this is called whatever you want it to be called

stream

2009-07-09T23:14:00.000-07:00

In that way skydivers must feel dependent upon the sensation of near-death, I fear I have become addicted to very nearly throwing it all away; my hobby is chronic irresponsibility and valley-like manic episodes, though there isn't a trace of mental illness in my family line. We are all purposeful and intent in our actions. Clever, bored little creatures.

Have you ever moved? Moved moved. That moment when you are trying to plan in your head, 'Shouldn't I be the one in the truck bed? Or is it harder out here on the pavement? Which is more difficult? At the front of the couch heading up the stairs, your nails dug into the fabric? Or at the back, where you must lift high to your shoulders so that the furniture is level up to the second floor?'

That moment when she has to squat down, sit, then extend her legs onto the pavement, sweat brimming with the hopes that a new house might erase all the old memories, and then, wait, wait, let me put it down for a moment, and it's like that first time you were both worn out with exhaustion, when both of you are a inch away from each other's eyes, so lovely, and laughing.

The move has its moments. New is so maligned.

You could move instead of therapy, I suppose, every time times get tense, 'Something is missing,' you might say, and the other, like a drug addicted junkie, 'movement. can't stay still.'

Steinbeck moved like that, generations of Oklahomans, boring, steady, wheat blown drifting with the jet stream tides, until the wells were sprung. Dorothea Lange photographic memories like lithographs and big rubber white-walled wheels.

'We'll get there,' is the most romantic thing ever said. You pick your point like a poison, pick your point in time, and then promise, 'We'll be over there before long.'

You believe it, because stagnancy is anathema. We are going linear, like a rock band, like a dream. We are going grass greener, no holds barred, love is all you need full steam ahead in no time at all TOMORROW TOMORROW.

I keep picking up the entirety of my life in a handful of dust, squeezing it tight into a flat as old earth sandstone and daring to skip it across a lake like a 10 year old on his first night away from home. Sometimes it reaches clear across the other side, and sometimes it sinks first skip to the bottom.

Sometimes you don't overthink the whole episode and simply enjoy the rush of the stream.

miles to do

2009-07-03T18:57:00.000-07:00

Supposedly, it was once customary for fathers to quit their own pursuits upon the recognition they'd been surpassed by the talent of their children. Somewhere last year, my own would have had to abandon the bottle.

A few days back, my son mentioned that he would very much like to ride a train and generally lamented the lack of trains in his life.

"Do they still have those trains you shovel coal into?" he asks.

My wife and I took the train to Bucharest in the spring of 1994 to pick out wedding bands. The station was a few blocks from her flat.

"I love that sound," she said recently, as our new house here in Olympia is not far from the Amtrak stop.

"You've been on plenty of trains," I tell my son. "You were just too young to remember."

"Oh."

Running the other day, I found an old railroad spike in among the bindweed. The Chehalis Western Trail stands rehabilitated from an old rail line, which might explain the surprising diversity of flory. I imagine old rail workers and hobos alike, their busted leather boots dangling above the tracks over lunch, discarding apple cores and squash rinds, eastern flower seeds blown loose from their burlap coats. When it's wanted, bindweed is known as morning glory.

On the way to the train station, my daughter asks me what I had dreamed about. I tell her I can't remember.

I dreamt about breaking up this latest attempt at sobriety, barely a week old, having just one, and then watching that one explode like a baking soda volcano, washing over me at the base of the mountain. I pledged not to lose my temper.

The man taking tickets asked if there were any families. "We're a family of three," I said, and he took us to the last remaining booth with a table, on the east side of the train, so we arrive spirited by the sunrise. It was a rare kindness of immense proportion to my feelings lately that I have little interest left in the life ahead. I could feel the overeager earnestness in my voice as I thanked him, and didn't mind a goddamn bit.

Children shine as travel companions on trains, where their exuberant role play can be joined and faced fully without deadly distraction or consequence. My daughter drew pictures in between acting out elaborate war fantasies without so much as the benefit of her Kabuki mask. She took my camera and started snapping photos.

"I wish mom was here," my son said.

"She is. You were just too young to remember," I smile.

I take pictures of the least consequential moments of our day so that if I'm not around when they are older, they won't lament running through fountains or waiting for the bus or sitting in a train tunnel preparing for a battle with zombies. There are so many things I have done and would have forgotten, but for the presence of photographic evidence.

They spilled their root beer at the cafe.

"God, I just knew you would do that. Jesus christ."

So close, I thought. So close.

"Let's get some ice cream." I hate myself so much.

"I love Portland," he says.

"Me, too," she adds, and we race again across another street, counting out the seconds remaining on the crosswalk warning.

My daughter hates holding my hand, generally speaking, will do so when commanded, but pull away at the first moment possible. She is somewhat more willing here, during the crossings, having witnessed more than one car eager to gobble up a wayward pedestrian, monstrously.

In the beginning, she takes the crosswalk warnings too literally. I feel her stop in the middle of the intersection when the white changes to a flashing red hand.

"No, sweetie. Once you've started, you can't stop til you reach the other side."

Before we departed in the morning, she saw that both her brother and I were bringing backpacks. "I want a backpack," she demanded.

The only one we had was her brother's from last year, one nearly equal in size to her entire body. Throughout the day, whenever she seemed to tire from the many miles of our walking, I would ask her if she wanted me to carry it.

"No," she said, gently at first, then later on more forcefully, "No! And stop asking me that!"

She carried it the entire day.

I notice this as we are nearly back to the station, 10 hours after we had set out. I notice it because I feel her stop and sit down to catch her breath. I notice that she stops because even though we crossed the last street some time ago, she is still holding onto my hand.

"Do you want me to carry your backpack for you?" I tease.

Her response is a four-letter stare.

"I think this was the best day of my life," my son says. He has said this many times before, each time without the least hint of hyperbole. "We should do this again," he says.

The man taking our tickets to board the train back home asks if we are together. "Yes, we're a family of three." He gives us a booth with a table on the east side of the train so we don't arrive dispirited by the sunset.

We ride past miles and miles of things we've yet to do.

re-gifting my presence

2009-06-22T17:43:00.000-07:00

She wanted to know what I was feeling, and I thought, 'If I tell her, I will be shooting myself in the foot,' but then I realized if I lied, she would find out eventually, fall madly in love or hate with me (EITHER; DOESN'T MATTER) and I would suffer the consequences, likely involving waking to the overwhelming odor of fuel oil and being sucked at black-hole velocity into the light. What I'm saying is that it is better to shoot yourself in the foot than shoot yourself in the face.

OTHERWISE, I am on a sort of rollercoaster that is completely flat for 200 miles, so that by the 4^th hour, even minor rises in temperature or drops in air pressure feel like suicidal leaps from the Lost Creek covered bridge. You might die of embarrassment, or perhaps consumption depending upon the weather and what century you're from.

In other words, I have passed through another sentimental season of birthdays and fathers' days, relatively unscathed, though there are always a few bumps in the road, like when your mom asks your children “DOES DADDY SPEND ENOUGH TIME WITH YOU??? YOU CAN TELL ME, IT'S OKAY, I UNDERSTAND,” or, “ARE YOU HAPPY BEING MARRIED TO MY SON OR ISN'T HE BOTH PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY ABSENT ALL OF THE TIME SINCE HE WAS 12? HMM?” or “WHAT ABOUT BIBLE CAMP? I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT BIBLE CAMP, BUT IT WOULD BE GOOD FOR THE KIDS AND IT'S CHEAP, AND HOW COME YOU DON'T LOVE ME???”

In the past, these sorts of mattress peas would cause me to wrap up all my things and spin the globe until my finger landed on the remotest destination that would either accept my passport or not have any prohibitions against alcohol, but I am an old man now in my wisdom, choosing to re-gift my presence, long after the novelty of honesty has worn off. It's okay not to love, but a sin to shun. We're getting there.

It is unbelievable how poorly I play with others, and if you can't play nice with others, you're better off just playing with yourself. I cannot believe how much I'm a slave to patterns and habit, nor can I believe how passive I am in my anger, which sometimes seems so overwhelming as to border upon paralysis. The world around me seems so alien at times, beautiful no doubt, but careless in its pursuits of celebrity and sloth, and just as soon as my disgust has grown greatest, there I am in front of the television set with a bottle of wine, like some well-worn paddle ball.

Amazingly, I am happy and free of despair. Nothing I've tried has remedied this most persistent impediment to my writing.

father's day

2009-06-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

Angella very kindly asked me to write a guest post over at Daily Grommet.

does this thing still work

2009-06-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

In deep space, some time in the future, I suppose, the best psychologists will be thousands of light years away, diagnosing your failings through some sort of video screen, but until then there are budget airlines and last minute decisions, and so last weekend I thought, HMMM MAYBE I SHOULD BE TRUE TO MY WORD FOR ONCE and booked a ticket to Burbank for Leah's drink up LA festival. I needed this so much, I have been working every night til 8 for what seems like 6 months, and thought, my god what if I die and my last memories are of reports and spreadsheets and that new, busty temp, WHAT THEN??? existential crisis is existential

I am not sure how Leah does that thing where she makes you think you are awesome and the most important person in the world, but I am not going to dissect it to the point where it's un-revivable. I wanted to write something sentimental for her at the very end and couldn't, and I think that's a good thing because it means we are probably permanently be-friended now. There was this great moment we had where we talked about what it's like to have your kids call you and truly want your presence and how our parents probably break down whenever they think we really truly love them and what that realization does to you momentarily. My god, it fucks you up, starting at your knees. You might as well find a bench and sit and just enjoy the sunset for awhile.

Not that I'm perfect, though, because I passed on karaoke. At least 10 times. It was like the first time I was offered pot.

HOWEVER, Abigail filled in nicely and rocked that shit out.

* * *

I used to fly so much more, and my god I love airports and cramped seats and wondering if I'll be able to hold it in during the turbulence, it's weird. It gives me headaches, still. Fortunately, Leah hates talking on the phone almost as much as I do, but she texted me, and I cannot resist a good text, and soon I was in Moorpark and Eden was there! Which was wonderful and also strange, because I have dreamed about her on more than one occasion, and when you live in your head, you think those sorts of intimacies are real. It's hard to explain. But I try not to try too hard around her. She is lovely.

Joe cannot have enough good things said about him. For one, he's super bright, he's incredibly considerate, and perhaps the best hollywood historian I could ever hope to meet. Leah's friends were great - Caitlin (sp?), Margo and Susan. The latter two tolerated me for a whole day and didn't vomit into the airsickness bags! Plus they molested Jose Canseco's dog nonplussed and oh, I could go on, but what else can I say after that. They are dog lovers and art lovers and I am a drunk and it is so nice to be in the presence of intelligent conversation to balance out my juju. I completely faked charming and got away with it. Oh my god, they made me laugh the whole time. Susan was sent to track me in the grocery store, I totally know it.

***

HOLY SHIT it's like I see Colleen every weekend now! Which makes me happy, because HELLO COLLEEEEN!!! I'm telling all of you, one day she and me and Brenton and Vahid and Jenny are going to manage a bee farm in portland. You laugh. Stop laughing.

Really, the pictures tell the stories more than I can, especially since I am blog dead.

evidence of gang problem

colleen horrified i apparently haven't changed my outfit in 3 months

man in lower left facing his fears. and it was all caught on camera.

someone forgot to prune the pineapples

when we got to this place it soon had a booze shortage.

left retina burned beyond belief

private plane

I want to have some sort of internet presence, but I also want to drop it like a bad habit, too, and find my own way.

Also, if I ever visit socal again and do not run away with Sarah, I hope that will constitute commitment to willful incarceration. stupidstupid. Sorry, Whoorl. Next time.

Next up – my semi-annual DC visit, July 27. YO! JAKE!

postpostpost

2009-06-09T22:13:00.000-07:00

i have written and edited and burned (HARD TO DO ON A COMPUTER HARD DRIVE BY THE WAY) three other posts before finally giving up and just getting blitzened enough to say JUST FUKKEN POST ALREADY. blogger is saying something like this is my 1,000th post, which goes back to my onechildleftbehind days, i would imagine, when i was crazy and would get drunk and start writing and repeat myself and get drunk and start writing and (C-C-C-OMBO BREAKER)

today, was in fact a special day, one i will write about later, but for now i just want to freestyle and go all DIARY, uh.

i have forgiven myself my monumental error of the past week (PSYCH! no, i haven't forgiven myself, but i have moved from regret to apathy, and big deal. i fucked up. one life and all that. it's not like i'll be ruminating on it for all eternity.

anyway, i caught up enough to get my shit together long enough to buy two and a half plane tix. i bought a ticket to burbank to see leah and colleen and who knows who else on Saturday in hollywood and that makes me happy beyond belief even though i am overdue for a haircut and an intervention.

and some place else that i am not sure i am allowed to mention because for some reason i am not allowed to share my happiness with the world with other people and rub it in their grimy faces, YOU BASTARDS LOOK AT MY HAPPINESS AND SUCK IT, WHO KNOWS WHAT YOU DID TO DESERvE YOUR JEALOUSY.

also, washington dc, but, goddamn, i go to dc twice a year 10 years running, it is a home away from home.

i finally have internet access at my new house, and i say MY house, because the family is still 30 miles away in YELM waiting for school to wrap up, and i am living like a bachelor, and awfully proud, the house is spotless, the clothes are washed, the nudity is minimal.

but brokenhearted, too, in ways that i ought not be, because i can't be, not according to les regles du jeu. i got the instructions straight from the womb, reinforced with god's word translated into the queen's english, and monkeys though we might be, i KNOW that things are supposed to go a certain way, and divergence from the socially accepted path is not ALL THE DIFFERENCE as the poets might occasionally blurt out, but DAMN TARNATION.

i like this ne'er do well easy breezy rhythm i got myself trapped cyclical-like into, though it's lately starting to feel more like waiting than anticipating, which is all sorts of different.

but halfway through life, i can still count all my fingers and all my toes, and lord, if that doesn't put me into select company, i haven't been reading my history books close enough.

dangnabbit

2009-06-03T19:26:00.001-07:00

We've cycled through this before, growth. You experience, you learn, you move on.

The fine line, though, is recognizing you've been running in circles. If you keep growing the exact same way in the exact same place, isn't that a sort of malignancy?

I have never fucked up so bad in my life as today. And not even in a way that would even mean anything, in fact, my co-workers would probably take me out for drinks and be endeared even more. But I let down a whole lot of people who never knew that I really wanted to help.

Oh, this was one of those wispy grasps at redemption after walking across a sea of denial, jesus like, dear god, I cannot believe I failed so completely and so profoundly. So simply, I could have avoided this.

My co-worker countered with a long list of excuses, about how hard I worked, how many hours I've been trapped in this office, and I responded by yelling at her. I don't remember the last time I yelled at a co-worker and this was the worst, and don't you see most perfect time, because it bronzed that moment for me, so that if I don't grow the balls needed to jump off the tacoma narrows bridge and do the right thing, i might caress those preserved mistakes years and years and years into the future. god it makes my stomach hurt just thinking about all those goddamned grandkids and their questions about why grandpa is so bizarre.

i might be a grandpa one day, that thought is the first thing that has briefly lifted the fog. dear god, think about it, ACTUAL TIME TO SPEND WITH CHILDREN.

my son's birthday is less than a week away. because of our living situation, i have only seen him a few times in the past three weeks. it feels like removing a splinter by inserting two larger splinters to lever the tiny ache out.

i worked in a bullet factory in college. i once got a metal splinter, long and flexible and cold like insensitivity personified. the only way to deal with it was to sit cross legged and will the finger to fall off the hand.

the other night i dreamed a bat flew into the room while i was sleeping and nestled against my face, and of course bit into it, and was rabid, and in my dreary, dreamy state, i wrestled awkwardly with it, it was white and fluffy like an evil, toothed cloud, and utterly irredeemable in every way save scientific progress, and when i wandered down stairs, holding it close to the warmth of my breast, my wife shrieked and my face, as proved by the suddenly appearable mirror, was bloody like two medieval european wars stacked on atop the other.

god, i fucked up so bad, and if i wasn't so tired, i know i would go out and do my regrettable, godless penance.

happenings

2009-05-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

'he wasn't the best thing that ever happened to me, i will tell you that,' she laughs.

but he happened to you, i think, losing my train of thought even as she continues an amazing story about the seattle music scene a decade and a half ago, even though she is lovely and bright and completely grown into the mellow light of adulthood.

i am now instead chasing unknown birds into the salal, following their unfamiliar songs. i try to imitate their calls, haveieverhappenedtoanyone?, i whistle. pish-pish comes the response.

it seems selfish to want to think i've happened to others. that good or bad, they occasionally think, oh i remember that, as though i were an occasional stunt, like getting a tattoo, or parasailing or tango lessons.

i'm not sure i'm ready to say i'll never go water skiing again or see istanbul at dusk or drive an ambulance down a dirt road.

there was a detachment there in the way she spoke that felt intentional but made her seem all the more professional, if not genuine, real. it's not a criticism, but you could sense the change when we began to talk about music and poetry.

and my own disconnect is how i seemed to be genuine with myself. by all my experience, i should be falling in love, but that's already been crossed off the list. i'll never water ski again, and that seemed like such a deflating, demoralizing thought just a year ago.

but i might still happen, from time to time. and as she talks about dating one of the guys from mudhoney and how she still talks with dave grohl every now and then, i wonder if maybe i might still be up for that cross country motorcycle ride i always thought i'd do.

smell like a boy

2009-05-17T22:38:00.000-07:00

If this here's to be a diary, I'd better start treating it like one, meaning, of course, better start making shit up about drugs and absentmindedly leaving it open on my dresser for my mom to read. They are crazy depressed as it is, what with tonight being my last night in the parental womb. Over the weekend, I picked up 4 sacks full of belgian and scottish brews, $75 worth! and in the check out aisle, the lady says, 'MUST BE A BEER SALE GOING ON, MERLENE,' to which the lady putting all my adult beverages in double bags said, 'MUST BE.' And they both looked at me 'cause it was clearly my turn, and I said, 'Yep. Me and the old man have got us a-some tasting to-do.' And in unison, they both melted their hearts and said, 'that is sooo sweet.'

So, I started them off with a Scottish Skullsplitter (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/118/402/), which at nearly 9% ABV was probably a portentous beginning. Then we cleansed our palate a bit with some inoffensive Hale's Kolsch (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/932/17917) before moving on to another head walloper, Andelot Cuvee Mystique (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/3521/24966).

I realize that calling a beer Andelot Cuvee Mystique is likely to put you in physical danger depending on which region of our beerlovin, god afearin nation you live, but we were safely away from the media.

They didn't want to stop, and were now getting toasty to the point of I LOVE YOUs, so I should have re-corked the MYSTIQUE, but it is my last day, so why be a heartless spawn. I opened a Duvel (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/222/695) and a Maredsous (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/222/2508), both of which Beer Advocate says are either world class or outstanding, and don't get me wrong, they are in fact those. But by now we could barely open the bottles without using our teeth and two people on either end of a bottle opener, and it was getting pretty close to that time where I was looking to tie an antimacassar around both my neck and my lady bits, because WARNING WILL ROBINSON DANGER.

And still, they wanted one more, so I relented, in the heatlamp glow of that fiery love that I have trained them over the past 20 years to maintain at acceptable room temperatures, and sound meltdown alarms should the radiation start to leak, and I know it must be hard.

“It has been good having you here.”

pour pour drink

“I'm not sure what we're going to do, just the two of us.”

pour pour drink

“You know, you can stay as long as you'd like.”

drinkdrinkdrink

I opened a bottle of Perseus Porter (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/700/2015), whose burnt coffee overtones laid a fine smokescreen over that battlefield of combatants, the sides at odds over opening up to and reciprocating the affection versus soldiering on towards an intentional draw, aiming no higher than simple detente.

Tomorrow seems to be fast approaching.

diminished happy returns

2009-05-14T22:40:00.000-07:00

I keep thinking about an opportunity I passed up 18 years ago with a lady who is just a year younger than I am today, and can’t figure out if I regret it now because I like women much older (that would have been from my 18 year old perspective) or if I am just really into 35 year olds, which of course would mean that as of this moment, I’m into younger girls (cradle robbing). Additionally, I left the office on several occasions this week on my way to the local local, fully intent on buying a cigarette, and each time I got there and thought, ‘I’d rather have onion rings,’ and again, can’t figure out if it’s because I’m dying or because I’m Dying.

We sign for our new house tomorrow, which being a Friday, means we don’t get the keys til Monday, and I’m sorry, but owning something as large as a house with 3 bathrooms and not letting me use those facilities for two whole days seems grossly unpatriotic. But I suppose I can pee in the wee yard (we bought a townhouse because we are trying to be urban-efficient, earth conscious magnates). Maybe I’ll even climb up onto the deck and sunbathe, try to finish my marathon of books.

Since returning from Santa Fe, I have read the following books – One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Little Stalker, The Swimming Pool Library and something else that was so awful my brain has blocked out the name of its author and its title. Needless to say, it will probably be the only one I remember years from now in that period of senility where the sole, lucid recollections are of things so dreadfully dull that your kids keep discussing the nobility of a living will, in plain earshot of your automatically adjustable hospital bed.

The worst part about temporary returns to parental homes is the tacky colonnade of childhood portraits adorning the most surprising walls, hallways, mostly, meant to connect separate rooms and instead converted into doleful, embarrassing timelines of regrets. My wife keeps staring at one picture or another, then back at me, obvious pains from a failure to reconcile where I was in 1977 with where I am now. “Why aren't you close to your sister?” she asks. “How can you have a sister and never talk to her?”

It's no different from any relative, I say, I have a father, a grandmother, a collection of aunts and uncles, cousins, and, though this seems surreal, a niece and a nephew, whom I've only seen on a couple of occasions, though one is already out of high school.

The hardest thing to believe about myself sometimes is that I am, in fact, an uncle. Growing up, the uncle held that highest of rank in our family, since the father would typically bail, and the grandfather typically perish. Younger, I imagined myself a fantastic uncle, having learned under tutelage from some great ones. But the reality of my own circumstances was that my sole niece and nephew have never lived within 1,000 miles of me, and have never called me 'uncle,' because they hardly know who I am. And Alex's only sister cannot have children.

I'll never know how great I could have been.

Oh, the book was called, “The Worst Thing I've Done,” or some such nonsense. It was dreadful, and the eponymous worst thing was pathetic in its relative harmlessness. Never in my life have I read a book where it was completely obvious from cover to cover that the characters were simply that. Figments of a limited imagination on an apparent publishing deadline.

Of course I feel bad about not being close to my sister. It diminishes me.

enclosure links

2009-05-11T06:51:00.000-07:00

On Alex's mother's day card I wrote, THANK YOU FOR NOT LOOKING LIKE YOU PRODUCED OFFSPRING, which only seems like a hateful, loaded thing to say, but it's our sense of humor and not any broader statement on how other people live their lives or register offense, and in any case, I could have just writ SUCK THESE COMMERCIAL HOLIDAYS and she would have smiled, because she is sososo happy these days. She completed the walkthrough of our new house and may have even peed on the carpet to make sure. We are two weeks away from getting the keys and putting our signature holes in the walls/doors. She has even gotten so elated as to tell me how fond she is of my curls, which she has never really been fond of due to her communistic upbringing and the fact that when she tried to straighten them one time, they exploded her beloved flatiron with their luminosity.

That level of pleasantness has escaped me, however, and it's mostly her fault. I have been returning from runs with nary a mushroom lately, and each time I have bemoaned the fact, she has said simply, 'YOU MISSED THE SEASON.' It's infuriating on many levels, namely I DID NOT, and also her knowledge of mushrooms is limited to the frowny faces she makes regarding any food item not vacuum sealed and color enhanced.

She says it to push me, I think, because she has always been so goddamned competitive, so when I finally found that glorious morel yesterday, I quit my run on the spot, went straight home, jammed it into her face and shouted, “YOU'VE MISSED THE SEASON!” To which she laughed, goodheartedly, and made a frowny face, both of which infuriated me even more, because what she was SUPPOSED to do was grind her teeth and curse me and vow to get even, then break into rueful tears and beg forgiveness. She just went back to reading her book.

I didn't have any fava beans, so I just ate the morel with a handful of puffballs I found out by one of the chicken coops. They were wonderful, but the mood was dour, and there is nothing worse than having the perfect meal spoiled by rotten company, in this case my own.

Fortunaley, my daughter soon appeared unannounced and out of nowhere and fixed the entire dilemma like a deus ex machina by saying, 'Let's go find some eggs!' which put me into a sort of adventure mode in desperate need of his own cable show, 'The Ovary Hunters,' and we ambled off into the meadow and indeed we found many eggs, some of which passed the water bowl test by sinking quickly to the bottom and staying, and one of which shot straight out of the bowl like a bottle rocket into the afternoon sky and streaked into the horizon, leaving a faint odor of sulfur and causing us to count our blessings for the water bowl test. Egad.

Then she said she knew a spot where we could find a snake, and when we went there and lifted the great big plank of plywood (okay, I admit, it was particle board), there was indeed a wee garter snake which weed all over me when I caught him, but we were otherwise sure to be lifelong friends. I was so pleased that my daughter had proved my equal in wresting serpents from the garden that I took to calling her Lilith, at least in my mind. I am not sure she is ready for her father's imprecise allegories.

luky

2009-05-07T21:32:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, Day 1 of FIND YOUR PASSION ended miserably as I was overwhelmed with DON'T FORGET TO ROTATE YOUR TIRES followed by DUE FOR AN OIL CHANGE supplemented with COULD USE A WASH, TOO, and then we had a final walk through of our new house, which can only possibly end in OVERSTOCK.COM, FRYS.COM, TARGET.COM, et alii. I thought, well, when you die at least you'll be able to look back in that flash and say, my life was interesting.

Interesting the saddest of all euphemisms.

At least my life was interesting, I'll say, knowing it's a complete and utter lie, but I'll say it anyway, because perception being reality, god knows what state I'll be in those last few moments. I might even believe it, drift off into the ether with memories of riding narwhals into battle against hordes of evil tire salesmen, made up on the spot.

I'll be sinking through the entire spectrum, falling through rainbow colored levels hitting my head on yellow and orange and red and green and blue, waving my sword around like a banner, mocking every adversary I ever personified, names of demons I gave birth to and nourished, gave up, quit and then made out with at every reunion. I never amounted to nearly as much as I admitted, but oh so much more than I aspired. I want to be interesting and interested. It's not so hard, given my circumstances. Got so lucky, I did, and know it.

At the tire store, anyway, where was I. Oh, yes, went in for a rotation, because the car seemed to be pulling a bit to the left (LIKE ME) and driving home intoxicated using my thighs to hold the wheels for steering as I lit cigarettes or flossed or whatever it is you need both hands for when sad and alone on a midnight highway, got to be too much of a challenge. And the boys in their crisp blue uniforms and strategically placed face grease, so as to build confidence in the clientele, belied by those pink fingernails and upturned collars, they carried on in conversation. One was in the middle of a move, and another bemoaned the travails of the move, and another agreed, assuring he had been through the meatgrinder worst of it, said, “Once, on our way from Georgia,we were so poor we had to stay in a hospice.”

“A hospice?” one of the others asked.

“A hospice. We had to share a room with other people. It was that bad.”

“A hospice?” the other of the others asked.

“A hospice. It was cheaper than a hotel, but I wouldn't recommend it.”

“A hospice?” one or both of the other others asked. “Isn't that a place where you go to die?”

“Oh, we died. It was that bad.”

“No, I mean, isn't a hospice where you go to die?”

“Ha! Yeah, well it's where we went to die.”

And at that moment, it was the most interesting thing I knew would happen to me that day, and I couldn't help myself, but I said, “A hostel. You stayed in a hostel.”

And the three looked at me, all wearing that face of recognition that the clientele is paying attention to your conversation. Not smiling, I added, “A hospice is a facility for the terminally ill.”

They looked at me, ignored me, then the one or the other laughed, and the hospice mover said to him, 'God, you are so stupid,' then left, probably to go spit on my steering wheel, or I don't know, jam his bandana into my exhaust pipe.

Sex with someone you love is not the same thing as sex with someone you are in love with. That's not necessarily as sinister as it sounds, not necessarily as sinister as pulling to the left.

Having given up on passion, I'm shooting for interesting.

BELIEVE

2009-05-05T22:04:00.000-07:00

-8">

When I finally get my chance to take the ubiquitous red pill/blue pill test, I cannot wait until the proctor turns to his assistants and screams, 'MOTHERFUCKER ATE BOTH PILLS!' I am a junkie for blazing trails, what can I say. But credit where credit is due, my parents are both in Texas for the next 10 days, and HOLY SHIT OLD PEOPLE HAVE A LOT OF PILLS, and out of the hundreds, I have only shaken my money maker to one, SCORED it, and have since not gone back. Those lovely pharmaceuticals are just a sittin there CALLING MY NAME, and instead, I wake up every morning at five, don my cowboy hat and feed the animals. The first was free, and I ain't gone back, save for the epic liquor closet, which now smells overwhelmingly of whatever cologne Alex bought me for Christmas. Got it under control, I'm telling you.

I'm eating both pills these days, drinking from both cups, growing big and growing small, one eye open, one eye closed, all at once, not fence sitting, which essentially means not taking sides, but fence fucking, which is taking both your enemies around the necks and knocking their heads together, kissing both their foreheads and whispering, LOVE IS ALL AROUND. WON'T YOU PLEASE FORGIVE ME?

I'm just gonna live for the time being, being as how there has been so much dying the last, oh, 35 years, seriously, I swear to god, every furniture store I've known has been GOING OUT OF BUSINESS the last three decades in a row! Can't a man cry out in the night for peace?

My co-worker asked me out for lunch today and said, “I think we should start working with other people,” and it seemed like the most romantic, sexually repressed thing I've ever heard, and I said, “GIVE ME ONE MORE CHANCE. HAHAHA. And by chance, I mean martini.” She is so cute when she thinks I am ignoring her, but it's not that at all, it's just that, god, I only get one life, I don't have time for this shit, I've got roosters to pen and goslings to feed. She saw me from across campus, which was easy, because I am the only person in Tacoma wearing a cowboy hat these days, and drove over to me and said, You look cute, and I tipped my hat, said, 'Ma'am.' That just made her cross.

It was then that I figured out what I really need. In the time I have left, I need a life-consuming passion. I have filled that void (likely a result of my older unborn brother never having been born) with hobbies and fancies and pasttimes, but never a PASSION. I've never got crazy obsessed, windmill-like, over an unattainable chimera. Birds and mushrooms and giant Palouse earthworms, notwithstanding, I've never really hungered over some insanity. It gives me such profound respect for UFO chasers and Yeti fetishists and Lutherans. My god, those people bleed straight through their palms, how focused they are on their passion.

It's what it's.

Presented with a choice of passions, I swallow both pills and down it with my parents' top shelf scotch.

Picking a life's insane passion is harder than finishing a novel.

Whatever I pursue can't exist, though, that's the constraint. But it can't be supernatural, either, because I am committed to being the one atheist among my blood relations. It also can't be high in calories, because I am perpetually training for a marathon.

I don't know what to believe in.

bucolism

2009-05-03T21:27:00.000-07:00

After a week tending to livestock, I understand what it's like to drive paranoid through a foreign city as a low-level intelligence operative and wonder, 'Is somebody following me?' I feel like that, lately, that someone is on my trail, maybe not in the here and now, but more in the transcendental hyper-dimensional sense. Somebody is out there just eyeing my existence, bird dogging my aura, hiding behind 4th dimensional statues in a museum that I only half-heartedly entered.

It's my fault, of course. I watch my parents dachsunds, and I think they can't help but stick their noses into the deepest, thorniest, dankest burrows of life, it's just their nature. You could yell at me, cut a switch from the osier and slap your hip-side menacingly, but I would just tuck my tail in between and give you those sad trombone eyes, and dive ahead.

In between judgment would be a good way to describe where I make most of my decisions. On the scale between right and wrong, just when it begins to tip towards the right balance, that's where I dart ahead. That I get away with this juvenile behavior only serves to reinforce the bad behavior, as though I am the faulty lead character of a decades long after school special.

After my run, I drove up to my parents' house and there was a fire engine and orange cones blocking the entrance, and I thought, 'Oh no!' I pulled over onto the side of the road and ran down the gravel driveway, a good 500 feet, and the entire time I thought, 'Oh no!' And I got closer and saw a bunch of firefighters milling about the house and thought, 'Oh fuck. Nononono.'

The first one was a guy I remember when I was on the department, years ago. He hoisted a beer in my direction, said, 'Brandon!' and then the others hoisted beers or paintbrushes, whichever. They were playing a joke on my folks, who are in Texas for the next 10 days. 'Brandon!'

I was thinking, 'My god, so my family hasn't been murdered by outlaw bears escaped from the circus.' But no, they were just painting the outdoor fire chimney in the colors of my dad's alma mater nemesis. Ho hum.

Twice a day, my daughter helps me tend the farm. We feed the goat and the ducks and the geese and the chickens. I empty the water tubs and she sprays them clean, then douses my head with the cold water until I am almost furious enough to do something regrettable about it. Then we wander the 10 acres in search of eggs and rabbits and skinks. I caught a large one, sunning itself on a rock and dropped it into a coffee tin for them to conduct their science experiments upon. She found an egg and brought it into the house, where we fry them in the morning, diluting them liberally with milk since the yolks are so thick and orange, the whites gelatinous and ephemeral.

I found my mom's secret stash of hydrocodone and very nearly almost walked away.

blood

2009-04-30T21:54:00.000-07:00

For the last few runs, I've driven to my old neighborhood, parked a block from my old house, pulled my cap down low and run circles around the paths I've known for the longest I've known a place I thought I would be done abandoning for new unknowns. I even run past the house my parents moved to in 1991, soon after I started college, and where we briefly lived when coming in from Kansas like willful refugees, overdosed on sun and wind, breaking our habits by overloading on wind and rain.

Yesterday, I packed my gear and walked towards the car and realized it's over, this part of my past. There isn't any sense any more in running past the old place, it just feels awkward now. I had tried sneaking a glance over that fence I put up, because the amelanchier would be in full bloom by now, but what if that yard called out to me? What would I even begin to say. It's time to let go.

The trip to New Mexico couldn't have come at a better time. It got me off of thinking sentimental thoughts about the last decade of my life, no easy task, because we don't really get that many decades, especially not ones in our prime. And it was a good reminder that the places are easier to replace than the people.

On Monday, I used the excuse of a delayed flight to stay home from work, and since our new house won't be ready to May 30th, home these days is back in my parents' house, an experiment I apparently try once a decade. I slept til 9, and stayed in the guest room til noon, browsing through the weekend's photos, but then finally emerged, ready for my fix of free booze. I walked over to the CP, a nickname my parents gave to the large outbuilding they first built while building their larger house, and inside, my dad was in the office, on the computer, among a growing collection of yardsale tchotchkes and assorted items taken in bulk from random department discount superstores. I grabbed a beer, and we started up the awkward conversation like one of the several old trucks he's collecting for the coming of simpler times.

He asked me if I would help him with something, and gave me a bee suit and a pair of gloves. We walked until we came upon one of the several bee hives he's got, underneath the broken shade of a pair of big leaf maples. We pried open boxes, removed trays of combs, kept any whose honey was capped, replaced any that were growing with larvae. He got stung a few times, and I'm embarrassed to say I was not. I found a queen that had dropped out of one honeycomb, no terribly difficult task as it was signaled by the mass of workers swarming over her, protecting her, keeping her safe. He picked her up in his hand, dropped her back inside the hive. I spotted a yellow jacket stealing honey from a comb, and smashed it with a rock, gave the panel back to my dad. We put all the harvested combs inside a plastic bin, removed them one at a time to brush off any bees, put them back in the bin quickly, each time he'd say, 'Cap it.'

The honey felt like it weighed a small fortune, I could barely heft it onto my shoulder, thicker than water.

tequilacon santa fe

2009-04-28T18:55:00.000-07:00

On the last night of TequilaCon, I was visited by the most wonderful dream. Somehow, I had been transformed into this sort of searchbot inside wikipedia, and the entire landscape of my existence was stacks and stacks of books, broken up by streams and bridges, landscaped in lilacs and cedars, and any time someone from the great beyond had a question, it was my job to fly through those stacks, as though on a rollercoaster, and find the answer. Up and down I would fly through hills of knowledge and history, faster than exhilaration, and though it seemed to be nighttime, the stars and satellites shone so bright as to feel like eternal spring.

Vahid asked me for one thing, and that one thing was to prepare a toast for Jenny, and this remains one of the abilities in which I still have some modicum of atheistic faith, and it was just the one thing, and I let him down, of course. It's just that before the people started arriving from all over the continent, we had that moment just to ourselves, in a courtyard, with a few clouds gathering, and were deep into retelling the history of how this all came to be, and I told them that as crazy as it seems, Jenny asked Jill and me, two people she had known only from a few 0s and 1s typed uploaded into a telephonic database, to come to Chicago. And then I said that as crazy as it seemed, she was now one of my best friends in the world, and at that point I knew I would never be able to go through with it. The one thing she has earned above anything else is a little public gratitude, and I couldn't do it. Because I wouldn't have made it through the last word without breaking down. The last thing you want to do when you cherish a friendship is overwhelm the person with affectations, to say something like, “I don't deserve to be this happy, to have a slice of the pi in the radius of your circle of friends. My god, sometimes I don't even know what to say, how good it feels when we're all together.” And so sometimes I just say nothing, and listen to all of them talking and laughing and feel like a lucky impostor.

So, I didn't forget, I just couldn't go through with it. What I did, instead, was to take Jenny's drinks when I worried she might wake up too hungover, and roll my eyes in pretension whenever someone said how perfect we had it in Santa Fe, even when that person was me. We started this back in 2005, and it was perfect then, it is more perfect this fifth time by a magnitude of order.

***

There was this car that drove by us as we were heading back to Santa Fe from Taos via the so-called high road, and in that car there was this dog wearing a steel muzzle, and immediately, several people started quoting Silence of the Lambs quotes, almost to the point where we were racing each other to do so, and it seemed, momentarily like we were monkeys in a zoo, so practiced and perfect at seeing the same types of people walking past our cage day after day, making the same funny observations, throwing the same feces at the same idiots and cackling and slapping each other on the back, like, well, what else are you gonna do? It's not so bad, feeling like whomever bought this great big zoo of a planet got lucky and put you in the cage with the right species.

When we are all together, it always seems that someone has the right idea at the right time, like we are part of some self-sustaining Amish sect, each with our own specialty, and no one has to shoulder all the work. And those specialities are being beautiful and clever and brutally honest and kind and immensely talented, whether it's graphic arts or gigacurl or television/movie quotes or 80s dance moves or taste in alcohol or fashion themes involving pimp canes, cowboy hats, tattoos, boots, candy cigarettes or facial hair, or fondness of extreme cuisine and board games.

Together makes more sense anyway, because that whole one-on-one thing always leads to thoughts of, 'WELL IT'S JUST THE TWO OF US. SHOULDN'T WE BE HAVING SEX???' Hahaha! I'm kidding.

***

Santa Fe is everything right about planning for one of these events. It's an unforgettable sort of town, the weather is perfect, it smells like used cowboys and because of the altitude, the liquor is quicker. Being perfect does not mean the same thing as being above inconvenience and delay, however, and occasionally you are going to come to a place like this and be woefully put out, either because the roads are dotted with casinos or religious extremism or zombie dogs or fender benders that require you to drive 1,000 mile detours, but the texture of that kind of perfection feels rough at first. Most people probably have a fair grasp of what it takes to coordinate these kinds of events, but it doesn't hurt to lay it out a bit. Above all, we want people to arrive happy and leave even moreso. And all that generally requires is a perfect venue, at no charge, with plenty of free swag and lots of digital photography to remind people how good we all have it, plus an occasional miraculous surprise, maybe a wee bit of drama to add some spice, and of course, tequila.

And as each event comes and goes, that means a little extra effort before the event. For Santa Fe, then, the planning committee decided to arrive early and stay together in one place so that we could get all our ducks in a row. Jenny found a house for rent near the plaza and we all blindly committed to becoming roommates for a few days.

I will always love that perfect, perfect house.

I don't care if a rental house becomes my absolute favorite TequilaCon memory. And I know there just aren't enough superlatives to cast without crossing that line separating gracious good fortune from immodest boasting, but by the very first morning, I knew it was so perfect as to suffer from an early death. We woke up, nestled between adobe walls and ample sunlight, congregated in the kitchen, adorned with luna moths and sugar ants, the smell of roasted coffee spiced with knob creek, and knew that the hardest decision ahead of us was choosing between chile verde or chile rojo.

* * *

Getting back to the event, I was nervous sitting in the Pink Adobe courtyard before people started arriving. It seems like so long since I've been a host at one of these things, and even though I put far less into the preparations than Jenny and Vahid and Dave, I still felt desperately that things go well. Which, of course, is an absolutely ridiculous thing to think about a meetup with no cover charge where people will mostly be drinking themselves silly and licking each other's fake tattoos. But still, you want things to go right, and right is always how it seems to go at these things.

Coming up with the right city was a team effort, and difficult to say the least. At one point, I believe I even dressed as a giant bunny and had drunken intercourse with one of Jenny's cats JUST TO APPEASE THE TEQUILACON DEITIES. And then Vahid researched the town's establishments for weeks and weeks before deciding on the Pink Adobe. And Dave worked his unbelievable magic again on the design and graphics and buttons and labels and lanyards and I'm so sick of everyone being so awesome at this stuff, etc., etc. Jenny, as I mentioned, already had found the most perfect house in the western hemisphere, and also brought her friends (whose names I'm not sure I'm allowed to share, but both of whom are about the coolest, funniest people in the entire world).

But then the waitress shows up, freshly clipped of her angel wings and says, “OH, 29 PEOPLE UNANNOUNCED. AHEM. SURE. I GUESS YOU CAN JUST HAVE THIS GREAT BIG ROOM UPSTAIRS WITH A BALCONY AND PRIVATE BATHROOM IF YOU WANT FREE OF CHARGE.”

And I shit you not, she was totally 100% serious.

* * *

When people finally started arriving, I ran to the balcony and pissed myself metaphorically, because I am not much of a people person kind of blogger lately, and I don't know a lot of the folks all that well and PLUS I TEND TO GET DRUNK AND SAY INAPPROPRIATENESS WHEN I FEEL THREATENED. All horrible qualities in a host, by the way. I remember people coming out into the balcony and wondering, 'UM, AREN'T I SUPPOSED TO GO OVER THERE AND INTRODUCE MYSELF AND SAY WELCOME TO FANTASY ISLAND???”

Of course, in the end I would look back and realize they were all mightily cool, and I should have just chilled, but if climbing the mountain were so easy, no one would give a rip about Everest, right? I think the first person I talked to was Dawg, followed by Poppy Cede and then Sarah. Then I greeted Karl, who I hadn't seen since Portland's tequilacon, where we shared a great moment the morning after in the lobby. I saw Libragirl and Robin, but didn't get a chance to talk to them til later (BECAUSE I SUCK) and then talked a bit with Geeky Tai Tai who is amazing and showed me a picture of her man that left me knee-quivering. (oh shit! i probably talked with Marty and Reba as much as anyone, and forgot to mention them! egads! down, bad host, down!)

Then I got to meet someone who I did know and felt very privileged to meet, Sir from etceterahblah, who I was hoping to talk to more about golf and alaska and women and living in the south, but because I was cougar hunting, there was no time. (I'M KIDDING) And I would have talked more with him, except the Santa Fe Milagro was about to transpire, and that was Dave bringing in Dustin. Ribbed. For Jenny's pleasure.

It's funny how my relationship with Dustin has transformed into this sort of Odd Couple shtick where I am the serious, intelligent, funny, good looking one, and he is Felix. But we are sooo good at it, that sometimes I worry if he wonders that I'm doing this good naturedly. Because as much as everyone loves Dustin, no one can possibly love him more than me. I invented him, for god's sake, dragged him from Washington State to New York City and introduced him to blogging. I rebuilt him. I am so happy he came. (Okay, so some of this is up for editing). Still, it couldn't have been a more incredible moment unless we had dressed him in a World War II army costume and had Jimmy Stewart play the part of Jenny.

I got to meet Scott and his wife Susan! That alone should be presented without comment, since Scott is an underground sort of legend in blogging, but he seems a lot like me in that these sorts of social gatherings can be a bit overwhelming. Susan, of course, is stunning and charming and did not miss a beat when I said she puts the odd in auditor because how awesome is tax humor? PLENTY AWESOME.

Ren came up to me and admired my camera and right then I knew we would be soulmates save for the fact that he is a guy and I already have one. But we chatted up photography and W.Hall came over and I zinged him with that whole you must be a great guy because Dave really respects you in spite of the fact that you are wrong. I AM KIDDING. Both these guys were wicked cool, and again, I would have talked more with them except they weren't underaged underwear models for American Apparel.

Communicatrix and Brenton came with the most adorable dog in the world! And they are people I know and love and have met several times and will meet several more. I don't know how they feel about fawning, but they are people who I eventually hope to live very near and pester with my presence. If they ever move to Portland, I promise to respond in-kind and babysit their dog whenever they get sick of me.

Carrington, holy shit, Carrington has loads more energy than I do, and it was wonderful to behold. He should be required to attend every event from here on out.

* * *

There is a lot more to write about the weekend, but now this has gone on way too long (WAYYY) for a blog entry. I hope to post some more, at least for my own memories, but oh, oh, oh. Everything, from the Back to Bataan like march home through the side streets of Santa Fe to arguments over Apples to Apples to my GPS constantly telling me I have cancer, I am honestly sitting here depressed that I am not in New Mexico in the perfect weather with my perfect friends.

And to think. Next year will be even better.

insidese

2009-04-23T16:46:00.000-07:00

-8">

At my annual physical, the nurse ratcheded up the the bar to tell me how high I've grown since my last annual physical, four years ago, and proudly claimed I had finally attained 5 foot 9 inches and ¾, the pleasure in her voice better than any stupid lollipop, and I almost asked to go again, how much my confidence surely would have bridged that last ¼ inch, but still, all told, I am a full inch taller than I was in 2005. And in looking at my shoulders and waist, I am bursting sideways at the seams, clearly evidence that I am really 6 foot 7, and have been my entire life, just never had the faith of someone to believe. I'm pledging to stick my gut out all the rest of the year whenever I am in a sitting position, distend mah belleh to reinforce all the emotional growth growing throughout my insides.

It's gotten to the point that now I feel badly for all the reflexologists and spiritual doulas I've bad-mouthed all this time. Because they are on to something, this willful disregard of medical science and its woeful limitations. They might say I'm merely eating too much, probably should have took my shoes off at the measuring stand, give up the bottle, but maybe science can't explain all that makes up a growing boy. My head is full of cells and neural connections and gray matter, sure, but it is also full of thoughts. My head is full of words and images and sounds that can't be measured because only I can see them. And as soon as that first physicist got a measuring tape strung from one end of the tail to the point of the narwhal in my mind, it would grow 1,000 meters, sprout nuclear propulsion engines and engulf the entire galaxy with its awesomeness, leaving a poor, thwarted scientist in its wake. Meantime, I'm standing on the reception desk and my waist alone is 7 foot tall, and suddenly there is not enough food in all of Chile to sustain me for more than a day or two.

At the airport, I pass by a 6 foot wide poster whose sole image is the magnified head of some banker that won a community service award, and I walk right up to it and think, my god, maybe I'd be this big if only I got out and helped those in need a little more, and I touch the giant pores and blemishes that make me momentarily want to go back the other way, shrink down figurine size. Much better to be caressed by women 50 times your dimensions with their giant bosoms than admonish all the late passengers with your imperfections that somehow mar all the perfection of your do-gooder ways.

I've gotten good at chickening out this way, seeing a challenge, rising to meet it, then running away when I realize there will be photographers and what with all this bloating lately, ugh. The camera doesn't add weight so much as volume and I don't know photoshop well enough to alter billboards along the highway. I don't mean chicken like uncourageous, because I am conquering my material fears left and right, what with staying at my parents' house until the new house is ready. What with them having a farm, and my dad out in Idaho at some distant uncle's funeral, and every night the geese start squealing because when you are free range, every passing car and airplane is a fox and a coyote, bound in some pact mending their historical differences to fight their common enemy of hunger. So I put on my jacket, slip into my sandals, and walk out into the barnyard with a flashlight and a .22.

The coyotes are in no imminent danger unless they start pointing out my faults, or worse, shake their little canine heads in pity. Animals should never feel sorry for humans, and as long as we maintain that one, simple compact, I will not pull the trigger, not with the barrel pointed in their direction, though with all the coyotes out lately, that only leaves really one direction to aim the gun, and I'm afraid of shooting straight up into the air, lest I be asked to marshall a bedouin wedding or get apprehended by homeland security for puttin holes in their airspace, damaging contrails, and whatnot.

(Written on a plane, on my way to Santa Fe, via Portland. Listening to Neko Case while also reading Little Stalker, a book given to me by a long ago blogger who will no doubt become a famous writer, and twist my arm until I write something myself, one handed, if need be. Am going to be among friends soon.)

I have soooo much boring

2009-04-19T11:43:00.000-07:00

He asked me what sort of things I got peppered for, and I was driving too fast, took the corner a little hard, with a decade’s worth of movables in the back, said, ‘’oh, once we had a spitball fight, and he got home and there were spitballs all over his office.”

Well, so, my son laughed, because why not? Trouble in cartoons is comical, smashing someone with a hammer doesn’t result in any permanent damage, right? And he says, “Man, I bet you got in trouble!”

And he’s smiling and laughing.

It’s not such a bad place to be, driving around on a warm spring day in your dad’s old pickup truck, taking corners too fast, and so if there’s a way to ruin it, count me in.

“He grabbed me by my neck and threw me up against the wall and hit me a half dozen times.” And right away, I realize I’m being an asshole, like, who dumps that kind of shit on a kid, and suddenly I hate myself all over again, like, jesus christ, you fucking drunk, can you maybe just show some maturity here.

And of course, he doesn’t say anything then, he just sort of sits there stunned silent, because he’s normal.

Yesterday, we finally, finally got the last of the things out of our house and turned over the keys, and I wanted to be there, maybe see the new owners and tell them the names of the trees and shrubs, prepare them for the season of harvest, forsythia then amelanchier, then plum and strawberries, all the way down through the figs and grapes, but instead I was stuck at work, stuck drunk because I somehow met this beautiful girl, and then had afterhours drinks, and then was confronted by a co-worker about fuck all, be all.

I guess it’s not real, any of it. It could be that I make all this up, and someone even said to me, and I repeated it apparently, I can’t honestly answer if I am a perfectly sane person acting crazy, or a perfectly insane person acting sane, and she said, “You’re normal.” And then I said, “Maybe.” And she said, “You are so beautiful,” which must mean I was making the whole thing up.

There is really just one person I can talk to about these sorts of things, and part of the reason I am compelled to privatize this site is because she has never read anything I’ve written online, and she recently said, ‘I am going to search for you, and see what turns up. Do you have a facebook page?’ and I answered, ‘F-f-face?’ slowly shaking my head in brilliantly acted perplexity.

She is married and has the most adorable kids and we all went over to their house one evening and drank wine. I was telling her once about how I got dinged with two roadside sobriety tests and just barely passed, and she said that her husband, who hardly ever drinks, actually got arrested and charged and it was the most devastating thing that had happened to them to that point.

She and my wife adore each other, though I struggle to converse much with her husband, who is a decent enough guy, but I don’t know, seems like so many of these people I see in the carousel. It is as though all the world is in fact a creation of my imagination, and it was just all too large a stage to give all the actors enough depth. So many people seem automated. He smiles, has a firm handshake, goes to work, comes home, drinks maybe one glass of wine and watches television. Who the fuck watches television? They go to church, and it just blows me away. They just got a cat or two.

As an aside, I somehow seem to take offense at so many of the significant others I meet that don’t have any apparent passion for life, and I know I have absolutely no right to be judgmental, but I can’t help it. It’s as though we attached guys are all on the same team and you’ve got these few fucking it up, coasting, representing the rest of us poorly. I mean, you cannot just stand there and be boring and uninteresting and start on that slow decline towards entropy and not expect that your soul mate isn’t going to start showing up late from time to time.

As I said, I know how this makes me look. I don’t know. MAYBE I’M JUST LIKE MY FATHER TOO BOLD.

But then she says, well, he is worried because I was apparently talking about you, like la-dee-da, you are such a regular part of our lives, and he is asking me if I am okay. And that one night when we went to DuPont and I didn’t realize how late it had been, he called my mom and they all started calling everyone wondering what had happened to me, had I run off the road? Been kidnapped?

So we don’t do that anymore, and her joke is that I’ve broken up with her. Ha ha. I get it. But I am married to my addictions and hopelessly devoted, so much so that no once have I ever not shown up late to where I live, and where I live is in my own goddamned head.

I was reading this book recently by the guy who wrote high fidelity, and it revolves around suicide, and I’ve been thinking about that lately (not actually pulling the trigger, mind you, just thinking about what it might be like to check out – MIND YOU THIS IS NOT A CRY FOR HELP, I AM SERIOUSLY NOT JUMPING, and one of the reasons I cannot is because I still laugh all the time, and it seems like every day there is something rip roaringly side splittingly funny, and I have not sated myself yet at the well of humor. And one of the ways me and my child bride are still so right for each other is because she has the best laugh, and still uses it every day and still thinks I am the funniest person she has ever met. It helps that it’s true.

I no longer laugh at everything, though. It is difficult for me to laugh too much at cruelty and snark anymore, and I hate admitting that because now I am getting soft and PC and unhip, but I also don’t want to be the 80 year old at the nursing home sending out fake craig’s list adverts in the hope of humiliating perfect strangers. The guy who’s best known for that recently had a $75,000 judgment passed against him, and I thought, ‘Good. Motherfucker.’ Even though at the time I originally read about it, I thought, ‘HAHA. YOU RUINED THOSE PEOPLE’S LIVES. THAT IS FUNNY.’

Maybe it was. And maybe my life has been interesting and fulfilling to this point, but again, maybe I’ll step back from it in a few years after everything makes me miserable, and think, ‘Good. Motherfucker.’

/ visitation rights

2009-04-15T22:02:00.000-07:00

i will never quit my blog again, by jove, but this will be mah last public post. lemme know if you want to read. i promise you will walk away from the next post thinking WHO PRIVATIZES BORING??? HMM?

home.

damaged sections of a bridge spanning two isolated islands, just off the coast, this is the assessment. we received a reprieve, of sorts, the buyer's loan papers came in today, so the long kiss goodnight dawns on Friday.

not sure why i am not dealing with this so well other than I NEVER DEAL WITH ANYTHING SO WELL. so. well, there we are. i am weird and awkward if you were to see me in person, you would think, my god, you are good looking when you are weird and awkward. i think it's because i'm sleeping on the bad hair side of my head, on the right side of the wrong side of the bed.

i'm in a strange house and it doesn't smell at all like my familiar lair of the last 9 years, 6 years longer than i had ever lived in a place before.

that said, i'm probably going to be vague and misunderstood and channeling unsuccessful poets.

unsuccessful for a reason.

i miss my house.

(i am going to sneak into it from time to time, that is the only warning you get.)

i am going to buy it back when i am rich and insufferable.

(OK THIS IS APPARENTLY GOING TO TAKE AWHILE. YOUR PATIENTS ARE APPRECIATED.)

/ Enfilade

2009-04-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

About 7 in the evening, one week ago today, the rage of the past two months broke, in the way of a fever, and was replaced by a welcome depression, which broke, like waves over the wayward driftboat of my existence, and I broke out into a smile. Laid down early, because for weeks I have dreamed of sleeping, and my wife came into the room and shut the noise behind her, barricaded the ramparts against the threatening vandals, and draped one leg over my back. Until someone puts their weight against you it's difficult to gauge how much tension has built honeycombs into your outer walls, and the release buzzes through the pores in your skin, out into the open air, like wakened bees reminded that the meadow holds all the pollen needed for a winter's store of honey.

We built a tiny paradise here, and I'm watching lavender come to life between river rocks that I spent months stacking like stores of grain. I can never return to this place after April 14, bend over and pinch the sap from the euphorbia, watch it redden my bare skin, bit by the opalescent tear drops.

The little girl Tristan has been smitten with as long as he's been at school has taken to fluctuating highs and lows of affection.

“Why is she so mean to me?” he asks.

“Maybe it's a defense mechanism,” I say.

“That makes no sense. I'm not trying to hurt her.”

“The body cannot bear sadness,” I say. “Sadness can make you unwell. So if you are going to lose someone you care about, the simplest way to avoid sadness is to stop caring about that person. So sometimes your mind tricks you into cruelty, to soften the blow.”

I tell him about a time when Alex was leaving and would be gone for the better part of a year. I tell him that during that time, we fought mostly. That it somehow seemed to make sense.

He isn't buying any of it.

I would tell him other lessons I learned, from way back when I was his age, but these memories seem to have faded over the last few years, having writ them out of my system. There was this one episode I've been trying desperately to remember that is just missing too many pieces. I keep filling in the blanks and the whole scene seems wrong.

It had to do with the boys my poor paternal grandparents brought into the world, my dad and two uncles. They worshipped my grandfather and paid tribute to him in the most fascinating way. When he died, they turned on the man my grandmother married. They seemed to have this notion that her widowhood was my grandfather's droit de seigneur, a sort of ultima noctis. Had she not held the pursestrings on their weekly rations of Lone Star and Marlboro Lights, I'm not sure they wouldn't have thought of fashioning her into some votive offering. The sin that she could have ever possibly moved on from their father, her husband, became the one thing that they could mutually agree upon.

This could have all explained their own marital behaviors, in terms of the defense mechanism concept of cruelty towards those you love, had they not each left their own wives and kids while he was still perfectly alive and setting that sky high example.

My daughter, Naya, is six years old, and fiercely protective of her brother. When he is in trouble, we cannot so much as raise our voices at him while she is in the room, the threats and aspersions she casts upon our feet. Her fidelity and devotion approach violence in their completeness and singularity of purpose; she borders on irrationality more often than not, borders on, then blatantly drives through the barrier, lays waste to the foreign countryside, the bodies of immigration officers motionless in her wake.

It's not a trait I recognize in my own makeup, nor a memory that haunts my own upbringing.

“I was like that,” Alex says simply.

She was. Not just with her older sister, but with everyone she's ever known and held close. She has no concern for the facts of the situation, she simply knows that no stranger has the right to stand as arbiter of her clan.

“You're proud of her for that,” she continues.

Can there be pride in envy? I wonder. I am doubling down on sins as it is.

Your mind exhibits moments of battlefield genius just when you think you are no longer at war, well after the signing of the mental armistice, well after you have retired to your fragile estate, calls you back into service for no reason other than to fill you with the rush of exhilaration. And as much as you protest, there is that old calling. Maybe today I can make amends for all those past mistakes.

And then you wake up, your mind eager for maneuvers that your body cannot possibly complete. It is then when the tide finally turns against mind, in favor of what matters.

/ Silence of the Fursuit of Happiness (LAMBS)

2009-04-05T13:54:00.000-07:00

I definitely needed something like last night to remind me that there are ways of getting through a rut that don’t involve arranging your childhood toys in a last supper pose and repeatedly running over the whole scene riding a stolen ATV. In fact, as any large deer will tell you, ritualized mating behavior is also quite effective in a rut, but sadly, all my fursuits are packed away for the move.

NOT SURE IF I’VE MENTIONED I’M MOVING, BUT *AHEM*, LET ME TALK ABOUT MOVING.

Vahid invited me to dinner with him and her, and it was a nice warm-up for Tequilacon-esque conversations on the horizon, and lo it was wonderful to laugh for once and not have that laughter followed by quiet sobbing or the discharge of an automatic weapon. I was glad to finally meet Matt and learn the secrets of his name and holy fuck if you have ever spent time with me you know I talk too much and will eventually say something unintentionally hurtful and foolish or ask a question I have no business asking (but god, I am fascinated with peoples’ stories) and if you take it in stride, you are pretty effing fantastic.

I did my best to sell Favrd, extolling the virtues of twitter in 140 characters or less and my kingdom for a goddamned pen, but the one liners were flowing like stiff ones. We talked about babies and break-ups and beards.* And they gave me the wonderful idea of treating my last day in my house like the end of a successful sitcom, and already I imagine my family bowing to the audience as we turn out the lights on our last day, and I may even buy self propelled roses and a laugh track for the occasion.

I parked in front of the building where I used to work from 2001 to 2004, and I thought some of same thoughts from back then, when it seemed as though my potential was one of the factors contributing to global warming, and yet, somehow, if I did pass through the sound barrier in the last half decade, I must have slept through the sonic boom and gently floated to earth upon ejection as my jet disintegrated around me.

And yet, the anticipation of the move has also wakened inside me the excitement of progress. I know there are new sights and sounds ahead of me in the summer ahead, and my god, now that I remember how to laugh, I cannot wait to learn the sign for BRING IT.

(We also talked empathy belts/codpieces, cast fetishes, toenail polish, drywall, brick-messaging and Columbus, Wisconsin. Among other things.)

/ Pet Names

2009-03-30T21:44:00.000-07:00

What is sarcasm? he asks, and I tell him, matter-of-factly, giving him an example.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” he says, and I respond, “Exactly.”
And he looks at me, confused, then repeats, “No, tell me something I don’t know.”
And I say, “Wait, what?”
And he says, “What?”
And I explain that ‘tell me something I don’t know’ is a classic line of sarcasm. And he says, “Is it?”
And because he is clever, I cannot tell if he is fucking with me, but because he is still so sweet and so young, I am open to the belief that he still sees the world innocently enough, that his dad is not a hopelessly dysfunctional drunk with a head full increasingly useless thoughts masked only by his ability to laugh at almost anything.

He seems to have a normal childhood, in as much as I can tell normal from what I remember of family sitcoms in the 1970s and 80s. What if he’s not deviant and prone to emotional outbursts and susceptible to self-destructive behavior.

“When are you going to start drinking again so that we can enjoy each other’s company?” I ask.

She laughs, because, she says I am adorable and funny and a good kisser. I am not always any of those things.

This house wasn’t so much a castle as it was a temple of the undenied. Anything we ever wanted to do or say was allowed within the walls or our wee hut in the forest, and we wanted for nothing, even time alone. We wanted for flowers and trees and we had both in wild abandon. We wanted for angry makeups after wall damaged fights, and have the contractor bills to remember them by. We wanted for unruly, beautiful children and they flushed entire appliances down the drain so that splinters from the shovel handle remain lodged in my bones.

Over the weekend, we wanted for a blown circuit breaker, apparently, and a good licensed electrician is no match for a brother in law with a can do spirit and a case of Rolling Rock. It is a marvel we are still standing.

I broke Alex’s heart more times than I can remember in the past 9 years, and now that it has proven itself indestructible, I am ready to start chipping away at my own again. The doctor sent me a clean bill of health from which to start, cholesterol under 200, my blood sugar was marked with a happy face, and according to the checkmark, apparently I have a liver.

My recurring fantasy is sneaking off on a Friday with my backpack and hitting the trail for just a couple of days, my bones are ready for the woods. On my return from Yakima the other day, I kept pulling over and wandering along the Tieton River, pretending my car had been kidnapped by robotic aliens, but fortunately I had my emergency parka, a pocket knife and a fifth of Gentleman Jack, not to mention all that backpacking experience under my belt. I was especially adept at hitting small tree stumps with rocks while panning for gold.

And the fantasy was broken only by the overwhelming silence of being alone. And I remembered that nearly twenty years ago, this was how I used to spend most of my time, friendless and aimless, wandering the fields and forests of Missouri, thinking, my god, if only I had someone to share all this kingdom with, it would be regal.

I have grown fond of all my faults and shortcomings in a way that can’t possibly be healthy.

/ no pain no problem

2009-03-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

-REDACTED- ...It will pass and I'll move on to the next thing, the bees probably. And here ___ will be, just awaitin and awishin.

(God I am so glad I had the good sense to delete the first part of that paragraph. But I had to keep the last part in there, since Wargames references are few and far between.)

Running is no longer a friend of mine. I took off for the lake after work and running put a hurtin on me, and not the good kind of pain, but a vindictive, hateful sort of misery. The pain today felt vengeful. It's like I could hear running say, 'So, how is this new laziness bitch you've spending so much time with? HMMM? IS SHE GOOD? DOES SHE GO DOWN ON YOU IN A THEATER???'

Where is the time? I cannot believe I am spending so much time in this life working when I don't believe in an afterlife. This is it, motherfucker! Close down the goddamned spreadsheet and go home to your family and Twitter!

TequilaCon is right around the corner, and I am looking forward to seeing people who keep me in the good kind of stitches and out of the bad kind of trouble. I did not get laid off at my job and Alex got a promotion and IT IS A BUYER'S MARKET. DO YOU HEAR THAT LIQUOR STORE? A BUYER'S MARKET! I'M MAKING THE DEALS AROUND HERE!

I got a great deal on some discount wine. I even upgraded to a screw off cap. Complex spices, with a hint of blackberries and anise, and that's before you even open the bottle.

I am going to close comments, not because I do not love reading comments, but because I only love reading comments if I am reciprocating comments, and I most certainly am not giving as good as I get (BEING A MAN AIN'T NO EXCUSE).

Also, it's strange. But in reading my last few posts, it would seem as though I am unhappy. Certainly, I am sentimental about leaving my house. But for whatever bizarre reason, I feel really good about things right now. And I don't say that lightly. Since that kind of braggadocio generally leads to god strikes in the third degree.

/ lorentz

2009-03-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

It could be we are blown to atomic particles, or for all I know, our entire bodies intact, thrown through space, perfectly preserved to be collected and used for jewelry or perfume bases by intergalactic poets with no literary sense of the importance of sunsets and cool, ocean breezes.

“There’s another,” he might say, reaching out for the hand of his beloved, who will romanticize the floating body, think to herself, if only I had that kind of freedom, since on these generation ships, there’s no concept of running away, no place to flee once the forbidden friendship is consummated. There is an inside and an outside, and no great distances between.

The concepts of affection adapt to such a system in ways I cannot yet understand. Can birds fly in this kind of space? Is there some way to simulate running, alone, through the rain along a lakeside? I’m cast adrift and wondering what it must be like to be one of the few who might remember those old ways of looking at things, nearly convinced it wouldn’t at all be a curse.

Periodically, the rockets fire, and these are like the eruptions of Redoubt. I try to compare anything else to what I remember of weather. The lights flicker, and I force a comparison to heat lightning, and fail. There are endless films to watch, and you find you can’t bear to watch the ones of open meadows and snow covered hills. Where once you dreamt of flying, now you wake up covered in sweat, having swam miles and miles of coral seas.

There is such obsession with the past when there’s no returning to its sites and smells.

I have three weeks now to leave my home.

/ overhill

2009-03-20T08:02:00.000-07:00

There are days like driving through springtime tunnels, stalactites heavy with sublimation, ready to skip the denial stage of death and dying, fall towards your car and disappear in a haze at the last moment, that is what this week has been; an endless string of inappropriate punctuation marks broken only by the occasional interjection. Damn! And Oh! and more ohs.

The first man what come into our home bought it right out from underneath the rugs on the tiles, those tiles I laid so many years ago. Right out from under the rugs on the wood, the planks I set throughout the bedrooms so many years ago. Right out from underneath the french doors and the fireplace and the window in my office. It is no longer our home, and this is no longer our town.

We have 30 days to vacate, a month to take photos and bury talismans in the garden beds and scratch our initials into the fenceboard slats so this place will not think we have forgotten it, forgotten the house where we brought home our daughter on her first day of life, the house where we brought our dog on the day of her last.

Up two houses is where my son’s best friend and his brother lived, before their lives were lost to a terrible mistake last year just before the end of school. This past Friday, I said, “This is the second Friday the 13th in a row, and nothing bad has happened. There’s another later on in the year,” He said, “That must be the bad one.”

I said, “Naw, that’s just myth.”

He said, “Cameron died on Friday the 13th.” And I never really thought about that too much, but I guess he did.

On Saturday, we’ll begin the process of tearing down all the things that need tearing down in order to fit through the doorways, and we’ll put back together anything that comes unhinged, including each other, but probably me because I thought I was done with moving, whether that refer to relocation or personal progression. I lived in so many places growing up, and even up to the point where I decided what I wanted to be when I growed up. But we bought a wee home in the forest and the first year we planted grapevines that now stretch all throughout the flower beds like mah rootlike intentions and tendrils.

There will probably be a few breakdowns underneath the peach tree.