus skin... for good luck or some such thing.

I listen to this input, these constant overlaps of life. They bring me closer to feeling connected; sometimes they threaten to drive me mad. But mostly i welcome them. It's an exercise to draw lines between the lives we've lived, whether young or old. An invisible connect-the-dots, like the nightsky overhead upon which we strain our necks upward- trying to make out the horse in Pegasus, Orion's bow, a high-flying Delphian kite. And none of it really there; it never was. Yet it's sweet to imagine... to believe in this chronology that our lives continue on, with one person leading the way. That one person, you or me. In brief attempts i try, but quickly lose track of which person that was that said those things, that did those things. Who was that whom i've always held close and called me?

St. Patrick's Day

Perhaps my favorite holiday, minus the likely ecological disaster of dyeing waterways green (even though i kinda dig it, yet Christo is still no friend of mine...). Every ounce of blood: German, Indian, Gentile, and Irish omitted bow to the sensibilities of intemperance.

Saint Patrick's Day a few years back... in all its glory. Portland, Maine with the sun yet to rise, a few dozen gather in the frigid twenty-something air to ceremoniously plunge into the Atlantic. Everyone thinking What have i got myself into? and Can i back out now? A pub down the street celebrates our actions with house Guiness and Baileys, and by six a.m. we're drunk and chronologically confused. Bums wander in from the streets with an eye for free drink...

And it was. At 1737 meters.

Near the Ecuadorian border in southwestern Colombia lies the mile-high town of Popayán. It's a drunken stumble from certain hidden coca plantations, as well as the woodlands that harbor many carrying, uniformed FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), whom if are unkown to you... could probably be figured out pretty fast. Popayán is also so goddamned bright (called the "White City") with its whitewashed colonial buildings, that even in pure sobriety one would swear the morning light had aroused them from a drunken stupor. Blinding.

I was taking respite in this pleasant town before the push across the border; a straight run recommended by locals, lest the paramilitary decide to pull you from a "random" passport check. I was traveling with one Villalobos, a Colombian woman i'd met in the north. I took her to a German film at the cinema; a film that we never watched. So this was my companion now.

One day she headed into the nearby park, Puracé National Park, which is famous in the area for its absurd amount of waterfalls and hotsprings. My own sightseeing took me to the museum (... and i'd like to mention that this was one, if not the only museum i ever visited in these particular travels. I, for the most part, would rather drink a pint or two at the local watering hole than visit a town's museum). This museum was special though for its abundance of stuffed birds and i had to see it. I gave the guy a dollar or two and walked in. Two stories of taxidermy... i marvelled at claw, beak, and feather while two sorry museum workers followed me around, eyeing me nearly equal to me upon the birds. Leaving, i was pretty certain that my visit had been one of very few... ever.

Meanwhile, Ms. Villalobos was discussing the beauty of "Nature" with a FARC commando on some discrete trail in the national park... praying that she didn't pee herself. Act casual, she kept telling herself, quelling the stories every Colombian knows of their brutality, second-hand or first-hand. But how exactly does a civilian act casual, when discussing nothing with a steel-toed, AK-47 toting, ransoming rapist? Fortunately, Ms. Villalobos was in the company of an intellectual para, who expressed his deepest sympathies for the grand misunderstanding that had ensued between commoners and the FARC. His sentiments were wounded, he informed her, that anyone could see them in such a bad light. He wished her well; prayed she would shed a fairer light to friends and family on the predicament.

Later that evening i lost my key to our hotel and no one would answer the bell. Night had fallen heavily, the midnight hour near and the quiet town of Popayán somehow grew quieter. I took a walk back toward the town square and found a group passing a bottle. A young woman shouted to me to have a seat, have a drink... and what the fuck, was i an American?... and yes, i could tell her the truth. I had a seat and smiled at everyone, took a pull on the aguardiente (translation= burning water, a fine anise liquor for the tight-fisted). I told her i was French and to get tossed. All thought that was pretty funny, until the woman spoke French to me. Damn! I said, okay, I'm German and you're a miserable drunk! It flew... and so we drank the bottle and another one from someone's pack. She kissed me before i stumbled back to my hotel; in slow, bending Spanish wished me a good night, and let it be known she knew i was American.

I found my companion at the hotel and she had a key; had managed quite a stupor herself in some other part of town. We made beautiful sloppy love in our square of a room... and then she told me her story.

Secret. Parietal. Discord.

I've been talking for days. Looking across rooms, over tables, reaching eyes... and forward for my drink, to continue. There's been some indulgence and much enjoyment. I'm waiting for someone to tell me to take a break... and for me to listen... and we'd all be still for a little while.

There's words on a page and then words in my head. But the words in the air... well, those i have less control of. Removing my filter and transfiguring feelings to words, becoming my own live translator. It brings on an objective state rivaling a psychotropic sentience; in other words, not always a comfortable place to be with eyes upon my person. As if in the company of one, there's actually three, as i step aside and watch. Sometimes i feel as much the listener to myself as the friend i speak with. Depending on present state, can be arresting or otherwise very fucking disconcerting. Bringing on the neurotic question, "If we leave our body, can we always come back?"



This is me trying to look thoughtful when i'm actually just really tired...

A word on tutoring today's youth and why they're already cooler than you'll ever be...

It's becoming more difficult to register surprise on our up-and-coming adults. With only two weeks i've come to realize i'm encountering a realm of consciousness that was never touched upon when i attended elementary and middle school. And of course every generation has witnessed this natural phenomenon. Not evolutional nor progressive, just different. But i'm sensing now a much grander scale of tempering than recent history provides. American children have often been the world's latest fledged, most coddled, ill-prepared and stumbling toward maturation... I wonder if that still holds true.

With the advent of formula-nursing, hormone-induced pubescence, and internet access to everything and everyone- a new generation reports. Many of these kids are riding the city buses alone from rude a.m. hours, catching transfers, sitting next to drunkards and freaks in the morning commute. They arrive at school with a Mighty Morphin lunchbox and Sonic trapper-keeper, belying a much deeper understanding of societal kinetics.

I'm well-received for my efforts, though daily tested for my grasp on pop-culture. My energy and ease has bought me precious time to relate on these cultural levels for which i'm clueless. And even the way i'm writing this is... so, not cool! Shit, i said "totally" in class today and i got laughed at. One kid raised his hand and said, "Mister Jesse, can you say 'totally' again?" I thought, what the hell and did. For a few moments i was a stand-up comic towering over a sea of fourth-graders.

Ode to Idaho

A portrait of useless philosophy and domestic (canned) drunkenness.

Seeking cadence within the confines of attention defecit disorder.

I've been waiting for that rapt attention to steal me back and bring clarity to this existence. Like a sail awaiting wind, or artist biding time for inspiration, or lonesome old fool praying for a good piece of mail in the post. It has been some time and i believe i'll wait longer...

This city lulls me in a comforting din, sooths my assent to being without escort. Days have tripped by in a growing haze, content yet aloof to something greater than myself. I had a few days to spare and so drove southward into the Mojave Desert, hoping to cozen an epiphany or perhaps elude my growing reticence for a spell.

The skies were limitless and draped a shimmering web of stars overhead. I skipped my poor sedan through empty washes, planing on washboard, dipping into sandy culverts. And with the coming night joshua trees turned to silhouette astride spiny saltbush, creosote, and brittle bush. I drove into the empty desert dusk. It was reckless and i knew it, but it felt like life and so i welcomed it.

The first night i laid aside a tuft of desert aster and felt the days heat radiate from the coarse ground. The wind sailed above me but settled with the final waning light to the west. I only awoke once to the assault of nearby coyotes giving unified cry a few tens of yards away. I talked myself back into my bag and fell asleep until morning.

The following day found me hiking into the canyon and up unnamed slopes and peaks. The silence deafening, welcome sounds of a train in the distance or falling rocks as i scrambled a loose ravine. I don't know where i lost it, but somewhere it caught up to me. I don't want this; this is too much, too big, too open... i need a translator! So midday i drove into town over the dusty washboard again. Thought about my day with a goblet of margarita in my hand at a dusty mexican joint on the roadside. I felt sense coming back, no matter my failure or the absurdity...

Bought a six-pack on the way out of town and returned to the Mojave. Watched the sun set over the Clark Mountains, leading toward the logistical hell of Los Angeles. I started humming a song that seemed appropriate to the occasion. Leonard Cohen said it, "I fought against the bottle... but i had to do it drunk. Took my diamond to the pawnshop... but that don't make it junk." I sat back against the hollow refuse of a downed joshua tree with a bottle of red ale in my hand. And only then could i let everything in... the immensity of space.

Thoughts from a year to date...

I was born a few years after Mt. St. Helens erupted on the exhausted holiday commemorating Christopher Columbus. For this reason, and perhaps also due in part by my Libran nature, i've been forced to solve the riddle of decision-making. Columbus was not so savvy in discovering much of anything and his accounts show stretches of the truth and, at other times, flat-out lies of reaching the New World. Instead, Columbus' alleged route took him directy into the tropical doldrums where he and his crew awaited near death by dehydration, while they scrawled pretty delusions such as, "What i thought was the land was but a cloud."

I've recently discovered that doldrums are not only confined to 0-30 degrees latitude, but seem to wreak the same havoc at... let's say 45 degrees, in the domain of the prevailing westerlies. I feel akin to each, since i'm certainly prevailing here in the west, though at times i feel like a recyclable plastic bag blowing in the breeze, or at other times just lying in the road waiting to be swept up by artificial vehicular wind.

In recent days i've been cast about on a sea of snow and ice wondering to whence i came and to where i go. And to more neoteric times, i've returned to a splendid summer mantra that kept my engine upon the rails for the warm months: "Lower the bar. Be Philistine." Which upon utterance, quelled feelings of alarm and anticipation, anxiety mind you. With the return of these passing nuances, adjustments have been made and this calming sutra has been reinstated.

It seems that we are all at the mercy of our own scrutiny and introversion. I, for one, would greatly appreciate the absence of deep thoughts for a spell and more profoundy contemplate the complexities of NFL football in its final weeks. Wouldn't that be a more worthwhile ponderance than continuing to wrack my brain upon a future that will never come, for the present is ever-residing?

I've been intently considering the metamorphosis to a Himalayan blue sheep, or Bharal, which is hypothetically an evolutional divergence between goat and sheep. Bharal especially enjoy crashing their heads and horns together in a way of solving dispute (rather than sitting astute and solving nothing by way of thought).

"For most creatures, such an encounter would be fatal, but bharal are equipped with some two inches of parietal bone between the horns, together with a cushion of air space in the sinuses, thick woolly head hair, and strong necks to absorb the shock, and the horns themselves, on the impact side, are very thick and heavy. Why nature should devote so many centuries- thousands, probably- to the natural selection of these characters that favor head-on collisions over brains is a good question, although speaking for myself in these searching days, less brains and a good head-on collision might be just the answer." ~Peter Mathieson, The Snow Leopard

Pause.

This morning i tossed all of my clothes and towel into my hiking pack and walked to the corner laundromat. This neighborhood, in the Mission, should be renamed for its many laundry options. It seems every other corner has a laundry; i've never seen anything like it. Further down toward Bernal Heights and Potrero, the corner laundromats are replaced by corner day-workers. Three to four Mexicans per corner, sitting on the curb, leaning against convenience store windows. Yesterday walking from the library, i counted twelve of them dispersed to each of the four corners at an intersection. They speak excitedly amongst themselves, smiling, and frenetically gesture at slow-moving vehicles. I walk by and nod...

I brought my book this morning, occasionally glancing up to watch the tumble cycle or to doodle on the steamed window pane. Besides the clothes on my back, every single sock and skibby and shirt was tumbling in that dryer. This simple existence i was thinking, and still i have no idea what i'm doing. For the past two weeks i've been signing my name, printing it, filling in the boxes, checking yes and no. Potential employers, strangers, and friends... they've been asking me, what do i want to do? And i've been answering them in complete sentences, begging decent grammar and syntax. I've been pretending that i know just what it is that i want. Do any of us truly have a clue?

Day to day i fill my time with trips to the park, grocery, library. I pore over books, read them and give them away, i search for good music and then attempt to turn others on to the same. Every now and again i stop, and looking around i wonder what i live for. Do i live for these activities i fill my day with? Am i waiting for something? Do our ambitions and motivations drive and sustain themselves, or must we only use our imagination...

Cardinal Crumbs...

Have you ever loved someone that you barely even liked? Oh... what a royal pain in the ass! I was burning some home-made tortillas in a skillet and had music on the shuffle. And somehow a song managed to make it to the play... and a feeling got me from nowhere. It was a song that once brought me thought of her. An old face, a young face... and how i loved her. But she was mad! She was a selfish brat! I thought about it, looking down from a second story toward the corner of Haight and Scott. A quick-stepped bald man hurrying about the corner barber shop turning out lights, readying for home. And the evening cold pushing down the street over our many-bodied hills.

Nursing a bottle of Wild Turkey and feeling better about it. Not really a sore thought in my body tonight, only the thought of why and how i could love such a person so fiercely. Those tremorous thoughts come once in a while, and sometimes i'll receive them. And it struck me that maybe, yeah maybe... it had nothing to do with her. What a thought! "Baby, i love you, but..." A real mother.

Since technically everything is in your head, maybe i should elaborate. Love is not something one could simply conjure at will, and that's a fact (i've tried to... i really have). But, every now and again it sneaks into the strangest episodes and nothing will fit for reasoning. It makes me fantasize of the door opening. That familiar face looking toward me. I'm on the couch with my sixth drink smiling... "I really love you. I don't know why. It has nothing to do with you. You are beautiful, but that's not it. I think if you completely changed it'd work out... Still, for what it's worth, regardless... i love you." Yeah. That's about the extent of it... the Devolution.

On Tour in America...

I was never much for new year recap and resolution, but it does have a certain charm about it. And my good friend, i hope you don't mind if i borrow a page. For this past year was quite interesting and it will never be again...

A sigh for the innocence lost, that adolescent associative that neither existed in time nor place. It couldn't be helped... and now it's time to move onward. I wonder at which point i lost this undefinable, imaginary precept. Was it as i came of age, clueing into the melding wheels of academia and vocation? Maybe earlier, as i swirled my cap'n crunch berries in a sea of purple milk? Or later, holding a straw to the broken bulb? The three beds in a week that i slumbered?

The year began a veritable mess. Key components: a brain of booze, packed car, six thousand feet elevation, hour of midnight, and a blizzard, and the going-away gift of drinking water thrown in my face. Salud! Young Werther! Yet hey, when you start low, the inevitable climb awaits.

I climbed into the Sierras from the upper-plains of Nevada. A dear friend awaited with Mt. Gay Rum and Jameson and some similar turmoils. We mulled our thoughts together in the old-fashioned way, on the rocks. Then to the lights of Reno and the banks of the Truckee River for a spell, onward to the Bay for a spot of regathering my wits. Seven lanes of traffic brought me in and those same seven took me away. But the city was glorious with its music and food. Reconvening old friends and lovers; absurd situations that turned the dial and forced an objectivity to my life, just when i needed it.

I worked a few months for my parents in Washington, found the calluses in my hands and dirt beneath the fingernails. Caught a flight to Florida to visit an old friend. A week of smoking and margarita stupors that found us shouting prose at the alligators, joining a pool tournament in some Buffet bar, and pushing the mangrove coast to Willie Nelson on repeat.

Flew back to the West and repacked my car, pushed it across the flats of Eastern Oregon beneath the double-arch of the most amazing rainbow i have ever seen, and then up into the high valleys of central Idaho. Andrew and I scoured the hillsides for woodpeckers and bluebirds. We did this project on behalf of humanity, funded by hard sought taxpayer money. We marvelled at the scenery and our growing collection of bottles and cans.

Then it was the Inside Passage beneath the wing, flying over the southeast panhandle toward Baranof Island where recreational drinking compliments and strikes awe to the scenery. I haphazardly fished, visited the cultural saloon centers in my slippers, and became a familiar face to every librarian and grocery store clerk.

My year ended restless again without much learned or gained except that the wings of whim can be soft and gentle. If you're driven then do it, because we can only let ourselves down, and i can see now... there's really no need.

The New Reebs Revolution.

I am the human sneaker wave. I'm the guy you kissed at that party years ago; what's his name? I'm the quiet freak in the last row of the classroom, disproportionate to his desk. The one who never took his eyes off the pool felt at the bar. Remember that guy who held your hair back while you threw up? That was me. Or that guy in traffic holding a conversation with himself? Yep. I bagged your groceries once. I didn't ask; I knew you wanted plastic...

I was an unhappy janitor, paralegal assistant, diligent gardener, nursery hand, introverted biologist, chatty barista, warehouse clown, promiscuous server, afterschool human jungle gym, church donation dude, sexy-ass delivery guy, professional birdwatcher. I got the data, then i analyzed it. I crossed the t's, dotted the i's. I signed on the line, i served, i filed... but never, was it hand-to-mouth.

The New Reebs Revolution is a 1-step program. It's a theory i've developed for explaining a thoroughly baseless existence, rooted in the depths of underachievement. It recently struck me that i'm not existing and doing with a sense of contribution or purpose. Often times there's no reason; not even my dear desire to do it (though i usually enjoy and appreciate my present state of being). Rather, i am guided by whim and ethereal command.

Since i have rarely found myself in a financial fix, or otherwise jonesed the carpet for dislocated rocks... i've developed a new expedient for the mundane world of business and its employment: the hand-to-mind existence. Wouldn't it be terribly depressing if one only worked for the money? Work should be even more than the experience itself. It's the combination of absurdity, sure effort, and accomplishment; beginning the task and the satisfaction of being part to true chronology in completion. It's the act of taking the ridiculous (my life) and alchemically making gold of it.

In Response To Everyone...

{Nearing the podium the house lights raise to meet my eyes. A massive arch of light framed above the stage glints downward. The crowd has become silhouette, anonymous shadows seated beyond the stage. I can hear their tenebrous shuffles and murmers. My fingertips find the microphone before me and lightly tap a digital heartbeat. My fingers then reach toward the breast pocket of my shirt. They unfold a piece of paper neatly scrawled with a farewell speech.}

I guess i'm dead. And despite my steadfast belief that our spirit follows its corporeal form above and below ground... here i am.

Jesse: [Clears throat] Um, hello everyone [the four people that read this shit]. Thank you for coming. I would like all of you to feel free, at any time, to question or comment on anything i've said, or am about to say. To begin, i'd like to answer a few questions posed before my stylish exit from the secular life i was leading. Yes, Margie in the front row.

Margie: Were you really epically falling in and out of love at 17?

Jesse: Notwithstanding an enormous influx of viable drugs previously, yes... i believe i was. We led a healthy life together and meticulously studied food labels. Wholesome and whole-grain have a similar ring, don't they?
---
Andrew: Is there really any reason to get bombed out of your gourd by yourself?

Jesse: From time to time, yes. But one needs to get bombed on only the finest. This forces moderation by sheer inability to afford frequent debauchery, as well as solves the problem of poor taste and wicked hangovers from cheap liquor.
---
Manita: Do you ever plan to not make any plans in an attempt to be present?

Jesse: Yes, but it rarely works in the Western World. The way i feel, there's plenty of time for everything, including fruitless planning. What ever happened to that gig for being a Seahawks massage therapist? You'd get to meet the Seattle SeaGals...
---
Dustin: Why do the Seahawks suck so bad this year? And do you feel in any way attached to their failure?

Jesse: They suck because they struggle with putting points on the board, and also find it difficult to stop opponents from doing the same. And yes, their failure resonates deeply with me. We are bound like Pepsi and diabetes.
---
Benjamin: Remember when i toasted you on the Chinese New Year in San Francisco, that you may not hold any more grudges? How's that working out for you?

Jesse: Well, it's going pretty well. I only have one now and i'm working real hard on it...
---
Anne: Do you love Jesus?

Jesse: I had to answer that question for at least a decade. Next question please... Yes, the old man in the back row.
---
Peter: Did you see the light?

Jesse: No, not until ten in the morning. And then it set at half past two. Alaskan winters...

TO BE CONTINUED...

The Impossible Dissolution of Love.

I had a vivid dream this morning sometime nearing the five o'clock hour. It was haunting and bittersweet and packed more punch than Hawaii, more spike than a game of beach volley, and more genuine pain than a real heartache. How about contemplating that between crunches of 5 a.m. raisin bran and a wicked strong cup of coffee. What the hell brought it on?

About seven years ago i fell in love with a woman and i said some things that commited me to a cause, intended an eternity between us. We swore up and down and everything we mused, except the words near the end, didn't come to pass. It took a long time to heal but as sure as a Manhatten martini costs ten bucks, the day came.

Seems that certain promises have a residual, lasting effect. I imagine it has a lot to do with actually meaning it or not. And i'm guilty of bona fide sincerity in this case; i meant every goddamned word. Perhaps for this reason it haunts me still. Does every one of us have a certain ghost that visits us without warning? At one point my ghost visited every night for three months running. She has the face of an angel and brings me to my knees. She dissolves hope and tears at my insides. And i awake embittered, embattled to panic, and that's it... I hadn't seen her in half a year, until this morning.

There were those books we were reading. The ones with Carlos and his Yaqui teacher Juan. The story goes: the teacher and pupil were seated near twilight on the back porch looking out toward the stretching Sonoran desert. The pupil was getting tore up on a bottle of tequila but failed to mention that in his book. Around this time the teacher revealed the presence of a certain being never identified by science: the 'mud shadow.' It could be viewed best at dusk, a breathless silhouette leaping on the eye's periphery. What does this being do? asked the young pupil. Well, answered the teacher, it preys on us. "We are food for them, and they squeeze us mercilessly because we are their sustenance." At this point the teacher laughed and laughed, while the student grew uneasy (and strangely infuriated) by this information. The teacher further explained that it would be ridiculous, and arrogant, to posit human beings atop the food chain. That, in fact, we ourselves have a predator that rear us as "chickens in chicken coops." And, that daily we are consumed in our places of work, school, or church. And nightly, in our very beds, in our homes, in our dreams.

I have always had a difficult time explaining my ghost in terms of a self-projected phantom, something i create in dream and exploit myself with. That just doesn't work for me. This other theory works better, but also falls short by its sheer scope of science fiction. Perhaps that's also why i kind of dig it. I know some jerkoff psychiatrist could have a hayday on this stuff.

Whatever the case, it forces me to realize that words hold physical strength. That they create and form that which we cannot see. And, the syntax of sentence and phrase, its due meaning, and reciprocation thereof can liberate or bind the speaker. Unspoken word: thought, can bring the same result. Hence, the promise even now i cannot break...


Sonora near the border...

"Do you like to gamble, Eddie? Gamble money on pool games?"
-Minnesota Fats, The Hustler

In from the bath...

In the past weeks i've taken to the bath with an increasing urgency. I have begun daydreaming of it at work... the nearing moment when i can draw hot water, shed my clothes, and grab a book. I don't remember such a feverish desire for submersion since i was young, pushing yellow ducks across the surface or watching as technicolor sponges wax into dinosaur shapes (remember those? fucking amazing shit...).

It's the release of breath as i inch my body beneath the surface. The water drawn to redden the skin, almost burn. And then feet up and hearing that hollow ring of surrounding tile and lately the faint murmur of Dvořák's piano trios from the other room (my chosen bathing music~ highly recommended).

In the bath i realize so many things about myself. For one, i'm incredibly tall... how far away my feet are! And skin still tanned from a season or two ago, in the tall ponderosa pines of Idaho. The smooth hairless patches above my knees where my pants have worn the skin, from legs pumping like pistons aboard my bike. That my voice can do amazing things in this private studio of watery reverbration and human echolocation. Or how easy it is to turn everything off, i mean every goddamned voice that jaws throughout the day... they have no place in the bath.

And then i've had enough silence and i let the voices in... thinking of Gary Snyder's The Bath, and discarding that i hum the very best bath song ever written, perhaps ever sung. Bilbo Baggin's Bath Song:

Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
that washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!

O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain,
and the brook that leaps from hill to plain;
but better than rain or rippling streams,
is Water Hot that smokes and steams.

O! Water cold we may pour at need
down a thirsty throat, and be glad indeed;
but better is Beer, if drink we lack
and Water Hot poured down the back.

O! Water is fair that leaps on high
in a fountain beneath the sky;
but never did fountain sound so sweet
as splashing Hot Water with my feet!

Amen brother... i feel ya.

Other places, other rooms...

A storm was coming on, the air had cooled and a sharp breeze cut the streets. Up ahead a vacancy sign blinked haphazardly. We'd been walking around Missoula for hours looking for a place to stay. I'd lost track of how many lobbies we'd entered, prices i'd negotiated, and rooms surveyed then dismissed. My girlfriend seemed intent on finding something that Missoula would not offer.

The lady at the front desk gave us the key to a room. We went up a flight of stairs and looked down toward the courtyard. The swimming pool was drained and heavily cracked, collecting paint flecks and maple leaves in its basin. We pushed open the heavy door of our room and stepped inside. It reminded me of an enlarged janitor's closet. An oversized water pipe was fastened along the wall above the bed. The no-smoking sign had been ignored hundred of times, perhaps thousands. I sat down and divided the blinds with my fingertips and looked out at the courtyard again. The place was deserted. A rundown job with a tacky name like The Oasis or Hotel Paradise. I remember a palm tree on the sign and a shabby room that we didn't take.

An argument had started during lunch. We were the only table at this small joint and the undertasked waiter kept checking on us. His boyish good-looks and 90210 spiked hair were enough to make me sick. I was worn thin now realizing we were at the end. In a little while we would return the key and leave another lobby behind. The lady at the front desk would make a slighted comment about questionable elapsed time. I would smile and tell her to get tossed. Part of me would remain in that room, a single meaningful thought preserving in memory four walls and one door.

My whole life has passed thus far in rooms. And each one returns with a thought, an event, a face.
There was the final night on the campaign when John Kerry lost. i went home with a fellow canvaser and we rung some passion from our sad, weary bodies in a fascimile apartment room. The hardlined creations typical of Orlando outskirts; conspecific condos with only numbers to differ one from the next. Dusty popcorn ceiling above us and a hard white light from the street lamp. It cast a barred rectangle of light over our bodies; three a.m.

My first night as a gringo backpacker. Checked in at the Hotel Imperial in San Jose. The cardboard door, blankets washed down to a paper thinness... late night shadows beneath the door, squeaking bedsprings. The realization that i've been alone all my life, but had to check into this hotel to finally realize it.

There was the night in Montreal when Rebekah and i told stories from our bunkbeds. Our small room was painted light blue and i nearly expected a mobile to dangle above my bed. I was up above looking out toward the city while she brushed her hair on the bottom bunk. Low clouds were engulfing the skyscrapers of downtown. The sight reminded me of Batman's Gotham, the clouds eery glow from within, the mosaic of lit rectangles on the building faces.

I'm a sentimental young fool. I can only wonder at what my gerry years will bring. I wonder if my grandkids will listen to this drivel...

The produce man speaks...

This Tuesday had all the makings of a Monday. I walked into the grocery before the 180 degree hour of six and was greeted by the sounds of new country music. My friend in produce, Tom, was fumbling with a cart full of bananas and tuning out the world. I decided to sing along to the Larsen Blaine song by his side, delivering those ridiculous lines... "I don't know what she said, but i sure like the way that she said it...!" A carefully crafted song about a gringo in some Mexican beach resort hotel and his eyecandy maid. True love...

What is it about the talk of "senoritas" and "crossing the border" that country is so latched to? I understand the relation to cowboys and rugged terrain, but this latest draw for margaritas and pina coladas and brown-skinned mamas, what's that? And remember, the vast majority of country music listeners are Republican bigots who probably are all in for building a three-thousand mile border fence, but love a competitive minimum wage. And Acapulco, Cancun, the street boys of Juaraz and Mexicali and Tecate, fuck it man! "Bring me two pina coladas, i need one for each hand (Garth Brooks)" and "Senorita Margarita i'm as lonesome as a man can be (Tim McGraw) or "Some beach, somewhere there's nowhere to go, when you've got all day to get there. There's cold margaritas and hot senoritas... (Blake Shelton)" It sells for a reason...

Tom wasn't feeling it, a little surprised that i knew the song so well. He leaned toward me and asked in confidence, "You know why we listen to this shit everyday?" He didn't seem to mind my closet love for new country. "It's cos everybody in here is divorced and pissed off. I know... cos i did the same thing. There's something about this cheap music..." he trailed off. Quite a thought for the hour. I thanked him and got to work.

It struck me that right about the time i started listening to country music two things had happened. The first, i'd split with my first love and wasn't feeling terribly happy about life. And the second was my car attenae broke. That left me with only AM radio, which further narrowed the choices to Rush Limbaugh, NPR, oldies, circus tuba music (from across the border), and good ol' new country music. Perhaps a tape deck would have solved this tough decision.

I was driving down to Portland, Oregon in 1999 with that country music playing. I'd recently had that separation i mentioned and was feeling in loose ends. And on came an old favorite song by Mark Willis, Wish you were here. It's about this fella that has to catch a plane. He says goodbye to his baby and buys a postcard with a picture of paradise on the front, it just reads heaven. Then he gets on the plane and WHABAM! Of course, the whole thing goes down. But, wouldn't you know it. He writes her from heaven and she finds this postcard, "That just said Heaven with a picture of the ocean and the beach... and the simple words he wrote her, said he loved her and they told her, how he'd love her if his arms would reach..."

And it was too much for me. Sentimentality knows no bounds to appropriate outburst. I sang for a little while to this cheezy song and kept pushing the car forward, but i finally had to pull over. The emotional vehicular breakdown. Maybe Tom's right; broken love makes a maudlin person, susceptible to the insipid tastes of new country music. Sometimes you gotta dumb down to feel it.

Wordless wisdom from G-D...

Oh yes, the day has come. Blitz Day, Black Friday, or also known as the day after Thanksgiving. A day for sexually-depraved, discontent, soccer moms to punch it out on the consumer beat. A day filled with belated DUIs; which reminds me i'm still drunk, and now on the timeclock.

Last night i got thoroughly tossed with a kind bottle of Bogle to warm me up at noon. Downhill, gravity, exceptional slow motion. Nearing a full turn of the clock, i attempted an exit homeward. Nearing the truck i got dropped by two friends. Placed roughly in a snowbank kicking and screaming while the keys were removed from the ignition. Coup de Morale. Morality by force. So i returned indoors and played tremendously sober, winning cribbage which was terribly convincing.

Within an hour i earned my keyring back. Heading out for the second time into the thirteen degree frigid night, i made it just beyond the driveway. Back wheel spinning, back wheel set; the e-brake locked, shoes frozen solid about the axle. Burning rubber on ice i managed to reverse back into the drive and shared a good curse with myself. Returning indoors yet again my numb fingers curled in the anti-form of a steering wheel. I fumbled with a bottle and sat down. Sometimes we can't turn away from drunkenness... we must face it, forget about tomorrow's work, and play another game of cards.


That's my bike on our porch. Mount Edgecumbe back there in the sunset... ten degrees and windless.

A picture and a thought.

At home I caught myself facing the jars and cans in the cupboard. This besetting behavior was unconscious and troubling. Work has followed me home like a poor, hungry kitten. I was listening to what perhaps is my favorite song, "My Way," Frank Sinatra. I remember reading something Ol' Blue Eyes said once, "Don't get even, get mad..." I wonder what he meant by that.
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way.
-My Way

A letter to M.

I would like to dedicate this entry to Margie, my West Coast correspondent reporting the fair pulls and beautiful travesties of San Francisco Bay...

M. the weather is something to admire. We're all watching it with our hands around shovel handles, gloved and hooded and booted. All natural color has vanished but the coniferous green (is white a color?... and black, the absence of color?) wandering up the hillsides, and the occasional gap from gray overcast to incandescent blue, shortwithstanding.

All this water around us in the form of ice and snow, and yet it's bone dry. And you're right M., dry snow is slippery... i found that out this morning with a mug of coffee walking my bike down the hill. One slip on a right step and i was sliding textbook baseball style with one knee bent, foot below the other knee (i would've been safe). It was gallant and sacrificial the way i protected the coffee and surrendered to the snow. Not a drop spilled and my bike still by my side after taking ten feet on my bum. I managed a wobbly ride all the way to work without another fall... you would've been proud, i know.

Maybe i'm looking for reasons, but it's more than definite now... this temporary state of working for Pepsi-Cola. Something magnetic about me and absurd situations; spontaneity and the least-likely have become dear companions of mine. I've always figured that the more ridiculous my current placement (vocation, location, situation...), the more simply i'll become indifferent and objective, hence more apt and adept to deal. But this is a new one, new limits are being set.

It began yesterday, the realization that absurdity may have an accumulative effect on the relatively sensitive individual. I was hauling some storage carts through a frozen parking lot, puffing clouds of breath and trying not to slip on my face. A man shouted to me and approached, asked me if i was the Pepsi Guy. Well, you know, shit... a celebrity. He wanted to request the return of 12-pack Diet Mountain Dew to his chosen grocer. I've heard this request everyday for weeks now, unbelievable firstly that people imbibe of this ungodly shit. And secondly, it's outrageous the response, and in a few cases~ fury, people have managed to this given situation. Consumers have banded together and complained on a daily basis at every grocery, multiply, since the obscure product disappeared from the shelf. Imagine if we could get this societal response in a real situation, you know... one that mattered. Like perhaps an unnecessary war, education, or global climate change.

So i stopped in my tracks as the wind kicked up rooftop snow and blew it across the lot. As the man carried on a one-person conversation about sodapop, and the lack of his favorite flavor, i tried to make some sense of my coat zipper. The damn thing was broken and i was beginning to freeze. I looked up into this man's overly-attentive eyes and explained to him that, yes, i know. And, yes, i'll take care of it when i can. Fifty cases are due in on the barge from Seattle, i said. And for now, could he go drink something else... He smiled, a deeply discomfiting thing for me, and leaned closer to touch my jacket. "You know," he said, "i can fix zippers." Jesus, a real celebrity.

So that was the first thing M.. Remember Bob Packwood? Well, i felt like his secretary. The second thing was listening to my co-worker, who normally only converses about his exercise routine or getting his sales up, talk about the Duh Vinci Code, which he rented last night. I asked him if he ever read the book and he replied, "I haven't read a book in years." I thought, huh, that's great. Then later on today, without even prodding, another person told me the same thing. We were at the office talking about getting the hell home and away from work. I audibly imagined myself in the bath with a book and mused, wouldn't that be nice? She answered, "Oh, i don't read." What? What do you people do?

M. i'm a sheep among lambs. Someone spiked the grass, it doesn't chew right. The shepherd's not here; sometimes i wonder if there even is one.
Sincerely, your devout facsimile friend,
J

Be there now.

Today began with a dull howl of wind beyond the door, window, wall. A miniature spindrift of fresh snow on the porch covering the welcome mat and "snow lying deep and even" (Gray) up the steps toward the drive. I shouldered my yellow-fendered bicycle toward the road and peddled on to work. A crisp line delved in snow and the soft crunch as the wheel parted through... And me, menial Moses.

The peace i knew at five o'clock was shortlived as a wind picked up, snow melt to rain, and rain took another elemental leap to hail. The way the sky falls up here in the northern latitudes is something to behold. Weather has a sinewy force and insistence that reminds me of the cloud forests in Central America, awe-striking and temperamental.

I had an epiphany today as i worked my way through the grocery stores, looking up into ultra-violent light of 200 watt bulbs dancing behind lined bottles of juice and soda. I was resetting the order of products on brazen display to the customer quirking alignment to hold as much as possible. It struck me that evolution and maturation of the self is very misguiding by the precept that it's a forward movement, a development in complexity. It's not so; can often even be the opposite, remember the Devolution?

All these years i've been convinced that i was growing more intelligent and acquiring refined skills and no-how. It surprised me; not only was this far from accurate, i found it a brilliant relief. I'm moving sideways and that's okay. It reminded me of a song, as most everything does. Somewhere in the day i'll pick up a tune that plays softly until i recognize its presence. And further in, it makes another connection. Every song has at least two reasons to be remembered. This morning in the clouds i was singing:

two little feet to get me 'cross the mountain
two little feet to carry me away into the woods
two little feet, big mountain, and a
cloud comin' down cloud comin' down cloud comin' down

I hear the voice of the ancient ones
chanting magic words from a different time
well there is no time there is only this rain
there is no time, that's why I missed my plane

John Muir walked away into the mountains
in his old overcoat a crust of bread in his pocket
we have no knowledge and so we have stuff and
stuff with no knowledge is never enough to get you there
it just won't get you there
-Greg Brown

Over the years i've grown bored with trying to be present all the time. I wanna play inside from time to time. If i had to face the sodapop i deliver everyday without a little imaginative wandering, where would i be? Exactly, with the sodapop. I think that's what age has given me... a quick shot of gerry in the arm, less care to my coffee-stained teeth, the ability to drown out the (micro)manager talking in my ear about product display. Ever wonder of the peace of mind to come as the layers are stripped from us? Will we all become storytellers and daydreamers? Is that what lies beneath?

All i know is, that as i stared into the bright mosaic of brightly tempered cans and bottles i was in at least three other places. I was riding a bicycle with the song.
In Seattle asking Manita "What do people think of when they think of Morocco?" And she was telling me, "Tiles, mosaics... we should go."
I was tightly lacing my new white basketball shoes and shooting hoops with my friend Willie, our plan for the evening.
...Then, i wasn't anywhere at all.
And when i came back i felt better. "Stuff with no knowledge is never enough to get you there..." Oh man, i love that line. I had to think about that for a while...


Sunset in Portland, Maine from a favorite spot...

Questionable, yes.

I recently decided to change course and abandon the common authority of advice. The entire process of influence has little to do with the inevitable outcome (and everyone knows it!). People are going to do what they do 95% of the time, regardless of any preceding advice doled on the matter. Unless, that is, the advice coincides with the already entrenched gut feeling of the recipient.

I know, no one wants to hear this. It eliminates many tiresomely delved dilemnas and seeks to debase the foundation of collective intellect and shared experience. But only for a matter of time until that course is set and experienced; because, as human beings we can only see wisdom (good advice) in hindsight. We learn by falling and for some reason we want to keep doing it. Dr. Thompson wrote:

No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. But, if we're fools than so is everyone else and does it matter who says what? In the same way that we analyze a person's record collection or library, we deem merit to like-minded thought. So seek the advice you like. It's not so bad. If one has a question, then chances are (omitting human shells and androids), one has an answer. And due to the instilled terms of self-reliance and personal experience, one wishes to follow their own counsel to hence it leads. But prior to all this, one needs a little confirmation by someone else. That's what friends are for.


The Chipman speaks from Kenora, Ontario

Daydreaming: a memoir...

It's a monday morning before election day... all is a ghost town, not a soul on the streets. I'm working in the produce section of a still grocery; the only sound~ a faint echo of new country wafting down from a hidden speaker. The produce manager, Tom, has his hands busy with cantalope and honey dew. Sleeves rolled past the elbow, an apron tied smartly around his waist, he squeezes and rests each melon in a crate. His mouth is hidden with the pendant gray of a handlebar mustache grown to unfettered perfection.

Every morning before the sun comes up, this man greets me with a question mark to a hi or hello. Many of his comments end with that leaping note of askance. Sometimes i'll say 'Good morning' and he'll answer 'Is it?' A fair point... wishing to rid a little of the rhetorical. It helps the already light mood of our contented hands in menial labor. He has a lot to say and sometimes he does... Most of the time we don't say anything at all.

We are working without a word now... i'm thinking of Sundays field trip to the shooting range and a John Prine song on the radio.
---
You and me, sittin' in the back of my memory.
Like a honey bee, buzzin' round a glass of sweet Chablis
Radio's on, windows rolled up and my mind's rolled down...
Headlights shinin' like silver moons rollin' on the ground

Gonna be a long Monday
Sittin' all alone on a mountain by a river that has no end
Gonna be a long Monday
Stuck like the tick of a clock that's come unwound- again...
---
Hearing it again... bringing fragmented images and feeling. A nostalgia, wistful yet dear of an old love in an old town. Being back again in the simple hands of weekday labor. And a song in my head... and the way i make a song sing to me, to what i'm seeing and feeling. Sometimes my mind gets away, translated in music. And Sunday...

The sun was trying to crest the hill, its halo resting on the silhouetted spires of hemlock and spruce. The ground crunched beneath my feet with frost and spent shells of high-powered rifles. I was no longer in the grocery store.
Have you ever found a place that was impossible to think in? and so you didn't... as simple as that. I was at home in this feeling. Even against odds, on the range...

Lassitude be gone!

There's a television in my house. It stares at the upholstered loveseat sofa and the sofa stares back. It's on now and again for the increasingly frequent movie night (alaskan winter recreation), or for a football game, or occasional channel-surfing and things of that nature. It wouldn't be a novel theory to postulate that most programs the tele has to offer include varieties of sexual inuendo (everything), mixed with fraternity homoeroticism (see: MTV), and un-real life slices of brash interlude (commercials)... though it may be a true one.

Okay, that being said, I'm beginning to wonder why it's not working. All this anvilled quasi-colloquial bullshit geared toward my desire to want(!) and to need(!) any variety of things... should at least occasionally function for its set course. Back to that bit on sexual inuendo and the gross marketing by babes and the like. I can't remember the last time any tele knocked my socks off with some delicious prototype of the female form. And quite frankly it doesn't bother me. What does is the rest of the male populace going gaga over airbrushed toehead wonderwoman flashing a new cellphone ring-tone or the dimwit seduction of a Shania Twain applying a nice, thick layer of Revlon on her mug.

My life has always been heading toward quiet solipsism. Certain things reinforce and complement that aim. And the antidote to this dross is the simple pitch to infatuation and hopefully healthy possession with an unfeigned, gospel being. And that's where i'm going cos real love is sharing a good book with someone that you want to ravage, or a dynamite record, or an opinion on something inessential... yet just that.

Thinking=Drinking

Halloween is growing near and i have nothing to wear. It's actually a relief this time around. I don't have to find a costume or a good time when there plausibly may not be one in my vicinity. For the sake of nostalgia and posited engram, I would like to take a reverse chronological leap in time, a stroll down that lane of Halloween and its dolled incumbents. By reviewing my past choices of mimicry perhaps i can reach some handle of what i wish to be in this life (the real one).

Growing up we didn't celebrate holidays. At least that's what i told all my friends. In actuality, we did... though we omitted the "holy" and just did as we pleased. There was Thanksgiving when we would gamble and us kids would find a bottle to work on. There was the occasional Fourth of July when my uncle would attempt to set new records for height of flame. Pyromaniacism runs on both sides of my family. There was the "Special Day," which unlike a birthday (an alternative to...)~ did not come every year. It came whenever one wanted it to. The family would conspire together and throw a shebang for one of its members. It was as simple as that: unpredictable. There was a New Years thrown in every now and again where i'd get to smoke a cheap cigar or two with my family and marvel at fireworks from the Space Needle or, more often than not, indian reservation antics in our front yard.

We celebrated when we felt like it. And growing up, us kids always felt like Halloween. We were determined and methodical in our approach to trick-or-treating. My parents would aim us toward the hills above town where the one percentile loomed in their mansions and three car garages. We played the role and were rewarded with full candy bars and greedy handfuls. But this isn't the interesting part cos we, my brother, sister and i, were your typically donned pirates, princesses, and ninjas. Nothing special. Nowadays, these things live on... mixed in with a Power Ranger here and there.

I broke out with Jesus. I was fifteen or sixteen, long-haired and pretty. I practiced my innocent face of compassion in the mirror. It was blasphemous and beyond. The following year i followed it up as a babe, pink dress, ribbons and bows... i was a knockout and knew it. For so many years i'd been mistaken and now i stood to the occasion. I was in my third year of college when i returned to the biblical splendor as Judas Priest. Wrapped smartly in a white robe, hair flowing, a beard formed of the lichen Usnia longisima. I was (am) a natural science nerd of botany, bryology and the like, as were my friends. I ate a handful of Psilocybe cyanescens along with another of P. baeocystis. i washed it down with a few cups of hot liberty cap tea. It was a good night.

The following year i moved to San Francisco and found myself down on the Castro with a mob of people. I was Princess Leia and it went over pretty well for the area. My hair twisted in bobs about my ears and a makeshift gun assembled from a peeler, the cardboard from a toilet paper roll, and plenty of black electrical tape. Next year i was a greaser, then a Beastie Boy, and most recently Hansel (with Gretal in tow). I forget my point about all this reminiscing. Is there a point to make?

There seems to be a recurring theme for the effeminate role mixed with a few plights as womanizer or heartthrob, brought down to earth with the holy of holies. Fuck it... enjoy yourselves all ye and everyone. A shoutout to Bobcat in the great Northwest, may ye prevail in the hippie motherland, get down on the shuffleboard at The Brotherhood, and drink deeply of our finest microbrews.

Winter coming...

A heavy snowfall overnight in the mountains that rise so abruptly from sealevel. Each face obscured in part by a rising cloud out of hemlock and spruce. Every scene reminds me of a japanese silk painting encouraging a little imagination with the spaces between.

Everythings gone black and white. A week for the leaves to change color and the wind to rip them away. Out in the sound an endless row of white caps blurring on the eye toward the Mountain and around the horn to open sea. Amazing how the fallen snow brings such contour to distant landscapes. Before we had these two-dimensional cliffs of land walling in this port town, and now sweeps plateau and bluff and deep shoots for slide and avalanche.

I was thinking about someone... and it was making me glad again, cos i'd been missing it for a while. At work pulling carts around and stocking a grocery store, went outside to look at the sky. Early morning light coming down, a dark gray turning to pale gray... that was about the extent of it. But down toward the western horizon clouds vacant and light gathering in that open space. This giant frosted crater mountain like Fuji-san aglow and couldn't believe my eyes.

A raven looking down on me from atop the truck. I neared and it remained. I studied its giant beak and puffing feather and finally understood its majesty. After all these years wondering why this large crow held captive the native American: Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Makah, Yupiq...

It takes a while to understand. We need to give it time... sometimes that's the hardest thing to do.

Can i get a witness?...

I looked at the ten-day forecast... i shouldn't have done that~ rain, showers, red flags for high-wind warnings, a general malaise for the whole of Sitka, Alaska.

Went to the grocery last night to pick up a few things for dinner and a bottle of rum. Was in the meat department and saw a middle-aged couple necking in the aisle. Not just a romantic kiss, but heavy petting and deep throat tonguing. Another witness had his mouth a little agog, cart stalled against the deli glass. Poor fellow couldn't believe his eyes. I squeezed my way by the couple ramming my grocery basket into the knee of the engaged man; i couldn't get by clean, they were right in the damn aisle. He barely noticed, just kept on throttling this woman with '80's volume to her hair, and him~ torn jeans with utility belt: measuring tape, hammer, the works.

I actually thought it was kind of cute. I have a tendency of finding myself involved with women who experience massive adversion to public displays of affection. Perhaps that's why i inwardly applaud most affectionate acts i see, unless they're wholly tasteless. I've never minded a glance or two in the direction of my partner and i; most of the glances come from a) admirers of young love ("Look honey, they're in love.", or b) old, embittered, jealous bystanders. And i don't have much problem with either.

My first lover almost got us arrested by lovemaking in a city park. That's certainly one end of the sprectrum; something i wouldn't recommend for a certain level of societal decency and embarrassment. Ever since then, its been more reserved, perhaps~ downhill. Deadfish hands to hold, mouths turned to cheeks, conversations alluding to pda. This is a shoutout to all you couples loving on each other. I raise my glass...

Thoughtful like a motherfucker...

The sun broke at an opportune moment. It'd been raining all day as i worked my hours away on the timeclock... then aboard my bike i rode away from the warehouse with thoughts of freedom and blank expression and a whole expanse of nothing. Down by the beach where all the stones have been beaten smooth and twenty foot tides swallow and unearth the shore, i put my bike aside and looked out for a time. The sun feels good in my eyes as it catches a low autumn zenith and passes down toward the horizon. My body misses it (though i don't claim any emotional imbalance by lack thereof), i let it in when i can. And then out hundreds of yards a deep spout of water gleaning bits of sunlight, shimmering on its descent. A pair of humpbacks zigzagging the Sound of Sitka.

A friend suggested the other day that i may be leaving again soon. She sensed it in words i'd written, not by the sound of my voice. Told me my token shiftiness was pervading all and mused whether a restlessness was creeping up on me again. Could read through it in a letter, see that my direction lay away...

And i look around at this and wonder why... and know she's right. I'm here and yet already leaving. Searching for something, but won't admit it. Because i don't know what it is and the show must go on. And everyday passes so sweetly, whether i'm feeling particularly inspired or not. I'm a living breathing blank with an awful potential for projection and absorption, devouring words on the page and the many personalities around, mimicking and remitting. I orbit ideas as in the (micro)cosmos and follow anything with potential, with merit. I'll follow for a while... there's no other way. As a wise one said, "Hard tellin' not knowin.'"


Mount Edgecumbe~ just beyond those whales...

Driving for dollars.

The rain returned today. I watched it come in from miles out landward. Cold greys swarmed the banks of Mount Edgecumbe, the silent cratered volcano to the east. I could see the sky dropping on open ocean where the jetties point, the end of land and distant rolling waters flattening the horizon. It kept coming and by mid-morning droplets were falling on the windshield of my delivery van. I flipped the dial from blue to red, that's what i did... it cleared the glass of collecting condensation. I turned up NPR and listened to reports of nuclear failure, the G.O.P.'s demise and some crackpot adlib from Tony Blair. Sometimes it's so nice to hear a well-balanced leftist radio program, not too bias, just right.

I could ask the question, what the hell am i doing with my life? I could ask another person this same question and ruin their whole week. Some topics are touchy, that's why i'm going back to not overthinking everything. All of us dream of childhood, the return to unawareness~ bliss. But it's not so bad out here. There's plenty of bullshit; that's to be expected. And then there's all the stuff we put ourselves through unnecessarily. Or if you believe in G-O-D you have all these other things to worry about (cos He doesn't really take care of it, that's just an illusion). So that's why i'm embracing the menial, the mundane, the work of calluses. We need to think more with our bodies and less with our minds. Whatever gets you by...

Maybe it was the rain or the five cups of coffee... something brought me down to earth. I was floating away there on the wings of existentialism. Whenever you've been unaware of the passage of time, such as these past months for me~ self-realization comes at the price of many deductions. It's hard for me to admit i don't feel anything, that i'm not happy nor sad... and so i'll look for another reason until i've gone half-mad. And so i get back up and decide the hell with it anyway. Remember, madmen don't choose it thus... that's my mantra.

Looking for a distraction...

I awoke early this morning to the patter of rain and the hollow roar of water passing through a culvert beyond my porch. With my housemate still asleep i took a pillow into the kitchen and suffocated the coffee grinder as it tore apart the morning's coffee beans. I spent the morning mellow with coffee and a letter. After breakfast i grabbed my shoes and shorts and headed to the gym.

This weekend i joined a rec basketball team made up of fishermen with big bellies and smiles. Surprisingly we've remained in the winner's bracket with two wins. Last night we hung on to beat the High Flyers composed of scrappy men in black, each with a unique rat of a mustache upon their face. Full-press, hacking and 360 bullshit layups that make everyone look bad. Then this morning we played the Tlingit Reign stacked with giant Tlingit natives built like cement walls and about as athletic. I matched up with #34, a quiet native man outweighing me by 75lbs and a few inches higher into the atmosphere. He reminded me of Chief... i know it's in poor taste, but i kept imagining him beneath the hoop and Nickolson screaming, "C'mon Chief put that fuckin' ball in the hoop!" We're heading towards the semifinals tonight and into Sunday.

As i ran on the court for the first time this morning i noticed a familiar face in the crowd. This stunning young woman always with a smile, hair like the raven's feather and eyes constantly following the ball from hand to hand and then up toward the hoop. I see her time and again at the recreation center either shooting hoops or watching the men's pickup game on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Her presence made me think of a story i once wrote... we became characters, her involuntarily and dreamy me. If people only knew where my mind wandered...

A DAY IN MARCH

I remember it was a day in early March. There were no clouds to be seen and the sun was gleaming from ninety-three million miles away. It left a cold upon the land, upon the streets. The sun had been shining for a month unchallenged. The old banks of snow on the sidewalks were petrified from the persistent cold, fossils from another season.

I was walking across town with my bare face hidden in the neck of my jacket. I worked on the other end of town in a small restaurant that only served regulars. Not by choice, it just worked out that way. New customers were rare and curious. They made us feel uncomfortable. I remember one time when a new couple walked in hungry and in love. Their clothes spoke for themselves and their accents rung of the big city. All conversation ceased with their entrance. Coffee mugs were gently returned to the countertops; the old stools squeaked as they spun. Everyone turned to look, to study the newcomers. I quickly grabbed two menus and slid from behind the counter. I wanted to save them from this silent interrogation. I wanted to rescue them from the eye of an enormous microscope.

They took a seat by the window and everything returned to normal. The same stories told, the same cups refilled, and watching the same clock spin on point. I’ll never forget that day though. It reminded me of a scene from some old western film. A dusty, spurred Clint Eastwood pushing aside the swinging saloon doors. Somehow that guy always got a lot of attention at the bar. He was a troublemaker. Other cowboys had a way of shutting up whenever he came around.

Sometimes my imagination led to the neglect of customers. I imagined their reaction if Clint, the baddest gunfighter in history, entered the diner and found a seat at the counter. What stories would he tell as he insouciantly cleaned his six-shooter? Maybe he wouldn’t talk at all and just sit there chewing on his cigar. But if he did tell a story, it would be succinct and gripping; he wouldn’t waste words. I had no doubt his stories would beat the ones I heard every day.

“Hey buddy!” The image disappeared. The voice belonged to a truck of a man on the other side of the counter. “How about some of that coffee in my cup,” he said, pushing the mug toward me.
*
That day in March I was heading to work. I didn’t have to be there for an hour, but I liked being early. I’d serve myself a cup of coffee, sit at the counter and read the paper. It was a good way to start the day.

I was walking through the arts district, with its many galleries and cafes where two bucks will buy a cup of coffee. I was peering inside the shop windows, occasionally watching my reflection. That’s when I saw her. I was actually looking at myself when the sun’s glare escaped the glass. I found myself eye to eye with a woman seated at the window. She was sitting with a hot bowl of noodles and a man who was already busily eating. His head was bent over his bowl in hungry concentration. Could have been her husband or boyfriend. Maybe her brother. I only saw the top of his head.

The woman was looking at me. It seems strange to think of it now, but I stopped. Right there in the middle of the sidewalk. An old lady following close ran into my back. She nearly dropped her bag of groceries, but I barely noticed. I heard her curse a few times before she was gone.

The woman in the noodle shop was striking. Hair, dark as a crow, fell passed her chin, covering the sides of her face. She had these small, round ears that stuck out, reminding me of a mouse. Her skin was very pale. I don’t know how long I stood there. I remember our eyes were locked and this little hint of a smile was playing on her lips. Meanwhile, the steam from her bowl of noodles was brushing the window. It eventually covered the entire pane. I found myself once again facing my own reflection.

*
This town isn’t very big; still, I never saw her again. Sometimes I wonder if I’m crazy or at least have the potential. I kept walking that day and by the time I arrived at work, I’d forgotten about her. But in those first two blocks I would’ve stopped everything. I would have bet it all on that stranger with a bowl of noodles.

Across the aisle

I work for a large company... an influential conglomerate of swagger and wealth. This company in question owns the stock i carry in the delivery truck as i service the town of Sitka with soda pop, bread, and other nutritionless snacks. The icon is red, white and blue, patriotic as sin, but premarily blue. Its symbol has stamped the august faces of Bo Jackson, Michael Jordan, New Kids on the Block and most recently Alex ("Pay-Rod") Rodriguez. Like all multi-billion dollar companies who work to keep the small guys small and the fair market free, there is a rival. This pitted company has signed Paula Abdul, Elton John, Santa Claus himself and a bunch of polar bears in their marketing scheme.

When i first began work, the fellow training me flipped the rival with stories of deceit and corruption. He claimed afterhours our product display would be scrambled or front faced with their conspecific product... all by an unseen hand, the Coca-Cola man. Working alongside these guys every day in groceries and stations, he would tutor me never to speak to them. Under the silent understanding, morality, any exchange could be deemed treason and perhaps down the road, perjury. I nodded my head and quietly pondered his words. I felt it would be more to my advantage not to acknowledge his symptons of madness.

A few days later he put in his notice and i moved up, asked for a raise and tra-la-la. This week i've been working on the microcosm of corporate chivalry across the aisle. I began by pointing out that although Pepsi and Coca-Cola are both full of shit, corn syrup, flavorings and the like, the latter is a hell of a lot better. Later we laughed about the sad truth we supply the city's youth with liquid crack in the form of countless energy drinks and coffees. Little elementary addicts we laughed, ha-ha-ha.

Later that week i left my lights on in the parking lot as i drug a few carts into the grocery. Within minutes i had killed the battery and this monstrosity of a truck was parked inert, hazards flashing, blocking the entrance like the Lazarus stone. The manager started to chew on my head, her gaze burning into me seeking out the twenty-something irresponsibilities and blunderings. Then in the distance, a large red truck rolling, fake painted condensation on her side and bubbles of carbonation. To the rescue with red and black cables procured, i was saved like Joe Lieberman by the Republicans for so many years. A gallant blurring of lines; a truly bipartisan experience...

Awaiting the delivery...

It's a late saturday night with feet kicked up and a few simple beverages down, perhaps a few more to go. A certain balance regained with the righting in the bloodline... a terribly debaucherous friday night behind me. With the morning mused light i watched my housemate drain every drop of vitamin c from the house with two close-rounded trips to the fridge to wrap his lips around the aseptic orange juice jug. Poor bastard, poor me i was thinking. And then thinking of Bill Cosby and that beautiful skit on the plight of humanity, our desire to make something of friday night and get out there, get loose and soused and have a good time. Then the subsequent over-indulgence, queasy feelings and an end to 'fun,' we rest our heads against the cool rim of the toiletseat. And the realization in sapped confusion that we earned this, our nine to five, weekday run for the money has bought in time, effort, cool change, the ability to invest ourselves in such stupid endeavors.

That's what i was thinking with the morning light and a coming day of something bordering on regret, what the hell was all that for? Questions like, did the fun i have equal or better the consequence of consumption, my body's rejection to a gross amount of stimulant and depressant? And then two answers to one question; i saw it coming...

I live in a new town. Its been here all along, something in my eyes as the newcomer, this idea of rewound chronology and genesis. This quasi-acuity belongs to subjection, a thing i've been guilty of in more than one instance. I admit it yet it nearly seems healthy... progressive, as if perhaps i was bordering on truth: the truth that all situations no matter how misleading are results of my own projection and spin. The longer i live and the more absurd the situations become, the more difficulty i have in believing the external sentience of circumstance. Outcomes always tend toward the appropriate. Perhaps that gives some standing to our new-age friends and jungian vouchers of coincidence and proper cause and effect. I never could find merit in the argument though the supposition rang true. Perhaps this is my way of dealing with constant travel and a high turnover rate of employment and company. Maybe i'm mission minded and need to inject this experience called life with the false notion of engaging in a sociological experiment. Yeah right... ain't it good though.

In the latest chapter of possible demise, perchance nirvana... i have acquired a beautiful six-three jobbyjob driving truck for a distribution company. I sling soda and bread and other partially hydrogenated products to the community of Sitka grocery stores and shortchange convenience stores. It pays and has something to teach, though i'm still not positive as to which avenue that may lead.

And so my weekend come and awaiting the delivery of some chinese food made by a kitchen of polynesians who call the great gray north their home. Its rained nearly three weeks straight. If it weren't raining the population would deem it a 'nice' day regardless of any other conditions. We're getting out the chopsticks and pouring another drink...

Back into the world...

It took a long time to fulfill the contract I'd signed with the federal government. I was a speck of life in the wilderness of central Idaho for the second season running. I represented pocketchange of deep pockets, an afterthought from the dislocation of naturalist to biologist in the caste of this inanimate institution. Get the data. That was my job. Be safe, alone in the wilderness on steep terrain with the huckleberry bears... but still, get the fucking data! So that's what i did and when the season ended i thanked the big guy in the sky and went back into the world.

With the late summer shining through pulled curtains and Ray Charles singin' "the mess around" on the radio, an afternoon nap seemed in order. Third week of the inbetween, unemployed and terribly content with it. The phone rang as i began to nod, friends inviting me to dinner one town over~ in Centralia. With nothing else in mind and the fridge and cupboards wholly devoid of dinner i agreed.

I grew up here in southwestern Washington between a farm and a city, somewhere in the gray area. The lush valleys bending from the Olympics into alluvial deposits of meandering waterways leading up and up, plateauing above subterranean notches harboring immense canyons at the base of Mount Rainier and the fellow Cascade Range. And down there in the lowlands between peaks lies Lewis County, my beautiful semi-illiterate gem called home. It's good land, procures bounteous crops and feeds the mouths of stock and citizen with ease.

When i was coming of age it became apparent that my town, and many of those surrounding, had died with the ailing timber industry. Died from poor stewardship of the land, died from lack of interest, too many vices without income or sufficient subsidy. Desparate as an enfeebled third world country, the twin cities of Lewis County, Centralia and Chehalis, begged for new money to save its economy and well-being. And then a miracle like the angel Gabriel, an outpour from our democratic metropolitan dwellars into the outskirts of our red state. A miracle, Yes! Money arrived due to overpopulation in neighboring cities.

And who would have thought it, streets were cobbled and cleaned, century-old buildings renovated, trees and gardens tended. And then the truly unthinkable, above the dilapidated beauty college, between tattoo shops and book store fronts for the deal of meth, a wine bar moved in. I got inebriated and happy and thought less about the future with my mind and more with my body... and with that came a simple understanding. That there is no such thing as preparation, never has been. Out into the world again, a new home, a new place, an everchanging yet static me.