i really want to burn all the shit i don't need and bulldoze the house and set up a yurt on a platform in the back near the bamboo and have small fires in a small woodstove that vent out the top of the yurt into the night sky and for electricity set up a waterwheel over the stream that will charge a battery that i can use during the nighttime. of course bathing would kind of be a problem in the wintertime but only if you're really concerned about hygienic cleanliness bc you'd have to boil the water over the small woodstove that vents out the top of the yurt and then probably bathe outside so as not to soil the floor of the yurt which would be probably some soft bear skin or other animal hide making it necessary for you to remove your shoes before entering the yurt. it's depressing going through the boxes and finding thousands of pictures from the nineties when everyone in the family was skinny and healthy and alive and making facial gestures and not cooling their cinder heels in tiny boxes six feet under the ground on long island.
fucking shit i'm really missing my dad right now if only because i want to show him that i'm not a failure and that i do love him and that at some point my life will be on track but probably not the track he would have wanted but a track of my own choosing and one that will bring happiness to me and those i choose to have in my life. it just sucks that he smoked all his life and it was cut short and i'm selfish for wanting him to be alive but i loved him as much as i hated him and being in this house with all these memories emerging from boxes is not easy but i really don't have any other choice although i do believe i will be heading back to LA sooner rather than later if for nothing else than to visit friends and people with whom i want to become better acquainted. but i've made the first step really and as Lao Tzu says the journey of a thousand miles starts from where your feet stand and now that i am again working on my book and figuring out how to turn into reality all the changes i have been working out in my head it's a very relieving and very terrifying experience.
and i can't help but think that i killed Dad by asking him for money because the next day he died and i keep thinking it was because i broke his heart by being a failure and not being able to support myself financially and by me asking for money it took his last shred of will to live away and when thados came knocking he just didn't have the stuffing left to tell him to go fuck himself for at least a little while longer. and it's very selfish of me to think these things for i hope they're not true but no one will ever know and such thoughts are counterproductive but they're helping me cry and that's good because i need it right now what with being all alone and quitting smoking and not having a car and not being in great shape and being unwilling to set in stone a plan for my future. i've started talking to myself again but that's better than not talking at all and sulking or something and i keep laughing out loud about stories that i've heard recently or remember suddenly especially Kevin's story about calling the guy Frodo and telling him to go find his ring after the guy got all tough and punched him in the sternum when he was really trying to punch him in the throat. and to top it all off that being the Second fight Kevin was in that night and he being with the married lady who thinks Kev has downssyndrome who ditched her child and family to meet up with him for thanksgiving.
fucking classic, stuff of legends, the stuff that the average man's bad dreams are made of but it only makes me laugh because Kev is such a nice guy and he's so irreverent and he would give you the shirt off his back unless you fuck with him in which case he will fucking break you. that's Cali Grunt mentality right there - kind 'till you cross us, can't ever boss us around, pound for pound can't out-floss us, mind ur biz not ours hoss, plus this rhyme just crashed into the ground. wish i'd have had that one spit in time for T's show at the Cabana tonight, oh well i'm feeling better for getting that terrible rap down and for talking about my feelings towards Dad and all that so i'm going to do some pushups (maxing 300 today) so bigup yourself, respect. X
americanifesto.com | updated Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday
04 December 2009
02 December 2009
the drug dealing state of Pennsylvania
The state of Pennsylvania is one of the highest volume drug dealers in the world. the state moves so much booze and beer and wine and the sale of these items generates so much money that you have to wonder why they don't branch out and start selling other drugs too. a drug is any substance that causes addiction, habituation, or a marked change in consciousness, according to Messieurs Merriam and Webster (m-w.com), yet so many people who use alcohol do not consider the substance to be a drug. i always remind people of this and they will fight tooth and nail and get really mad because i call them drug users and make toasts to drugs and how wonderful drugs are and they leave the room and shun me for the rest of the night. this argument is going nowhere but i am fomenting plans to bring a motion before the PA state assembly to change the name "Wine and Spirits Shoppe" to what it should be called, something like "Ye Olde Drug Den" or "Drinkable Drug Shoppe" or "Legal, Addictive, Poisonous Drug Shoppe." Just so people know what they are getting into and so they will maybe just maybe think twice before demonizing users of other substances and look at themselves and go "oh yeah i'm doing drugs right now too *sip* maybe i should just shut the fuck up and soak my head a bit more" but of course no one ever does that because it's so much more fun to poke fun at and criticize others than it is to actually get one's own fat ass in motion and stop all the bad things that society lets you do (and some of the things it doesn't let you do, like sexually pleasure your spouse in whatever hole you see fit in the privacy of your own home).
blah blah a nation of big old hypocrites claiming to love freedom but not granting it, spouting liberty at the same time that legislatures restrict their citizens' ability to act as they see best fit to act. this country can do better. America can do better. every day that this hypocracy continues is a victory for the fatheads at the top, the people pulling the strings and doing as they please, immune from their own laws, laughing at the struggling teeming writhing masses who could in a week retake the country for their own. the hard part is setting up a government that keeps the power out of the hands of the few, like our federal system was set up initially, and prohibiting the alteration of this system by powerful individuals (such as has occurred with our current shift to a strong executive). dear god this kind of writing could get me in trouble. X
blah blah a nation of big old hypocrites claiming to love freedom but not granting it, spouting liberty at the same time that legislatures restrict their citizens' ability to act as they see best fit to act. this country can do better. America can do better. every day that this hypocracy continues is a victory for the fatheads at the top, the people pulling the strings and doing as they please, immune from their own laws, laughing at the struggling teeming writhing masses who could in a week retake the country for their own. the hard part is setting up a government that keeps the power out of the hands of the few, like our federal system was set up initially, and prohibiting the alteration of this system by powerful individuals (such as has occurred with our current shift to a strong executive). dear god this kind of writing could get me in trouble. X
01 December 2009
immersion
i immerse myself in the minutiae of this place so that i don't climb the walls and eat the stuffing out of the chairs. this is not a mechanism for me to flee from the pressures of the brain or the lurking darkness of worry, rather it is a coping mechanism for the somewhat involuntary nature of my current situation. those motherfucking bastards. expletive expletive so expletive stupid shit at some point this blog had to go clean and now that it's fueled solely by the methane coming off of the garbage heap out back (it's a big heap) this motherfucker is GREEN. jk the garbage heap is in front of the house. holy god none of this is true but i just convinced myself for a second there that is WAS true and i was designing a duct system to convey the methane gases into a turbine on the other side of the house that would create energy. i need a car if for no other reason than that i want to go to the goodwill and pick up materials for making my bamboo lighting fixtures but in Reality i probably have all the necessary shit here but it's probably buried somewhere under twenty
year's worth of accumulated junk.
seriously, for anyone reading, do yourself the favor and throw half your shit out (or sell it if you have nice shit), wait a week, comb through it again, and repeat the process until you can fit your possessions into bags that can be carried with relative ease on your person. i'd say about eighty five percent of the shit people have they never use let alone look at or admire so why the fuck do you keep it? with the old daddygrins now died and buried and me going through his accumulated tons of shit i'm finding just ridiculous shit like napkins from an ocean liner cruise in the late fifties and who the fuck cares about that shit? and then i go through my boxes of shit i sent back for LA and i'm finding pictures from the late nineties of girlfriends long since gone and married to others and why the fuck do i keep this shit other than perhaps vanity or a sense of longing for the past? the past cannot easily be accessed from the present, just as the future can be shaped from the here and now but ONLY if you're pure and honest about it and you don't really try but just kind of try and then only if you're not really paying attention and don't really care even though you have to care a great deal. it's very tricky and very difficult and it's good that it is because otherwise you'd have motherfuckers making themselves rich or giving themselves Ford broncos or something fucktarded like that.
it's so hard not to ramble because i'm here all by myself and the walls don't speak and the cats are all dead or stolen and dad's fucking dead too and the sibs have lives of their own and i am hiding out here like a bandit but all good things come to those who keep their eyes and ears open and i think i'm getting close to a breakthrough with the book but i can't push it because it's a very subtle thing but soon soon soon i will have it and then sky's the limit. ultima ratio regum. X
year's worth of accumulated junk.
seriously, for anyone reading, do yourself the favor and throw half your shit out (or sell it if you have nice shit), wait a week, comb through it again, and repeat the process until you can fit your possessions into bags that can be carried with relative ease on your person. i'd say about eighty five percent of the shit people have they never use let alone look at or admire so why the fuck do you keep it? with the old daddygrins now died and buried and me going through his accumulated tons of shit i'm finding just ridiculous shit like napkins from an ocean liner cruise in the late fifties and who the fuck cares about that shit? and then i go through my boxes of shit i sent back for LA and i'm finding pictures from the late nineties of girlfriends long since gone and married to others and why the fuck do i keep this shit other than perhaps vanity or a sense of longing for the past? the past cannot easily be accessed from the present, just as the future can be shaped from the here and now but ONLY if you're pure and honest about it and you don't really try but just kind of try and then only if you're not really paying attention and don't really care even though you have to care a great deal. it's very tricky and very difficult and it's good that it is because otherwise you'd have motherfuckers making themselves rich or giving themselves Ford broncos or something fucktarded like that.
it's so hard not to ramble because i'm here all by myself and the walls don't speak and the cats are all dead or stolen and dad's fucking dead too and the sibs have lives of their own and i am hiding out here like a bandit but all good things come to those who keep their eyes and ears open and i think i'm getting close to a breakthrough with the book but i can't push it because it's a very subtle thing but soon soon soon i will have it and then sky's the limit. ultima ratio regum. X
29 November 2009
tyrant capitalism
a tyrant is haunting the world. the tyrant capitalism! the mightiest nations in the world have fallen before it's promise of worldly riches and temporal power. the milling masses worship no longer at the altars of godly might, rather at the boutiques of consumptionism, offering up their dearly earned wages not for the promise of eternal salvation but on the fleeting satisfaction of the newest communications device or this season's clutch-bag. to protect their wealth and property, the richest few arm themselves and build high walls around their homes. to obtain this wealth some arm themselves and scale these walls and stop at nothing, not even killing, to take from these richest few what they think they need. a wise man once said, "locks only keep out friends." the only way to make your house reasonably safe from bandits is to board up all the windows and doors and never leave but sit by the front door with a shotgun in your hands, shooting first and asking questions later. this of course makes the house unlivable and is a total waste of time if for no other reason than that you can't be outside your house making money to buy more things.
the capitalist financial system operates like a drug addict, never satisfied with the status quo, always looking for the next spike in profit or pleasure, without regard for long term safety or the condition of those it exploits for cheap labor, without regard for the damage done to the land by strip-mining or pollution. the laws of the most powerful nations are written to protect the wealth of those closest to the wealth-teat, and even when they destroy, in their greed, the livelihoods of those beneath them, the powerful and well connected allow their companies to fail but not before bleeding them dry and thousands are plunged into ruin while the few wallow fat and bloated with more money than they could possibly need to survive day to day.
those who were not born with great wealth rarely if ever obtain it. those who must work everyday for their bread and butter are subjected to a constant barrage of images of the wealth and easy life their labors could provide for their grandchildren if only they and their children work themselves to death and save every penny and live wretched hopeless lives in squalor. rarely do they consider the hopelessness of their situation, for hope springs eternal in the minds of the proletariat, even when they earn barely enough to eat on a day's hard labor.
should hundreds of thousands of children go hungry in America when on the same day a fathead buys a single car that is worth more than their parents will make in five whole years? all men are not created equal, not in the eyes of capitalism. though they bear no titles, the richest one percent of America's millions are the new aristocracy, laughing while the rivers burn, purchasing entire islands while a single mother counts pennies to buy food for her prematurely born baby. ultima ratio regum. X
the capitalist financial system operates like a drug addict, never satisfied with the status quo, always looking for the next spike in profit or pleasure, without regard for long term safety or the condition of those it exploits for cheap labor, without regard for the damage done to the land by strip-mining or pollution. the laws of the most powerful nations are written to protect the wealth of those closest to the wealth-teat, and even when they destroy, in their greed, the livelihoods of those beneath them, the powerful and well connected allow their companies to fail but not before bleeding them dry and thousands are plunged into ruin while the few wallow fat and bloated with more money than they could possibly need to survive day to day.
those who were not born with great wealth rarely if ever obtain it. those who must work everyday for their bread and butter are subjected to a constant barrage of images of the wealth and easy life their labors could provide for their grandchildren if only they and their children work themselves to death and save every penny and live wretched hopeless lives in squalor. rarely do they consider the hopelessness of their situation, for hope springs eternal in the minds of the proletariat, even when they earn barely enough to eat on a day's hard labor.
should hundreds of thousands of children go hungry in America when on the same day a fathead buys a single car that is worth more than their parents will make in five whole years? all men are not created equal, not in the eyes of capitalism. though they bear no titles, the richest one percent of America's millions are the new aristocracy, laughing while the rivers burn, purchasing entire islands while a single mother counts pennies to buy food for her prematurely born baby. ultima ratio regum. X
i don't really play that game
it's not that i don't play that game, it's that everyone plays the game but few know they are playing it and some have actually convinced themselves they know the rules and are beating the system when in reality they are completely and hopelessly ensnared in the grinding tearing cogs. many times during the day i see people and watch them enjoying simple things or shopping for things they don't need or things they think they need and i see joy on their faces or satisfaction and i feel the need to vomit because they are so pathetic in their simple little ways but it's not really their fault because they grew up seeing everyone else around them acting in the same way and trying to find joy and satisfaction in life when in my reality i try to crush joy and stamp out satisfaction so that if it does happen to stumble across my path it will be a pleasant but fleeting surprise and i can bring my inner self back to emptiness and nothingness and yearningly hopelessly work on staying out of the rut and smiling like an amused infant or staring blindly like a child which has not yet smiled and this runon sentence is very long but no one reads this shit anyway so why the fuck do i worry about form or syntax but i have to because i'm a fucking writer and a professional transcriptionist and this is what i DO. X
13 November 2009
emptiness
and so here i sit now in westwood, one of my more frequent stops on my second goodbye tour through LA in the past year. i just can't seem to manage to stay here. some might call it a sign, but i don't believe in that bullshit. i love this city and i have given a lot to her and she has given a lot to me. just like with Leslie, i have given a lot to her and she has, perhaps in her own particular way, given a lot to me. that whole situation is pretty messed up, mostly because she has stopped speaking to me altogether for reasons i can only guess at.
i said some things i should not have said in the days before my father's funeral and mentioned that i was thinking of going to south east asia next year. i made a comment about her situation with her father, something i should not have because i will never be able to fully understand her situation with her father and because i don't have a father any longer so my frame of reference is all screwed up.
the way i see it, there were four things causing stress in her life. the first was her car, which had been damaged in a wreck. the second was her tooth, which she had chipped eating a pretzel. the third was her job, a stressful occupation in sales. the fourth was me. so i totally understand that she chose me as the easiest way to remove stress from her life. that doesn't make it any easier to deal with her total Funkstille, but what the hell am i supposed to do? i have left text and phone messages and attempted to contact her on social networking sites, all to no avail. and the reason i can't just forget is because i pledged my fealty and support to her before the powers of the universe, on my virtue and honor, and that is not a pledge that you just violate any time you want to because it's my fucking honor and virtue on the line but if she won't talk to me then what the hell am i supposed to do? i refuse to stalk her or wait outside of her office at closing time and try to waylay her or anything because that will only make things worse and make me feel and look like a scumbag.
but she really didn't give me much to go on the second time around, and all my advances were roundly refused and every time i tried to do anything it would just be awkward because she wants to be free and party and fuck young guys right now and i really don't mind that she wants to do that, but i'm afraid now that there will not be a third chance for us because of something i said or mentioned in the depths of my grief from my father's passing and because she's not talking to me. so i have decided to write a letter explaining my position but my track record with letters isn't great and it will likely only make things worse but i miss her so much especially in the mornings and this morning was really bad because i woke up dreaming that she was turning away from me and ignoring me totally which is what is happening in real life but now that it's happening in my dreams too it's not letting me come to peace and just move on with my life. i very much want things to work out so i think i'll just give it a year and let her have a JP-free life for a while and see if she's ready at a later date and then maybe we can have some semblance of a normal or healthy relationship without all the miscommunication and walking on eggshells all the time.
but i need to send her a letter reinforcing my pledge to her so she doesn't think i have abandoned her or anything, even if she rips it up and never reads it i still need to send it on the off chance that she does read it and knows that i'm still faithful to my pledge even though i said some stupid things and was stressing her out and even though she has stopped talking to me and is likely raging right now and out at the clubs and doing whatever the hell she pleases.
the situation is all kinds of messed up and i feel really bad for saying what i did and postponing my arrival in LA by two weeks so i could go out and get busted and put on probation but that's the way shit works sometimes and i can't apologize to her because she won't talk to me but maybe she'll read this and if you do Leslie please know i'm sorry and my pledge still stands (as you are the only one who can absolve me of it) and i miss you terribly and hope that maybe some time in the future we can make beautiful hoppa kids together and have a great life together. ulitima ratio regum. requiescat in pace GHWR. X
i said some things i should not have said in the days before my father's funeral and mentioned that i was thinking of going to south east asia next year. i made a comment about her situation with her father, something i should not have because i will never be able to fully understand her situation with her father and because i don't have a father any longer so my frame of reference is all screwed up.
the way i see it, there were four things causing stress in her life. the first was her car, which had been damaged in a wreck. the second was her tooth, which she had chipped eating a pretzel. the third was her job, a stressful occupation in sales. the fourth was me. so i totally understand that she chose me as the easiest way to remove stress from her life. that doesn't make it any easier to deal with her total Funkstille, but what the hell am i supposed to do? i have left text and phone messages and attempted to contact her on social networking sites, all to no avail. and the reason i can't just forget is because i pledged my fealty and support to her before the powers of the universe, on my virtue and honor, and that is not a pledge that you just violate any time you want to because it's my fucking honor and virtue on the line but if she won't talk to me then what the hell am i supposed to do? i refuse to stalk her or wait outside of her office at closing time and try to waylay her or anything because that will only make things worse and make me feel and look like a scumbag.
but she really didn't give me much to go on the second time around, and all my advances were roundly refused and every time i tried to do anything it would just be awkward because she wants to be free and party and fuck young guys right now and i really don't mind that she wants to do that, but i'm afraid now that there will not be a third chance for us because of something i said or mentioned in the depths of my grief from my father's passing and because she's not talking to me. so i have decided to write a letter explaining my position but my track record with letters isn't great and it will likely only make things worse but i miss her so much especially in the mornings and this morning was really bad because i woke up dreaming that she was turning away from me and ignoring me totally which is what is happening in real life but now that it's happening in my dreams too it's not letting me come to peace and just move on with my life. i very much want things to work out so i think i'll just give it a year and let her have a JP-free life for a while and see if she's ready at a later date and then maybe we can have some semblance of a normal or healthy relationship without all the miscommunication and walking on eggshells all the time.
but i need to send her a letter reinforcing my pledge to her so she doesn't think i have abandoned her or anything, even if she rips it up and never reads it i still need to send it on the off chance that she does read it and knows that i'm still faithful to my pledge even though i said some stupid things and was stressing her out and even though she has stopped talking to me and is likely raging right now and out at the clubs and doing whatever the hell she pleases.
the situation is all kinds of messed up and i feel really bad for saying what i did and postponing my arrival in LA by two weeks so i could go out and get busted and put on probation but that's the way shit works sometimes and i can't apologize to her because she won't talk to me but maybe she'll read this and if you do Leslie please know i'm sorry and my pledge still stands (as you are the only one who can absolve me of it) and i miss you terribly and hope that maybe some time in the future we can make beautiful hoppa kids together and have a great life together. ulitima ratio regum. requiescat in pace GHWR. X
27 August 2009
the wages of trust
How is it possible to miss someone so much as I miss Eliza? If I do not get this constant yearning under control I will mess things up in some way, call her too much or text her too much or just plain miss her too much and make my life a constant state of torment. I must be an adult about this. I must pull myself together, concentrate on the task at hand, and trust in the fates to weave their skeins as they see fit. But I yearn so for her presence, for the soft simple words from her which I so long to hear, the words that will seal our futures into one. I cannot explain why I love her so fiercely, why I bound myself to her the night that I swore on my virtue to the Universe that I would never abandon her side. It was the right thing to do then, and it still makes sense to me now. I pledged my eternal allegiance to her that night, before the Great Unknown, and I must come to terms with the fact that said pledge was given without demand of recompense, that said pledge was given purely, from the deepest regions of my soul, amidst the purest blossoming of love and the under the banner of ardent sincerity.
By giving that pledge, I abandoned any sort of control. By presenting that pledge to her, I placed my life, my soul, in her hands. I entrusted to her my virtue, and now, in this trying time, in this moment of weakness, so far removed from her presence, my trust in her must be absolute. The future is just that, a dim possibility, the faintest, tiniest chance that all the effort and resolve, all the tears and torment will lead to happiness. My feelings for her are unequaled in my life. I have never met anyone as perfect as she is to me, her simmering humanity, her sharp wit, her twinkling smile, her cunning, her kindness, her fragile strength. If I should find myself without her, if my efforts have been in vain, I will live out my life in tragic discontentment, knowing always that the Perfect Woman chose another man over me.
I will not lay blame. I will not point fingers. My virtue will be intact until the day I draw my last breath. I will never abandon your side, Eliza. Under neither duress nor coercion will I lay aside my proclaimed duty toward you. My heart is in your hands. It has been broken before. It has been crushed many times. A spark burns within it, however, the spark of loyalty, of kinship, of trust. I put that spark there the night I made my pledge, and only the Eternal Tao can stamp it out.
Sleep well, my darling. JP
By giving that pledge, I abandoned any sort of control. By presenting that pledge to her, I placed my life, my soul, in her hands. I entrusted to her my virtue, and now, in this trying time, in this moment of weakness, so far removed from her presence, my trust in her must be absolute. The future is just that, a dim possibility, the faintest, tiniest chance that all the effort and resolve, all the tears and torment will lead to happiness. My feelings for her are unequaled in my life. I have never met anyone as perfect as she is to me, her simmering humanity, her sharp wit, her twinkling smile, her cunning, her kindness, her fragile strength. If I should find myself without her, if my efforts have been in vain, I will live out my life in tragic discontentment, knowing always that the Perfect Woman chose another man over me.
I will not lay blame. I will not point fingers. My virtue will be intact until the day I draw my last breath. I will never abandon your side, Eliza. Under neither duress nor coercion will I lay aside my proclaimed duty toward you. My heart is in your hands. It has been broken before. It has been crushed many times. A spark burns within it, however, the spark of loyalty, of kinship, of trust. I put that spark there the night I made my pledge, and only the Eternal Tao can stamp it out.
Sleep well, my darling. JP
26 August 2009
milkweed
My mood today has been strangely stable. I have not had to rebuild after a devastating attack of self-torment. I can suddenly feel my future stabilizing. The lines of fate spreading from the present appear less torturous and knotted than those stretching into the past. I have not suffered a wave of sorrow regarding Eliza. Perhaps this is because I understand her reasons for calling things off. Perhaps I finally trust that she and I will one day be together, regardless of how much I want it to happen immediately. Perhaps I have finally stopped trying to control the future, and have come to terms with the fact that things will happen as they are supposed to happen.
Just a few weeks after my father passed away, I now inhabit his country estate, a verdant valley packed full of deer, frogs, hawks, and all manner of insects. A thousand different shades of green assault the eye each morning. Buzzing, clicking, and chirping insects fill the air with constant sound. The good dark earth parts easily under my spade. The stream, clear, swift, and full of tiny living things, gurgles twenty feet from the front porch. The light blue paint curls and chips off the pine shingles, and a small bush is growing out of the rain gutter over the rear patio.
I am separating the wheat from the chaff, the things of emotional or material value from the detritus accumulated over time. My father was a child of war rationing. His house is full of things that would be useful if the world went to shit tomorrow. The barn is full of tools and books for planting and maintaining crops. The .22 rifle, with scope, is lovingly oiled, a box of bullets nearby. His ashes sit in his bedroom, fifteen feet from where I now sit. I have placed his flag and Navy officer’s cap atop the small but heavy wooden box, something I think he would like. I miss him dearly, more than I ever thought I would. I still expect him to come through the front door, or come stumbling out of the bathroom in his robe, but those memories will fade with time.
When I moved here at the end of last year, a single milkweed had sprouted from under the concrete in front of the basement door. My father explained what the plant did, and made it clear that it was not to be disturbed. Today, after rebuilding my modest wattle-and-backfill dam across the stream, I stopped to examine the plant. What started as a small plant not four feet tall has grown into two stalks eight feet high, each sporting numerous healthy pods. A bit of movement caught my eye. On closer inspection, I discovered five Monarch butterfly caterpillars lazily drinking sap, their tails wiggling every so often. I take this as a final nod from my father. This is his last gift to me, the glorious transformation of these small wriggling things into stately masters of the air, right on my doorstep. I will monitor their progress. I will protect the plant, and when they depart, I will rejoice as their red and black wings bearing my father’s soul to rest in heaven.
Requiescat in pace, GHWR. X
Just a few weeks after my father passed away, I now inhabit his country estate, a verdant valley packed full of deer, frogs, hawks, and all manner of insects. A thousand different shades of green assault the eye each morning. Buzzing, clicking, and chirping insects fill the air with constant sound. The good dark earth parts easily under my spade. The stream, clear, swift, and full of tiny living things, gurgles twenty feet from the front porch. The light blue paint curls and chips off the pine shingles, and a small bush is growing out of the rain gutter over the rear patio.
I am separating the wheat from the chaff, the things of emotional or material value from the detritus accumulated over time. My father was a child of war rationing. His house is full of things that would be useful if the world went to shit tomorrow. The barn is full of tools and books for planting and maintaining crops. The .22 rifle, with scope, is lovingly oiled, a box of bullets nearby. His ashes sit in his bedroom, fifteen feet from where I now sit. I have placed his flag and Navy officer’s cap atop the small but heavy wooden box, something I think he would like. I miss him dearly, more than I ever thought I would. I still expect him to come through the front door, or come stumbling out of the bathroom in his robe, but those memories will fade with time.
When I moved here at the end of last year, a single milkweed had sprouted from under the concrete in front of the basement door. My father explained what the plant did, and made it clear that it was not to be disturbed. Today, after rebuilding my modest wattle-and-backfill dam across the stream, I stopped to examine the plant. What started as a small plant not four feet tall has grown into two stalks eight feet high, each sporting numerous healthy pods. A bit of movement caught my eye. On closer inspection, I discovered five Monarch butterfly caterpillars lazily drinking sap, their tails wiggling every so often. I take this as a final nod from my father. This is his last gift to me, the glorious transformation of these small wriggling things into stately masters of the air, right on my doorstep. I will monitor their progress. I will protect the plant, and when they depart, I will rejoice as their red and black wings bearing my father’s soul to rest in heaven.
Requiescat in pace, GHWR. X
10 August 2009
shifting fortunes
How does one deal with shifting fortunes, with the highs and lows of daily life? My first instinct is to blame myself, falling into patterns of thought and behavior that lead straight to heartbreak and woe, self-torment of the most vicious and destructive sort. How do you let someone go who you consider to be the ultimate person, that woman with whom you want to spend the rest of your life? How do you act when she tells you that she is not ready for you now, that she enjoys her life without you in it more than she would enjoy it with you in it? Is it courage that keeps me from calling her, that prevents me from reaching out, or is it the knowledge that any action on my part will lead to naught, to further damage to our potential common future?
I am exhausted from her constant refusals, from the weeks of hanging on a thread, hoping beyond hope that she will come around and say to me that she is ready for Us to begin. It was selfish of her to keep me guessing, but I am also to blame, as I refused to read the writing on the wall and accept her unwillingness to commit. She has always had every right to do what she pleases, and I was a fool to hope I could convince her of my worth, my ability to provide her with a bright and shining future, just by being around her, by sharing time with her. Losing my job did not help things, for my ability to invite her to dinner or pay for activities virtually disappeared. I have never been good with money, and I did not reach the point where I was saving enough each paycheck to allow me not to have money for any extended point in time.
For these two events to occur so closely together is a blow from which I am still reeling, a shock to my self-esteem, my self-image, my faith in myself as a functioning member of society. I need her in my life. Her presence gives me great joy. I love every ounce of her being. It has been extremely hard for me to visualize my life without her. Will I settle for a lesser woman? Will Eliza find another man, one who can fulfill her needs without placing any demand on her for the fulfillment of his own needs? Or is it something about me that kept her from committing? Is it my lack of a career, of a clear and chosen path which I will follow? Why has my writing been suffering so? Is it because I was so focused on winning her that everything else in my life took second fiddle? Perhaps. Constant refusal leads to constant reevaluation of self. I cannot imaging working on the book in any serious capacity, although I know it can be successful, that my desire to transform America as we know it still burns deep within my soul. The confidence to work on the book will come with time. As the pain of losing her creeps out of my heart of hearts, I will be able to pour more effort into a more practical future, the realization of my dream of life as a writer. For now, however, I will ease my way back into it. This writing is a start. I wish her the best. Her happiness is more important to me than many things in life, and if this path leads to the fulfillment of that happiness, my loss and my suffering is worth it. May the winds of fortune shine upon you, Eliza, and may you remember me fondly. Perhaps we will make a fresh go at it, a new start at what we both know could be a bright and happy future. I cannot hope for you to return to me, only that I can find the reasons to love myself enough to be ready if you ever decide that you are ready.
Tao chapter 48:
To win the world, one must renounce all.
If one still has private ends to serve,
One will never be able to win the world.
I am exhausted from her constant refusals, from the weeks of hanging on a thread, hoping beyond hope that she will come around and say to me that she is ready for Us to begin. It was selfish of her to keep me guessing, but I am also to blame, as I refused to read the writing on the wall and accept her unwillingness to commit. She has always had every right to do what she pleases, and I was a fool to hope I could convince her of my worth, my ability to provide her with a bright and shining future, just by being around her, by sharing time with her. Losing my job did not help things, for my ability to invite her to dinner or pay for activities virtually disappeared. I have never been good with money, and I did not reach the point where I was saving enough each paycheck to allow me not to have money for any extended point in time.
For these two events to occur so closely together is a blow from which I am still reeling, a shock to my self-esteem, my self-image, my faith in myself as a functioning member of society. I need her in my life. Her presence gives me great joy. I love every ounce of her being. It has been extremely hard for me to visualize my life without her. Will I settle for a lesser woman? Will Eliza find another man, one who can fulfill her needs without placing any demand on her for the fulfillment of his own needs? Or is it something about me that kept her from committing? Is it my lack of a career, of a clear and chosen path which I will follow? Why has my writing been suffering so? Is it because I was so focused on winning her that everything else in my life took second fiddle? Perhaps. Constant refusal leads to constant reevaluation of self. I cannot imaging working on the book in any serious capacity, although I know it can be successful, that my desire to transform America as we know it still burns deep within my soul. The confidence to work on the book will come with time. As the pain of losing her creeps out of my heart of hearts, I will be able to pour more effort into a more practical future, the realization of my dream of life as a writer. For now, however, I will ease my way back into it. This writing is a start. I wish her the best. Her happiness is more important to me than many things in life, and if this path leads to the fulfillment of that happiness, my loss and my suffering is worth it. May the winds of fortune shine upon you, Eliza, and may you remember me fondly. Perhaps we will make a fresh go at it, a new start at what we both know could be a bright and happy future. I cannot hope for you to return to me, only that I can find the reasons to love myself enough to be ready if you ever decide that you are ready.
Tao chapter 48:
To win the world, one must renounce all.
If one still has private ends to serve,
One will never be able to win the world.
04 June 2009
the storm abates
Now that the storm of torment is broken, I realize that, in my selfishness and undignified manner, I have neglected to consider that Eliza could well be having as a hard time dealing with this whole situation as I have. Lost in the forest of my soul wrenching butchery, I have blinded myself to the greater purpose of my life, and the beauty and wonder all around me. After all, it was she who suggested we should part ways, as her situation would not allow for intimacy. It was she who, in what I realize now to be a very brave and kind manner, told me all the things that are hardest to tell someone you hold dear.
Perhaps she yearns for my company as much as I have been yearning.
Perhaps her heart is as confused and sad and lonely as mine has been.
Perhaps she wonders, as I wonder, what the future holds in store.
At least I have passed the hardest test, the perhaps cruelest form of punishment known to man - shameful self-loathing. Bones heal, skin mends, but a weakened, tortured soul destroys itself in the end.
"Only simple and quiet words will ripen of themselves.
For a whirlwind does not last a whole morning,
Nor does a sudden shower last a whole day.
Who is their author? Heaven-and-Earth!
Even Heaven-and-Earth cannot make such violent things last long;
How much truer is it of the rash endeavours of men?"
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 23
Perhaps she yearns for my company as much as I have been yearning.
Perhaps her heart is as confused and sad and lonely as mine has been.
Perhaps she wonders, as I wonder, what the future holds in store.
At least I have passed the hardest test, the perhaps cruelest form of punishment known to man - shameful self-loathing. Bones heal, skin mends, but a weakened, tortured soul destroys itself in the end.
"Only simple and quiet words will ripen of themselves.
For a whirlwind does not last a whole morning,
Nor does a sudden shower last a whole day.
Who is their author? Heaven-and-Earth!
Even Heaven-and-Earth cannot make such violent things last long;
How much truer is it of the rash endeavours of men?"
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 23
03 June 2009
kalaalit nuunat
there lives in the far north, in the wild expanses of that vast island known as green, in a cave of shining crystals, bedded on a great white bear rug, encased in an eternal shell of clear beauty, a quiet but beautiful young beast, whose tender hands tell tales of past and future, never once hinting at the present, but calmly regarding the world through her steel blue eyes with the languid pleasure of one who knows that the precious essence of man lies within.
hope springs eternal
X
hope springs eternal
X
15 February 2009
on dolphins and famous people
Dolphins are similar to famous people in a few ways. First, as air breathing mammals, they both bear live offspring. Second, they both live in isolated, highly structured social groups. Third, their personal space should not be violated, but if they seek you out, mingle.
Certain laws in
Breaking bread is a memorable occasion that deepens the bonds connecting individuals. Carrying a sack of dead herring while swimming in coastal waters is impractical and potentially dangerous. Dolphins have been known to attack and kill sharks, but why risk it? You wouldn't drag a deer carcass into bear territory in hopes of attracting the bald eagle, now would you? Do not serve herring to famous people, unless it has been preserved in a nice mustard sauce. Lighter, more palatable fare is preferred, but stick to foods you can quickly prepare. Have an assortment of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages on hand, with enough cups and ice to go around. Nothing keeps people around like tasty snacks and fine drink. If the food is as good as the company, you are on the right track.
The coveted party will often appear without warning, drink his fill of the foolishness, and promptly leave. Cherish such short encounters as you would a child's first laugh or a perfect sunset: covetousness leads invariably to trouble. Remember: relationships cannot be rushed; they are built over time. Invite the famous person to your next gathering, and offer to keep them on the up and up – you just might get their contact information.
31 January 2009
Fists of Jagged Concrete
Let us start at the beginning. It is a very good place to start. I however do not know the beginning. I only know what the young man told me. When you are forced to share a cell, it is hard not to tell all. Mostly it just happens. You talk to forget the pain, the hunger. Something clicks and you have to talk; you might be dead tomorrow.
I slowly came to hate him in that cell; he hated me from the get-go. Something about my face, he said, being just plain boring. I always look now, for the boring, fearing I too will one day see it. I hated him because he never accepted his lot as cast. Ever. He never just did things the easy way, the way I had done my whole life. I slowly came to love him in that cell; he loved me from the get-go. Something about my soul, he said, shining bright and pure but always secretly yearning for the Big Sleep. I loved him because he refused to forfeit his integrity but, in the end, always managed to do just that.
He was a mess; so am I. We talked about the way things had been. The girls and the booze and the stagnating wonder of America in a dangerous new century. The days were theirs; the nights belonged to us. In slivers of moonlight I taught him chess on chips of concrete marked in our own blood. It was all we had, really: concrete and blood and the dry Southland heat.
We had only been trying to help, to clean up and rebuild after the San Andreas Fault had finally shifted, and churned the Los Angeles Basin into a froth of concrete and twisted steel. The aftershocks had been fierce, relentless. Our Sons of the American Revolution chapter had called up a ‘Phoenix Brigade,’ thirty fearless men eager to help their most desperate fellow countrymen, regardless of color, craft or creed.
We were ambushed in the smoldering rubble somewhere south of James M. Wood. Scrambling they came, the mad rush of a fearful starving mass. The very earth seemed to spit them forth, machetes flashing in the sunrise.
Why the two of us were spared is unclear. We were tortured, but what could we realistically have told them? That the Valley was still burning? Simply look to the hills, to the north, for that still-expanding wall of smoke. That FEMA was now hopelessly overwhelmed? That agency hadn’t been right since Katrina. With wildfires and extreme weather ravaging the Union, their resources had been already stretched far too thin. Maybe our captors enjoyed the torture; perhaps it becomes easy, if you push a man far enough. Maybe, they did it because someone told them to do it; maybe I will never know.
I would fix his wounds as well as I could. One day he found a needle. He learned to fix me up too, but my stitching always healed better. We scratched the walls to mark the days. They stopped feeding us. We didn’t really miss the burnt tortillas, but food is food, plain and simple. Desperate, we ate cockroaches and drank our own blood. We sucked fresh air through stress fractures in the reinforced concrete walls. Water seeped up sometimes from a broken pipe, to pool in the corner.
Like a warrior couple of antiquity we nursed, scolded, wept. We had bared all and shared all: our bond was complete. We were as close as two men can become and not want to fuck each other. Weak from hunger, we knew the end was nigh. “Jump them with fists of jagged concrete,” we whispered to each other in the dark. “Kill or be killed; at least go out swinging.” Secretly we each prayed to die defending the other. Our hearts were noble and pure and sang as one.
“Tomorrow... tomorrow.”
The next morning, twenty days after the ambush, the young man was gone. The steel door to our cell stood ajar. Drag marks and splattered blood led outside. Sparrows erupted into blinding early light, scolding me in their fright. Shifting mounds of bricks. Rubble and smoke. To the east, the Library Tower rose tall and straight amongst its crooked neighbors. I cursed myself for not having awoken in time. Wailing and tearing at my hair, I fell to my knees, cutting them among the jagged red brick. Tears rained down to mingle in the dust with the fresh blood. Gasping, my heart broke. I grabbed a brick and slammed it into my head over and over.
When I awoke the sun stood at azimuth. Blind hope flooded my being. I stumbled back inside. “He’s just hiding,” I repeated to myself, “he’s still here.” I searched for hours in the dusty heat. The needle was gone; he was gone. The crude chess pieces scraped and rattled in a pocket of my tattered fatigues; I dug a small hole and buried all but one.
As the last handful of soil drained through my fingers, I vowed to all things right and true to keep his memory – his stories – alive. Fresh tears welled. The shard of concrete marked with my blood, his blood, our blood, pulsed in my fist. I searched the heavens for some sort of sign: spotlights stabbed suddenly skyward into the failing light, caressing the Griffith Park Observatory in slow circuits.
“If only I can make it there, I will live,” I thought sadly to myself.
My name is Colonel Reginald Steele. I dedicate this to you, Luce Baine Jutland. Forgive an old man if he misses a detail or two, here and there.
If you still live, know I love you.
If you are dead, may you rest in peace.
I slowly came to hate him in that cell; he hated me from the get-go. Something about my face, he said, being just plain boring. I always look now, for the boring, fearing I too will one day see it. I hated him because he never accepted his lot as cast. Ever. He never just did things the easy way, the way I had done my whole life. I slowly came to love him in that cell; he loved me from the get-go. Something about my soul, he said, shining bright and pure but always secretly yearning for the Big Sleep. I loved him because he refused to forfeit his integrity but, in the end, always managed to do just that.
He was a mess; so am I. We talked about the way things had been. The girls and the booze and the stagnating wonder of America in a dangerous new century. The days were theirs; the nights belonged to us. In slivers of moonlight I taught him chess on chips of concrete marked in our own blood. It was all we had, really: concrete and blood and the dry Southland heat.
We had only been trying to help, to clean up and rebuild after the San Andreas Fault had finally shifted, and churned the Los Angeles Basin into a froth of concrete and twisted steel. The aftershocks had been fierce, relentless. Our Sons of the American Revolution chapter had called up a ‘Phoenix Brigade,’ thirty fearless men eager to help their most desperate fellow countrymen, regardless of color, craft or creed.
We were ambushed in the smoldering rubble somewhere south of James M. Wood. Scrambling they came, the mad rush of a fearful starving mass. The very earth seemed to spit them forth, machetes flashing in the sunrise.
Why the two of us were spared is unclear. We were tortured, but what could we realistically have told them? That the Valley was still burning? Simply look to the hills, to the north, for that still-expanding wall of smoke. That FEMA was now hopelessly overwhelmed? That agency hadn’t been right since Katrina. With wildfires and extreme weather ravaging the Union, their resources had been already stretched far too thin. Maybe our captors enjoyed the torture; perhaps it becomes easy, if you push a man far enough. Maybe, they did it because someone told them to do it; maybe I will never know.
I would fix his wounds as well as I could. One day he found a needle. He learned to fix me up too, but my stitching always healed better. We scratched the walls to mark the days. They stopped feeding us. We didn’t really miss the burnt tortillas, but food is food, plain and simple. Desperate, we ate cockroaches and drank our own blood. We sucked fresh air through stress fractures in the reinforced concrete walls. Water seeped up sometimes from a broken pipe, to pool in the corner.
Like a warrior couple of antiquity we nursed, scolded, wept. We had bared all and shared all: our bond was complete. We were as close as two men can become and not want to fuck each other. Weak from hunger, we knew the end was nigh. “Jump them with fists of jagged concrete,” we whispered to each other in the dark. “Kill or be killed; at least go out swinging.” Secretly we each prayed to die defending the other. Our hearts were noble and pure and sang as one.
“Tomorrow... tomorrow.”
The next morning, twenty days after the ambush, the young man was gone. The steel door to our cell stood ajar. Drag marks and splattered blood led outside. Sparrows erupted into blinding early light, scolding me in their fright. Shifting mounds of bricks. Rubble and smoke. To the east, the Library Tower rose tall and straight amongst its crooked neighbors. I cursed myself for not having awoken in time. Wailing and tearing at my hair, I fell to my knees, cutting them among the jagged red brick. Tears rained down to mingle in the dust with the fresh blood. Gasping, my heart broke. I grabbed a brick and slammed it into my head over and over.
When I awoke the sun stood at azimuth. Blind hope flooded my being. I stumbled back inside. “He’s just hiding,” I repeated to myself, “he’s still here.” I searched for hours in the dusty heat. The needle was gone; he was gone. The crude chess pieces scraped and rattled in a pocket of my tattered fatigues; I dug a small hole and buried all but one.
As the last handful of soil drained through my fingers, I vowed to all things right and true to keep his memory – his stories – alive. Fresh tears welled. The shard of concrete marked with my blood, his blood, our blood, pulsed in my fist. I searched the heavens for some sort of sign: spotlights stabbed suddenly skyward into the failing light, caressing the Griffith Park Observatory in slow circuits.
“If only I can make it there, I will live,” I thought sadly to myself.
My name is Colonel Reginald Steele. I dedicate this to you, Luce Baine Jutland. Forgive an old man if he misses a detail or two, here and there.
If you still live, know I love you.
If you are dead, may you rest in peace.
10 December 2008
at the precipice
when circumstance dictates your happiness
and your soul is only a sham
an amputated cesspit of loneliness
sadness far-reaching and grand
and daily you struggle with hopefulness
and daily destroyed are your plans
and you find yourself at the precipice
where future and nothingness meet
then hard is the task of restarting
your life on its daily repeat
and courage must come from the notion
"it is I who determine defeat"
19 October 2008
Exodus from LA - Day 1
Time: 3:55 pm
Grand Junction, Colorado. They exited into intense, Death Valley heat. Reginald set out for a quick walk, something to get the blood flowing again after fifteen hours of sitting. By accident he followed a few rainbow hippies wearing greasy baseball hats. When they ducked into a bar he kept right on walking. He had given up the sauce recently, due to realizations gained during an intense bout of hallucinations (a result of food poisoning from eating street tacos in Tijuana, Mexico). His soul hovers above him in space, a lozenge of cool bright neon… the components of his life like milky comets spinning slowly down and away from it. The How and the Why and the Wherefore of each event is suddenly, overwhelmingly, clear. His fifteen year affair with booze is linked to every major source of woe and failure, a thick spine running the length of many ribs.
He’d added “no more booze-houndin’” to his List of Rules.
So far, avoiding the sauce had been remarkably easy.
Grand Junctionians lounged in the shade along a newly constructed pedestrian shopping corridor. They stared at him as he passed. In LA he had relished the flamboyant anonymity, confident that people would not trouble themselves with his presence. But that is no longer the case, old friend, he thought as he walked among them. So let them stare. Take it as a compliment – no sane person would ever wear sunglasses like these.
The bus was not ready when he returned. Charlene had changed clothes. Her gaggle had dwindled to two diehards. Reginald munched generic Runts candy (a perfect early dessert) and waited with the other passengers. The candies are cheap and if you know how to wiggle the dispenser just right, like Steele does, you can get more of them than intended. Separate little groups of travelers all watched the news together: recycled political videobites; and updates on the latest national disaster…
Captain Fearmongery, may I introduce, Her Majesty – Lady Despair.
The combination ticket counter/snack bar was closing down with a kind of hopeful reluctance. The bus departed twenty minutes late.
They eased back onto the road, dipping and climbing deeper into the Rockies. Reginald had been tempted to talk to a few of the cooler-looking hippies in Grand Junction but was afraid he would burst into tears at any moment. The earplugs had remained in place. They were working quite well as single-serving friend repellant.
A rumble passed through his gut. He drank the last of his water and concentrated on the hunger, felt it, followed it along the peripheral nervous pathways all the way up to his brain and forced it to go away, to stop bothering him.
Hunger is weakness, and the Poor can’t afford to be weak.
A few hours later, in Glenwood Springs, he bought a bag of chips and a candy bar. Denver was still a good way off. He yearned to be there already, to be away from Charlene and the rainbows sneaking off to smoke weed, away from people who needed nicotine so badly, away from simple conversations and lighthearted banter. Something deep inside him knew that Denver was the fulcrum, that place where things would change, where he wouldn’t have to be so damn sad all the time.
Thunderclouds were passing low overhead, creeping westward. He hadn’t seen rain in months – summers in the Los Angeles Basin can be quite dry. Static discharge flashed and rumbled through the deep surrounding valleys. The air had that unique post-rain coolness to it. He stood by a bunch of trees to one side of the gas station’s gravel parking-lot. It occurred to him that he could be hit by the lightning and should seek cover.
The internal war was brief – his depressive mind won. I’ll just stand out here in the open by these tall trees for a while with lightning flashing overhead, he thought. Just then, the setting sun burst through an unseen gap. It set the fringes of the dark flashing thunderheads aglow in a riot of orange and gold.
His heart leapt and he was cheered. He realized that it mattered not if he got hit; nor if he got back on the bus; nor if he ever saw LA again.
The beginnings of an actual smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
If I do get hit by lightning, he thought; at least I’ll have seen that.
Grand Junction, Colorado. They exited into intense, Death Valley heat. Reginald set out for a quick walk, something to get the blood flowing again after fifteen hours of sitting. By accident he followed a few rainbow hippies wearing greasy baseball hats. When they ducked into a bar he kept right on walking. He had given up the sauce recently, due to realizations gained during an intense bout of hallucinations (a result of food poisoning from eating street tacos in Tijuana, Mexico). His soul hovers above him in space, a lozenge of cool bright neon… the components of his life like milky comets spinning slowly down and away from it. The How and the Why and the Wherefore of each event is suddenly, overwhelmingly, clear. His fifteen year affair with booze is linked to every major source of woe and failure, a thick spine running the length of many ribs.
He’d added “no more booze-houndin’” to his List of Rules.
So far, avoiding the sauce had been remarkably easy.
Grand Junctionians lounged in the shade along a newly constructed pedestrian shopping corridor. They stared at him as he passed. In LA he had relished the flamboyant anonymity, confident that people would not trouble themselves with his presence. But that is no longer the case, old friend, he thought as he walked among them. So let them stare. Take it as a compliment – no sane person would ever wear sunglasses like these.
The bus was not ready when he returned. Charlene had changed clothes. Her gaggle had dwindled to two diehards. Reginald munched generic Runts candy (a perfect early dessert) and waited with the other passengers. The candies are cheap and if you know how to wiggle the dispenser just right, like Steele does, you can get more of them than intended. Separate little groups of travelers all watched the news together: recycled political videobites; and updates on the latest national disaster…
Captain Fearmongery, may I introduce, Her Majesty – Lady Despair.
The combination ticket counter/snack bar was closing down with a kind of hopeful reluctance. The bus departed twenty minutes late.
They eased back onto the road, dipping and climbing deeper into the Rockies. Reginald had been tempted to talk to a few of the cooler-looking hippies in Grand Junction but was afraid he would burst into tears at any moment. The earplugs had remained in place. They were working quite well as single-serving friend repellant.
A rumble passed through his gut. He drank the last of his water and concentrated on the hunger, felt it, followed it along the peripheral nervous pathways all the way up to his brain and forced it to go away, to stop bothering him.
Hunger is weakness, and the Poor can’t afford to be weak.
A few hours later, in Glenwood Springs, he bought a bag of chips and a candy bar. Denver was still a good way off. He yearned to be there already, to be away from Charlene and the rainbows sneaking off to smoke weed, away from people who needed nicotine so badly, away from simple conversations and lighthearted banter. Something deep inside him knew that Denver was the fulcrum, that place where things would change, where he wouldn’t have to be so damn sad all the time.
Thunderclouds were passing low overhead, creeping westward. He hadn’t seen rain in months – summers in the Los Angeles Basin can be quite dry. Static discharge flashed and rumbled through the deep surrounding valleys. The air had that unique post-rain coolness to it. He stood by a bunch of trees to one side of the gas station’s gravel parking-lot. It occurred to him that he could be hit by the lightning and should seek cover.
The internal war was brief – his depressive mind won. I’ll just stand out here in the open by these tall trees for a while with lightning flashing overhead, he thought. Just then, the setting sun burst through an unseen gap. It set the fringes of the dark flashing thunderheads aglow in a riot of orange and gold.
His heart leapt and he was cheered. He realized that it mattered not if he got hit; nor if he got back on the bus; nor if he ever saw LA again.
The beginnings of an actual smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
If I do get hit by lightning, he thought; at least I’ll have seen that.
01 May 2008
Focused Ramblings of a Sad Sad Little Monkey
I woke up for the fiftieth time this morning and finally realized why I had been woken up the other forty nine. My smoke detector had been chirping and beeping throughout the night, ripping me from sweet repose into a sort of half waking over and over again.
To add to this I’ve been in perpetual torment since last Friday when I went on a date with a wonderful gorgeous college girl in Westwood. I had brought up my mom being dead now seven years and went from thoroughly enjoying her presence and the evening to catatonic despair, fearing she would see that I have emotions and things I haven’t worked out yet and would not want to deal with it. As we left together and parted ways, I froze like Bambi facing a semi and DIDN’T go in for the kiss which I could tell she wanted. Her face fell and my heart broke and I just wanted to die right there on the spot. She hasn’t gotten back to me since sand I’m killing myself inside, cursing my foolishness and lamenting the loss of such a being perfectly shaped to my highest standards. Oh woe is me. I’m out of Aderall too and can’t picture leading a successful and productive life without it and the constant struggle I face with addiction and my desire to write but difficulty doing so and today’s been not great.
I’m lost and sad and curse myself every second for not being good enough or quick enough or just plain stable enough to begin a good relationship with this knockout chick. And then in all my grief I think back to the day I got busted for heavy armed robbery and my dad sat me down at the dinner table with my mom and sister and proceeded to categorically break me down. He broke me all right and I snapped and have since lost that burning driving confidence and love for self that I see shining in so many other people and had to build my psyche and self esteem back up but I think I messed up along the way. I didn’t ask for help and no one offered it really and now when my chips are down and I’m depressed I can’t help but thinking thoughts of death and just plain wanting to give up. But I can’t give up because it would break my sister’s heart and my brother needs and loves me too so I push on and try to write, try to find some meaning in my life or some sort of goal. But I keep crying and just started again and am wearing sunglasses not so people won’t know but so they’ll leave me alone. I’m a selfish bastard with tears on his cheeks sitting on Prospect and Vermont trying desperately not to fall in love with every gone girl I see and trying to write shit down and make some sense out of things. And all I want is a nice pretty girl who’ll LISTEN to me and accept me for who I am mostly and I saw her on Friday but my mind got in the way and totally fucked me over, and now that it seems I’ve lost her I just want to get shanked in some street fight over something trivial and die in an alley forgotten and unloved or steal a car and jerk the wheel into a goddam bridge embankment.
I’m still really mad at my dad for what he did and should tell him and explain the consequences of his selfish act and forgive him and maybe love him again and I have to hurry before his lungs give out and he dies too. But I may never forgive him for how he tormented Mom on her death bed, complaining over and over about her wanting to die in the States close to her family and how thing’s would’ve been much better had they stayed in Germany. But she’s dead now and I miss her so much and just want to make her proud but it’s too late for that and who the fuck cares anyway. People do care but I can’t seem to care for myself enough to get real help from a professional and try to get my head straight because every time something good seems to happen in my life a deep dark part of me licks out and sabotages it and I downspiral into self pity and - loathing. I don’t talk to people about this because I don’t want to burden them but I have to if I want to be sane and productive, and my whole life I’ve been trying to be accommodating and nice but that gets you nowhere and you just wind up sacrificing yourself for others’ sake and then they leave you or you leave them or they forget but I never forget and then they don’t appreciate you anymore and that just freaks me out too.
I sold a bunch of stock recently, mortgaging my future per se, but I used it to pay off a lot of debt and thought that would reduce the stress and help me focus a bit but it hasn’t really yet because I’m still stressing about a lot of other stuff and feel powerless to fix it. Things like my apartment in gang territory and all the roaches and stopped-up sink that plague me there, and the fact that I’m not pursuing some career at some bullshit corporation like society tells me to and which I could have been doing but now can’t even bear thinking about. - I had to come inside just now because some fag with a high nasal voice started talking right in front of me and checking me out and normally I don’t mind gays at all but I almost went over and shoved my pen in his eye. - So I’m a sad sad little monkey today and just fell in love but won’t talk to her because I’ll probably just start sputtering and cry and she’ll laugh at me or just ignore me and leave.
There are three main aspects to my personality: a) the wolf b) the jester c) the scholar. Not long ago I realized the scholar had gone bye bye for a bit and I’d been running on jester and wolf, who are good for smashing and maiming and insults and showboating and boasting, but a tripod can’t stand on two legs so I’ve been coaxing the scholar back but I think he’s scared, still reeling from the tumult and chaos of my life recently. I’m scared too but together we’ll march on, two steps forward a mile back, never giving ground but always losing it. The moments pass and I sit here and see everyone and watch no one and try to find room in my heart to love myself again. Oh woe is me.
JPR 4/30/‘08
To add to this I’ve been in perpetual torment since last Friday when I went on a date with a wonderful gorgeous college girl in Westwood. I had brought up my mom being dead now seven years and went from thoroughly enjoying her presence and the evening to catatonic despair, fearing she would see that I have emotions and things I haven’t worked out yet and would not want to deal with it. As we left together and parted ways, I froze like Bambi facing a semi and DIDN’T go in for the kiss which I could tell she wanted. Her face fell and my heart broke and I just wanted to die right there on the spot. She hasn’t gotten back to me since sand I’m killing myself inside, cursing my foolishness and lamenting the loss of such a being perfectly shaped to my highest standards. Oh woe is me. I’m out of Aderall too and can’t picture leading a successful and productive life without it and the constant struggle I face with addiction and my desire to write but difficulty doing so and today’s been not great.
I’m lost and sad and curse myself every second for not being good enough or quick enough or just plain stable enough to begin a good relationship with this knockout chick. And then in all my grief I think back to the day I got busted for heavy armed robbery and my dad sat me down at the dinner table with my mom and sister and proceeded to categorically break me down. He broke me all right and I snapped and have since lost that burning driving confidence and love for self that I see shining in so many other people and had to build my psyche and self esteem back up but I think I messed up along the way. I didn’t ask for help and no one offered it really and now when my chips are down and I’m depressed I can’t help but thinking thoughts of death and just plain wanting to give up. But I can’t give up because it would break my sister’s heart and my brother needs and loves me too so I push on and try to write, try to find some meaning in my life or some sort of goal. But I keep crying and just started again and am wearing sunglasses not so people won’t know but so they’ll leave me alone. I’m a selfish bastard with tears on his cheeks sitting on Prospect and Vermont trying desperately not to fall in love with every gone girl I see and trying to write shit down and make some sense out of things. And all I want is a nice pretty girl who’ll LISTEN to me and accept me for who I am mostly and I saw her on Friday but my mind got in the way and totally fucked me over, and now that it seems I’ve lost her I just want to get shanked in some street fight over something trivial and die in an alley forgotten and unloved or steal a car and jerk the wheel into a goddam bridge embankment.
I’m still really mad at my dad for what he did and should tell him and explain the consequences of his selfish act and forgive him and maybe love him again and I have to hurry before his lungs give out and he dies too. But I may never forgive him for how he tormented Mom on her death bed, complaining over and over about her wanting to die in the States close to her family and how thing’s would’ve been much better had they stayed in Germany. But she’s dead now and I miss her so much and just want to make her proud but it’s too late for that and who the fuck cares anyway. People do care but I can’t seem to care for myself enough to get real help from a professional and try to get my head straight because every time something good seems to happen in my life a deep dark part of me licks out and sabotages it and I downspiral into self pity and - loathing. I don’t talk to people about this because I don’t want to burden them but I have to if I want to be sane and productive, and my whole life I’ve been trying to be accommodating and nice but that gets you nowhere and you just wind up sacrificing yourself for others’ sake and then they leave you or you leave them or they forget but I never forget and then they don’t appreciate you anymore and that just freaks me out too.
I sold a bunch of stock recently, mortgaging my future per se, but I used it to pay off a lot of debt and thought that would reduce the stress and help me focus a bit but it hasn’t really yet because I’m still stressing about a lot of other stuff and feel powerless to fix it. Things like my apartment in gang territory and all the roaches and stopped-up sink that plague me there, and the fact that I’m not pursuing some career at some bullshit corporation like society tells me to and which I could have been doing but now can’t even bear thinking about. - I had to come inside just now because some fag with a high nasal voice started talking right in front of me and checking me out and normally I don’t mind gays at all but I almost went over and shoved my pen in his eye. - So I’m a sad sad little monkey today and just fell in love but won’t talk to her because I’ll probably just start sputtering and cry and she’ll laugh at me or just ignore me and leave.
There are three main aspects to my personality: a) the wolf b) the jester c) the scholar. Not long ago I realized the scholar had gone bye bye for a bit and I’d been running on jester and wolf, who are good for smashing and maiming and insults and showboating and boasting, but a tripod can’t stand on two legs so I’ve been coaxing the scholar back but I think he’s scared, still reeling from the tumult and chaos of my life recently. I’m scared too but together we’ll march on, two steps forward a mile back, never giving ground but always losing it. The moments pass and I sit here and see everyone and watch no one and try to find room in my heart to love myself again. Oh woe is me.
JPR 4/30/‘08
19 April 2007
16 February 2007
damn the eyes of the curious
Damn the eyes of the curious
Searching with clandestine affect
As simple changes wield unexpected results
Adding the hint of unspoken lust to a stolen glance
Choose the retrograde, the rough path
Undauntedly challenging each crag and defile,
Each moment a tangle of the past woven
Into the roiling chaos of next moment's wakening
Steering confidently into the future
All the while grasping for a rain soaked pearl
Peace must be made, the three conjoined
And what emerges; bright gleam on humanity;
mudscraping whore; cannot be foretold
ultima ratio regum. X
interlude - project inferno - "on purpose"
As far as I can put things together, there is no predestined fate, no red thread that you've been dragging behind you all along. Far from unintentionally leading to a way out, to some sort of salvation, this string can become tangled along the way, and get you in far worse trouble than you would be without it.
The damn thing about a sense of purpose is that it is unequally distributed among us. Some possess of it from the start. They inhale it with their first breath. But for some, it must be learned, earned. And in a way, I'm happier for knowing that I must earn it, that it will not be vomited into my lap. Because otherwise, the confidence and drive would be neither so savory, nor so elusive.
Life in this foul, fast world however conveys a false sense of purpose. So easy is it to set your standards to that which you can achieve. But the unattainable must be targeted, must be the apple of your eye. If you reach it, and have got what you desired, and are happy with that, well done and many proud slaps on the back. But at times along the way, something else pops up, and looks more interesting, perhaps even easier. So follow that path, see where it goes, find that trough of muddy gold.
Many troughs lead off of the main way. They promise many things, many nice things that you might very well be happy with. But those paths tend to disappoint.
What happened to the dusty, gritty days of this country's youth? When you had to hammer/shoot/drive your way to the heart of the American dream, your own worst enemy? I say those times haven't gone. The dusty, gritty days are upon us, and you'd best specialize in something, dentistry, hogfarming, CNET IT solutions, whatever. No one wants a jack of all trades. They want someone with a clear set of characteristics that they can understand. but don't give them that luxury. keep them on their toes. send one volley after another of predictable response, then dive off into the utterly insane. be sure to come back, though, quick, so they're not sure if they're going batshit, or if you are.
ulrare. JP
The damn thing about a sense of purpose is that it is unequally distributed among us. Some possess of it from the start. They inhale it with their first breath. But for some, it must be learned, earned. And in a way, I'm happier for knowing that I must earn it, that it will not be vomited into my lap. Because otherwise, the confidence and drive would be neither so savory, nor so elusive.
Life in this foul, fast world however conveys a false sense of purpose. So easy is it to set your standards to that which you can achieve. But the unattainable must be targeted, must be the apple of your eye. If you reach it, and have got what you desired, and are happy with that, well done and many proud slaps on the back. But at times along the way, something else pops up, and looks more interesting, perhaps even easier. So follow that path, see where it goes, find that trough of muddy gold.
Many troughs lead off of the main way. They promise many things, many nice things that you might very well be happy with. But those paths tend to disappoint.
What happened to the dusty, gritty days of this country's youth? When you had to hammer/shoot/drive your way to the heart of the American dream, your own worst enemy? I say those times haven't gone. The dusty, gritty days are upon us, and you'd best specialize in something, dentistry, hogfarming, CNET IT solutions, whatever. No one wants a jack of all trades. They want someone with a clear set of characteristics that they can understand. but don't give them that luxury. keep them on their toes. send one volley after another of predictable response, then dive off into the utterly insane. be sure to come back, though, quick, so they're not sure if they're going batshit, or if you are.
ulrare. JP
03 January 2007
the antediluvian
The Antediluvian
In the land of the pretentious, the humble man stumbles
Upon the need to become self consumed.
Choosing flashy new clothes, he ignores the rumbles
His stomach makes, so as not to be marooned
On an island of discontent.
Blind he seems to other and virtuous paths
That on his death bed would give repose
Instead the easy life beckons, drugs and laughs
Cheat him of a shining glory that once rose
From his presence, when darkness in twain was rent
What far-off goal beckons past the borders of this land
But the sum of his life’s choices, each small path
Running over the next, so any slight of hand
Could one day see him exalted, the other an epitaph
Worn by ages, its message spent
Whence take the guidance to choose a course
If those around make decisions just as rash?
Seek then the primal, like water yearn to sluice
Ever lower, with slow violence down to crash
The flimsy pillars of conviction proven bent
Perhaps he on his white horse will claim you first
And the pains of life will cease for good
Then that patient wrath will cook your blood
And leave the soul to wander, evermore, in constant thirst,
Worn by apathy, its options spent
Stumble then, onward, never admit defeat
Hold ye close of knowledge every bite
And from your idea of self not one step retreat!
Of advice, be it quick, sharp or light
Be wary, for wrong directions it may have lent
So rest now, fain wanderer
For just a moment; look up, search the sky
And give us a newborn’s smile before you die
Mahalo. JPR
In the land of the pretentious, the humble man stumbles
Upon the need to become self consumed.
Choosing flashy new clothes, he ignores the rumbles
His stomach makes, so as not to be marooned
On an island of discontent.
Blind he seems to other and virtuous paths
That on his death bed would give repose
Instead the easy life beckons, drugs and laughs
Cheat him of a shining glory that once rose
From his presence, when darkness in twain was rent
What far-off goal beckons past the borders of this land
But the sum of his life’s choices, each small path
Running over the next, so any slight of hand
Could one day see him exalted, the other an epitaph
Worn by ages, its message spent
Whence take the guidance to choose a course
If those around make decisions just as rash?
Seek then the primal, like water yearn to sluice
Ever lower, with slow violence down to crash
The flimsy pillars of conviction proven bent
Perhaps he on his white horse will claim you first
And the pains of life will cease for good
Then that patient wrath will cook your blood
And leave the soul to wander, evermore, in constant thirst,
Worn by apathy, its options spent
Stumble then, onward, never admit defeat
Hold ye close of knowledge every bite
And from your idea of self not one step retreat!
Of advice, be it quick, sharp or light
Be wary, for wrong directions it may have lent
So rest now, fain wanderer
For just a moment; look up, search the sky
And give us a newborn’s smile before you die
Mahalo. JPR
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