Category: personal

Categories
love personal

The hiatus is back off, again

The house is strangely empty as I prepare my departure. Only one week now. The dining room table is gone, as is the futon, the chest in the movie room, drawers and plants. Too empty to be austere. Emily and I have spent time together these last couple days, preparing for the best of all possible break-ups … still a break-up and I shouldn’t try to fool myself about that.

People at work threw me a bonfire going-away party.
It was an eye-opener, but these things always
come too late. Too late, really, to discover
the humanity surrounding those I work with.
Soon enough, they’ll be but shadows in my memories,
as I will be in theirs.

Categories
personal poetic

Haiku You

Post-work ritual:
porch-sit sunset,
cigarette and a beer.

Categories
personal

Happy Bastille Day!

Today, July 14th, is France’s Independence Day, also called Bastille Day. For a brief summary of the significance and history of this day, click here.

I, for one, think that France is awesome.

Holy crap, Theo! It’s a picture of the St. James!

Lyon is my favorite city in France, and Vieux Lyon is my favorite part of Lyon (and where I lived for about two months). Just above La Place de la Baleine, to be exact. Good times.

My Favorite Museum in Paris
French Cinema
Club des Poetes
French blogger nearly arrested
Fromage et Vin
French Comics

That’s enough for now, I suppose. Go France!

Categories
book cinema music personal

No such word as “cipitate”

Today, the sky precipitates cipitation.
It’s as if a mist hasn’t exactly fallen,
but risen from the ground up –
invisible and damp and thick.
My lungs feel like sponges,
tarred and viscid;
my heart beats double-time to keep up.

We have, tentatively, a house in Olympia.
A nice 4-bedroom westside mansion,
except much, much smaller than a mansion,
and it needs some yard-work.
Still, can’t beat the rent.

On the big speakers: Joss Stone
Reading: Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World;
Haruki Murakami

Last night I cleaned some,
made some phone calls,
and watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Things to do in Olympia when I’m dead:
Swing-Dance: no idea how active the swing scene is now.
French: tutor, speak, translate, read – rediscover.
Madden: kick some butt.
Write: I’ve got some good ideas brewing.
Laser-tag: ’cause Evergreen is the best damned battleground.
Poetry: there should still be an open mike or two around.
Guitar: actual, real lessons, so I don’t play like an ass.
Aikido: if I can swing it, financially.

The hypotenuse of an hypothesis is
the shortest distance between two ideas.
Or the longest.
I just felt like saying that.

Categories
love personal work

My endless numbered day off

Sometimes it’s difficult to keep silence at bay.
It threatens to overwhelm me.
Especially this long Friday,
my day off. The house is empty,
save for Moko and I. The Sun makes
fraudulent attempts at cheer –
sunlight and shadow, coins and paradox,
everywhere elements of duality.

Today my car got its “summer care” package.
A first step in what may soon become
a mad flurry of activity, centered around
my leave-taking. I am ready for a new beginning,
but am forced to procrastination.
A work-ethic sense of responsibility,
to a job that’s never given reason to
deserve it. True, I enjoyed my job;
and I am leaving none too soon.
Responsibility and compensation;
an employment duality. It is too often
skewed towards responsibility.
Compensation gets the shaft.
What a world, what a world.

Two Mormon missionaries came to my doorstep today.
I stood out on the porch and spoke with them
for about 10 minutes. I told them that I
was in a good place, spiritually, and that I
begrudged no-one the right to their own beliefs.
They said it was nice to talk to people,
even those like myself who had no particular interest
in church; better than getting doors slammed in their faces.
They were nice, and it served me well to remember:
we are all suffering through our own experiences,
fighting to determine our unique senses of humanity.
Make the best of today, speak with the people
who knock on your door. Belief systems aside,
we are all struggling to be human.
Existential to the bone, am I.

The Oberlin Library is going through something similar
to what the Grafton Library is going through.
The Board meets, middle management is cut –
everyone will do everything like a true
communist state. But again, compensation is never equal.
All these decision-makers, deliberating,
and they’ve no idea how a library runs.
Those who run the scut-work of 9-5 understand;
and are kept far from the decision-making process.

Olympia beckons like a dream;
one with too much reality.
After all, these are not the problems
of living in a certain place.
These are the questions that haunt my humanity.
They will surely follow me.

Emily keeps me at bay.
We held each other for an hour,
shared a beautiful moment – now
she wants nothing that will make
parting more painful.
I want anything that will make
these last two weeks less so.

The fatal difference of perspectives.

Categories
personal poetic work

The closing breaths of a long weekend

This weekend, I basked in unrepentant sloth:
watched movies, read, blogged and surfed and emailed;
I captured the very essence of laze.

Now this long weekend pulls its closing breath,
toil and bustle are my bunk-mates for the week;
raucous, crude and ignoble beasts.
I’ve little choice in the matter.
As with us all, the basest demands of
our humanity: eat, sleep, warm;
in turn demand industry, the
scutwork of nine-to-five –
thrum-thrum-thrum – and heartbeats
measure seconds in the work-day,
and seconds count the long hours down;
but slowly. The work-week is time’s
opportunity for indolence; it passes sluggishly.

ENOUGH!

It’s little use to bask in my drudgery.
My fingers are neither cracked nor raw
from long days in cotton fields.
I’ve known no days under hot suns,
amidst stinging insects and sugar-cane.
Every step of every day has been my own
and I will allow no regrets to cast
their shadows over the journeys that lay ahead.

The inchworm inches.
Ibsen idly switches
Pavlov’s hitches:
machines to measure men,
not bitches.
A heartbeat frantic twitches;
no pedantic riches halt –
time moves in stitches,
inching inches which is
over time, feet.
The road is lined with ditches,
niches, and is miles long.
Over time, the inchworm inched,
flinched,
and finished;
a journey of a few feet,
yet still –
complete.

Categories
love music personal

“Love and some verses”

“Love is a dress that you made
Long to hide your knees
Love to say this to your face
I love you only
For your days and excitement
What will you keep for to wear?
Someday drawing you different
May I be weaved in your hair

Love and some verses you hear
Say what you can say
Love to say this in your ear
I’ll love you that way
From your changing contentment
What will you choose for to share?
Someday drawing you different
May I be weaved in your hair”

– Iron & Wine, “Love and some verses”

A quiet night – no thunder over my lawn,
mini-lightning strikes feel soft,
like pillows to rest my thoughts.
I’d lie in bed,
curved at the stomach and
hungry, but
I know I will go unsoothed.

Instead, I sit out on the deck,
watch lightning strike –
like it once did.

Categories
book cinema personal

Trippin’ the energy electric

Winds blowing strong, and I hear thunder in the distance. We get a lot of false warnings here, thunderclaps in the background and blows past us, miles away. I hope it blows directly over my head. I could use a good thunderstorm.

I finished watching the first season of “24″ last night. Absolutely amazing series; but, as all things that run for so long and then end, the ending itself was a let-down. It reminds me of the anime series “Berserk”, where none of the main characters die at any point during the show, so you expect them to live through it all, and then BAM! – everyone, EVERYONE! dies in the last two episodes. “Cowboy Bebop” kills off Spike in the last episode; and “Neon Genesis: Evangelion” – hoo boy, I don’t even want to talk about that ending (though I guess there is a new ending I haven’t seen yet). Having invested so much time in these series, a crappy ending really is a huge let-down. Also, in the case of “24″, too many of the characters started to annoy me. I began to guess who the traitors were, what the plot-twists would be, etc; and I was always right. Very annoying. There is a lot of character action, but not as much character growth as I like to see when I’ve invested so much time into them. I will make allowances that most shows span days, weeks, and months; while “24″ only spans one day – even so. RAR.

I got an email from my most excellent friend, Daniel. He is back in the States, which is excellent; and I get to see him in August, at the latest, which is most excellent indeed. It’s been too long, and too much seperation from my friends – I’d like to just start some commune somewheres where we can all just live on the land and hang. Realistically, though, I really do think it’s good that we’ve all had our own adventures, far away though they might have taken us. We have each grown, learned; and remained friends, which is the most important. Even so, I ache to see them all again.

I’ve been reading the book, “Eats, Shoots & Leaves”. So I’m now mildly obsessed with punctuation, though I still have no clue whether or not I am semicoloning correctly. The one way I really grasp it thus far is that it is useful to prevent confusion in lists, by setting groups off from each other. For instance, a phrase: “The school had to choose between the colors: red, white and gold; orange, blue and grey; or magenta and cyan.” Very useful in this sense. I know there are other ways to use it, and I’m experimenting haphazardly; if you are a true and real punctuation stickler, please offer your advice. As Lynne Truss mentions, the biggest danger of the semicolon is its addictiveness. Like a drug; I need to get my fix, but I don’t want to abuse it.

Categories
love personal

Up too late …

It’s not that late, yet, but my brain feels fried by: time off, future considerations, watching “24″ entirely too much, and general uncertainty. It’s hard to pack up your life and move, but perhaps it’s even harder still just to consider it. The doing is easier than the thinking about. So, for now, I’ll stop thinking about it.

Eyes wary, like I was a wolf wandered in from the wilderness, unpredictable. I’m fairly calm, simple; I don’t feel much like a wolf at all until those eyes are on me. Still, I wonder how much of it is all in my head. I wonder how my eyes portray my vision, and I’m not even sure of what it is I see. That’s all a bit vague, I realize, but my brain is numb tonight – a pulsating, electric cotton-ball; synapses not firing, but perhaps – letting off the occasional back-fire.

I told Emily that I think she made the right decision:
that we need time and the chance to change,
and to become the people we yearn to be.
I still don’t know how our relationship
slowed this down. But I think she may be right.
From my perspective, it was not the only decision.
It is, however, the decision that has been made.
And I do, I really do, think it was one of the right ones.

All that’s left: take advantage –
all things in life present an opportunity.
Carpe Diem you know,
and all that.

Categories
personal

Reactions and reconsequences

Since I’m proud of thus far being able to blog every night, I here refuse to give in to the slack-monster and skip a day. However, I warn you now that I feel I have little to say at present time. I suppose, first off, I will set in stone here my coinage of the term “reconsequence” – use it as you like, just remember the genius madman that first came up with it. It even sounds nice with a french pronunciation: ray-kon-say-kon-seh (with proper nasals and only a very light “seh” at the end).

Random facts about me:

I’m a hardcore liberal.
Blackberry pie is my favorite.
I spent three months in France, once.
I have the strangest Russian accent, ever.
I’ve been addicted to Everquest,
multiple times.
Washington is the best state ever.
I like Volkswagens.
Sam Beam inspires me.
I suck at keeping in touch with friends.
Blue surreal fandango porpoise.

I’d feel much obliged to anyone
who has come here and read my blog,
to post a comment.
I have none as yet,
and I feel somewhat slighted.

I am constantly working on learning to replace my arrogance with the proper mix of confidence and humility. I can be arrogantly humble (imagine that), and confidently arrogant. I’m sure I can work it out in the long.

Categories
personal work

Thoughts and plans

I’ve little thought of what I might do once I reach Olympia. Evergreen had a good job open, but I missed the deadline to apply (which was just the day after I noticed the position) and Yelm is just too far to drive (45 minutes) to apply for the library job that is open there.

Zero consequences …
… that’s the offering a book of matches gives in an episode of Smalleville – Zero Consequences. I try to think of something, anything, with which that cryptic saying might hold true. Nothing comes to mind. Actions like pebbles in a pond and there will always be ripples. I’d like to think my actions make nice, concentric circles somehow emanate from me, pulsating lily pads and reflecting lines of sunlight. More likely my actions are like the kid who cannonballs at the pool, soaking people who don’t want to get soaked and getting water up my nose in the process. Is the consequence of a consequence called a reconsequence? re – con – se – que – nce — RElaxCONsiderSEveralQUEstionablemiNCEmeatpies. Don’t worry, I won’t quit my day job. Well, except that I am, and then I’m moving across the country, and then I don’t know what I’ll do for a day job, which thought started me off, somehow, on this tangent in the first place.

Dinner tonight is long-grained brown rice, topped with plain cottage cheese and Braggs. The meal of choice for every connoisseur who can’t cook his way out of a paper bag (which would really only require the ability to steam, I would think). I can really cook a variety of things: bagels, eggs, potatoes, pancakes, waffles, rice … umm, cold cereal. I’m quite good at reheating, though. And I cook a good frozen pizza, no mistake (meaning it’s usually no longer frozen by the time I’m done with it). Okay, it’s really not that bad, I promise. Maybe nearly that bad, but not quite.

Strange, but considering questionable mincemeat pies really is kind of relaxing. No stranger a custom than trying to count sheep jumping over a fence as a way to fall asleep. Something, I might add, which has never, ever, ever worked one whit for me.

I’m embarrassed to admit that my meal for the evening has become a two-egg-and-bagel sandwich. I refuse, however, to admit why. I’m sure you can work that out on your own.

Categories
love personal

Dr. Device

There’s a doomsday device in me,
like in Dr. Strangelove;
an inert part of me that rests
until a bomb is dropped.
Then it lashes out and destroys the world.

It’s a hateful, petty part of me.
It’s a wounded animal in the
pit of my stomach, knives out.
RAR — it’s my Mr. Hyde.

I have many, many failings;
I’ve a veritable horde of faults
and pettiness and cruelty.
I’m neither perfect nor wise.
I’ll be the first to admit it.

no life but that which we make

I’m doing the best that I can ….

Categories
humor love personal

Familial Support

Thanks so much to all my family for the support they have given me over the past few weeks. I’m very, very blessed in this regard. You’re all super-awesome 🙂

My eyes turn west of late,
I remember a cheesy line from Shanghai Noon:
The Sun may rise in the east,
but this is where it sets.

Even so, westward lies new beginnings,
not an end. My purpose is not clear.
Like the lightning bug,
I do a courtship dance on instinct –
my thunder has always been too quiet,
and now: no need, no need, no need.

I try to contemplate useful things
that I might do if my butt could light up.
Gluteus Maximus Phosphorificus –
Hmmm, a handy acronym that sounds like gimp.
I guess I’ll pass, look into more
lucrative super-powers — like,
retractable hair. I’d never have to worry
then about male pattern baldness.

I’m not sure whether I should
envy the lightning bug, or
pity him.
At least for him, courtship is only
a matter of whose butt
glows the brightest.

Categories
love personal

Ruminations of Monday Night

I don’t really know where to start. So I guess I’ll start …

… here. Mass confusion, upheaval. I’ve lost my sense of self that you’d become so integral to. I liked that me, I liked that us, I really, really did. And what now? Another long drive, alone, across the country, a repeat of not yet two years ago.

[added 6/30] Edited content. As a writer (of anything) I’ve never been good at editing. What I write is as good as chiseled in stone, for how much I seem willing to change it after. Not always the best policy, I begin to discover. Thoughts were harsh, and what was said was for me – a vent, a rant, a brash and hurtful way for me to get over thoughts I needed to get over. Had they been rational, I would have not held them back from you. As they were, I knew they were just words to get out my system, demons to exorcise. And they were hurtful, and they were mean, and that was never, ever my intention. They needed to be written because I needed to get over some things. On a night where my soul was hurting, I identified the hurt and I thrashed it — not the best approach. Please believe this apology, and that I never meant to be so cruel. [/added 6/30]

It’s 9:15 pm and you just called me on the phone. Voices hushed, like conspirators whispering in the corner, shoulders hunches and darting eyes. Or perhaps just passive voices drawn to sorrow and finality. “This is it then,” I say but not out loud, and your voice seems to nod to an unasked question, but calmly, slowly and I hear the bathwater quake in the background.

Thoughts edited … words withdrawn. Only to reflect the truth, never to hide it. I apologize for harsh words. My dearest wish now: that we remain friends.

Categories
love music personal poetic

Remembering to breathe

If my life right now was an album title it would be:

Remembering to Breathe –

You can’t count moments of pain without
comparing them to moments of joy. Neither the world
nor us was ever entirely composed of pain.
In fact, it was only the smallest amount.

Pain accruing? It comes, goes, disperses,
as does joy. Don’t give it too much credence.
Don’t lend it too much support. Don’t encourage it.

What about joy accruing? You’d think that
after all this love, we’d have a surplus.
Why do I feel like that has been
so discounted. Why do I feel like now
that means nothing to you?

Not all beauty is convulsive. I agree.
Nor is all joy simply a mask over something darker,
nor is love just a blanket that hides you from the world.

It all depends where you put your focus, I guess.
If you want to look for pain,
there is plenty there to see.
The same is true of joy and beauty and love.

I’m sorry if this is mean.
I’m sorry if this isn’t fair.
I’m sorry for mentioning a guillotine and
I’m sorry for everything, absolutely everything,
except loving you.

Categories
humor love personal

Two cows are in a field.

Okay, so this is my new, all-time favorite joke: (which I stole from www.oxygen.ie –> Das Jokes — making fun of Germans!)

Two cows are in a field. Suddenly, from behind a bush, a rabbit leaps out and runs away. One cow looks round a bit, eats some grass and then wanders off.

If you can’t appreciate that, then damn you for having a sense of humor!

A message to: YOU!

You came into the house, probably at lunch …
I see you got your new Beastie Boys t-shirt(s) —
and so, in a mad bit of revelry,
ignoring your own cigarettes,
you smoked the ONE (1) !!! cigarette that I had,
which I was going to slowly savor
after a hard day of work.
GUILT!!! Rar.

In other news …

I want you to know that I’m not truly like that,
it’s just that a part of me has (had) been asleep for so long,
that it took a great deal of effort,
a shock blow trial and tribulation,
to wake it up. It’s still groggy,
this part of me, sleepy but restless,
like it knows it’s slept too long.
Don’t quit on me now.
I don’t want to hibernate anymore.
This winter, at least, is over.

I still search the house for you.

Categories
personal poetic

I can hardly bear the beauty of this world

Embrace beauty.
Embrace happy beauty.
Embrace sad beauty.
Embrace meaningful beauty.
Embrace inane beauty.
Embrace pedantic beauty.
Embrace shallow beauty.
Embrace wise beauty.
Embrace foolish beauty.
Embrace old beauty.
Embrace young beauty.
Embrace past beauty.
Embrace present beauty.
Embrace future beauty.
Embrace known beauty.
Embrace mysterious beauty.
Embrace frightening beauty.
Embrace comfortable beauty.
Embrace calm beauty.
Embrace tempestuous beauty.
Embrace ugly beauty.
Embrace written beauty.
Embrace spoken beauty.
Embrace physical beauty.
Embrace spiritual beauty.
Embrace inner beauty.
Embrace worldly beauty.
Embrace naive beauty.
Embrace embracing beauty.
Embrace solitary beauty.
Embrace quiet beauty.
Embrace loud beauty.
Embrace overbearing beauty.
Embrace crying beauty.
Embrace laughing beauty.
Embrace heartbroken beauty.
Embrace strong beauty.
Embrace frail beauty.
Embrace angry beauty.
Embrace wounded beauty.
Embrace incredible beauty.
Embrace commonplace beauty.
Embrace distant beauty.
Embrace the beauty at hand.

Embrace Gogol’s beauty, and that of Dostoevsky and Camus and Franz Wright and Voltaire and de Sade and Lautreamont and Gaiman and Tolkien and Kerouac and Vonnegut and Bradbury and Salinger and Mallarme and Voltaire and Jarry and Satie and Diesel and Johansson and Aurelius and Jesus and Buddha and Muhammad and elephants and monkeys and buttons for eyes and crooks for tails and thunderstorms and calms and sighs and laughter and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on …

“by the way thank You for
keeping Your face hidden, I
can hardly bear the beauty of this world.”

-Franz Wright

Categories
love personal poetic

As is my habit.

I got home from work and searched the house for you,
as is my habit.
I wasn’t surprised to not find you, but sad all the same.
I looked for a scribbled note, on the blackboard, my desk, the bed, the table, the floor and in the cat’s eyes. I thought about you, brow furrowed in concentration writing furiously, passionately your thoughts. And when you were done, looking over your words to me, frowning, sighing, burning whatever innocent paper you used as a receptacle to give your feelings to me.

I thought that, but I know you didn’t, wouldn’t. Can’t right now.

The storm rattled my weathervane, an augur of my mood. It struck out, brooded, roiled and rolled and swept across the sky like an angry inkblot smearing a perfect canopy, unstoppable. Now that too has passed, and I’m left to feel like a child angry with the sky for not holding my weight when I lept from the window and tried to fly. I just want to feel like Superman ….

My skin crinkles krik-krak from UV and dehydration, like a papyrus with years of story hidden in my pores. I crinkle and krik my way about, the only noise in this world the sound of my skin and my pants against the wood floor, swish-swish-swish-crinkle-swish-krak-swish. Cats make for good company until you desire conversation, and then it’s like talking to a mirror. Even though you know it is just a reflection of you, it seems to mock you and to be built specifically to show you what a foolish creature you are. Even though it is just a reflection of you.

I went for a jog this morning into a seventy degree sunrise, baked from the inside, heard geese laugh and passed by aged strangers who could spare me a smile. Perhaps they save them up over time, and find that they have extra as their days are running out, so spend them freely.

If you whispered my name in the night I would hear it.
My ears are sensitive to your voice and my soul is fragile to your words and I would likely weep. I remember the seperation, before. The real, distant seperation from Washington to Ohio and how I could not stop sobbing – SOBBING – for hours after watching you drive away. Was that the same then as this is now? Was that the same then as this is now? I don’t know. I don’t know.

For those who read this and care, my parking tickets (that weren’t mine) have been taken care of.

Okay then.

Categories
love personal

Stay for awhile

Don’t run away so quickly.

Stay for awhile …

stay for awhile …

stay for awhile and we’ll talk like our hearts are our mouths.

My stomach turns, rolls like it’s in my head,
I can’t stand steady.

Why did you wait for me with a bag packed, ready to go?
I knew then that nothing would stay your hand.

All the things I knew then ….

Still. The house air grass wind walls mind fingers time seems still now. Still. Still. Still. Still. Measure out my heartbeat with the word … it is too quick. Measure out my teardrops with the word. They are too plentiful. Drip – Thump – Still – Drop – Tha-thump – Still ——– and so on.

One person can make the world seem so happy.
One person can make the world feel glad.
One person, too, can make it empty.
One person as well to make me sad.

If I didn’t vent, my heart would crack.

Just know that I miss you.
Just know that I love you.
Just know that.

Categories
personal

May showers …

There were no posts made in May of 2004.  This seems a shame.

This post?  This post is cheating.  It's just filler, to make my calendar symmetrical.

OCD?  Nope, never heard of it.