trash

so i left out the front door to go to work today and realized that when we had put the garbage outside the front door (because it smelled and it was not yet garbage day) we had neglected to put it in any kind of fiddle proof container and the roving band of feral cats that rules our particular neighborhood had managed to find it. faithfully representing their particular style of behavior, they had managed to tear open an entire side of the bag and then shed its contents onto our front porch.

i calmly went back inside to grab a secondary refuse satchel (as if i had loads of time to spare) and proceeded to rebag a bunch of week old thanksgiving leftovers and bonsai potatoes. at that point i realized that i needed to dispose of this garbage myself, since the secondary bagging technique was not going to survive another cat raping.

so i proceeded down the lawn to our jeep. our jeep has the back seat removed and has become our designated "pick up type vehicle" (since i sold my truck) and therefore is the proper vehicle for transporting the odd bag of garbage to the dumpster at my work.

much to my chagrin however, was the realization that my handy dandy little remote gate opener was neither handy, nor dandy, NOR did is open our gate! i was locked in my own backyard (it was somewhat embarrasing)

that's about it...that and i went to belgium today. it was nice.

the easy way

i rarely do things the easy way, and i'm coming to realize that it is because i enjoy difficulty and struggle. not necessarily overwhelmingly so, but a little discomfort and small obstacles on a regular basis is rather comforting tp me in some strange way. call it the bohemian part of me that enjoyed sleeping in my truck (when i had one) and who prefers to start on a cross country drive without a map. call it the search for seasoning and perspective that led me from the path of art, creation, and imagination into my present and most disparate occupation for a while. i enjoy wanting and yearning. i love the pure joy of being reunited with friends and family, and in it's anticipation, i love the sting of distance and time between us.

if i were to universalize my feelings about being an artist to encompass all artists, i would say that the balancing of bitter and sweet is the greatest struggle.

i would say that i love a splintery chair, because it reminds me of how much i love to stand.

if i were a tree...

when there was water, i would want it to come in driving rains carried on cold bitter gusty winds. when there was sun, i would want it to bake down on to my branches and try to pull the moisture out of my bones. when there was autumn, i would hold onto my leaves as long as i could and i would laugh at the winds and the storms. when there was winter, i would want to feel the weight of the snow on my naked branches until i feared they would snap. when there was spring, i would painfully thrust out green shoots into the air and unfurl them until i was exhausted. when there was summer, i would stretch up into the air and sing to the clouds. i would yell their names and cry that i could not be with them, my friends. when there was night, i would sleep and dream, leaning into my weight and creaking down into the core of the earth.

quiet

it's halfway up the mountain outside a village where i've never heard the locals speak. it overlooks the entire valley all the way out to the sea.
the plot itself is not very large or impressive. each of the sixty or so gravestones has a small porcelain likeness of the person near the top, and each gravestone has the name Mezzorobba. there are some exceptions, but for the most part, the graveyard seems to have been in use primarily by that one family for more than two hundred years. brothers share graves with brothers, parents with their babies, and every single grave has flowers; some silken and some living. the small stonewalled plot explodes with headstones, lit candles, and flowers.
it was an overcast day and i didn't have many words, but my mind was flowing with the overwhelming feeling of family, permanence, belonging, and eternity. The photos of each of the deceased date back to the turn of the 20th century and they all seem to look at each other in detached exchange.
across the street there are a few trees in a field that overlook the valley and the sea to the south.

friend ramble

i’m not sure if my old friends truly appreciate the amount of love that is out there for them. it’s a serious love. a brotherhood. a friendship of fantastic proportions. there is a caring about their livelihood that cannot be explained or undermined. i can go for years without hearing from one of my friends and yet within an instant of the phone ringing, the kindship is back as if we had hung out the day before. I respect them. I admire them. I wish to emulate their better qualities and I wish to be there for their weaker moments, so they have someone to lean on, if needed. They are friends. They are family. They are my beloved.

 

Talking with Heather the other day, we both realized that we both individually need time on our own in order to be the least bit productive. I’ve got a business trip coming up, and I’m pretty excited. I feel like she’s finally going to get some time to figure stuff out and work on her projects... and hopefully i’ll be able to follow along with her meanderings as well as start my own.

 

we shall see.

 

much love

paddy

typical bbq at kenny's

This is a typical BBQ at kenny's place:
people show up around 6:30pm or so. some people are late but not the ones who want the choice beer. kenny flew in a couple of cases of good belgian beer (like Chimay Blue for example) and so i was there at 6:29pm. By the time people are showing up, there is already a fire going in his little fire pit and the BBQ is all warmed up. As people show up they bring their burnables to the rear of the house where there is a sizeable pile of "things-to-be-burned."
There is a huge spread of eatables that go along very well with the drinkables... my favorite was the chicken and peppercini bites wrapped in bacon when they were fresh off the BBQ and it burned your tounge so you had to kick back a healthy swig of some choice belgian drinkable.
At some point in time there is a major push to the pile of burnables. It starts simply as an idea, but then the momentum builds and people are pulled into the gravity of the event and they are unable to escape. The grand pile is lovingly prepared with flammable liquids and a fuse of sorts is set. When it comes time for the ignition, usually some young fearless pre-teen is nominated for the job while all older and wiser typpes back off to a safe distance.
The fires are never short of spectacular. NASA mistakes them for solar flares and they sometimes knock geosynchronous satellites out of orbit.
Once the fire begins to die back below 15 feet or so, the explodables come out to play.
Highly illegal in most developed countries, they appear from nowhere in every conceivable size, shape, and purpose. They are stuck in the ground, tossed in the fire, lit with sparklers, and deposited into containers... like pumpkins.
The larger explosions look something like this...



and there is much rejoicing.

job description

i also have a fairly strange job.

essentially i am a systems monitor. this machine has a workstation where i sit and just monitor the machine to make sure it is working ok. if it is, i don’t really have to do too much... i pull a few levers and flip a few switches to make sure the dials all read what they’re supposed to. there are a few screens at my desk and i can put different menus on it and stuff. but mostly, on a beautiful day, i like to just look outside the window. i suppose that may be my favorite thing... the view.



granted... it's not this view exactly... but it's just as good.

happy happy joy joy

don’t you just love those days when you come home from work all smiley and glowing because you LOVE YOUR JOB!

i do.

it helps when you have a good day, i.e. you have a reason to love your job... maybe it’s because you feel appreciated... maybe it’s because you feel respected... maybe it’s because you know you are good at it.... maybe it’s because you just have a COOL job.

whatever the reason... i think everyone should feel this way most of the time.

there would be fewer angry people.

i think tomorrow i’m going to tell people that i appreciate what they do.

i’m going to show them respect

i’m going to let them know they are doing a good job.

 

then maybe they’ll have an I-LOVE-MY-JOB-DAY too.

 

ya never know.

hips and leaves

my green thumb seems to have momentarily lapsed.
i went from being a person with an all-together black thumb to a person with a somewhat pulsating neon green thumb overnight when i met heather.
everything i planted grew...
i planted two appleseeds and they grew into trees.
i planted three avocado seeds and they grew into avocado plants.
i bought a myriad of different plant and spread them throughout the house and they flourished, and i cared for them and there was peace.
that was over the last two and a half years...but now the plants are slowly going on me and i'm sad. i try and i try but i work alot and heather doesn't really look after them at all, because she assumes that i do.
i'm afraid that when i go away for a business trip that i'll come back to a bunch of dead and dying plants. i feel like i've failed them. that i haven't given them enough attention... that i've been negligent in determining their needs. i haven't talked to them in a long time.

my grandmother fell and broke her hip. she has lost most of her short term memory. she keeps a somewhat chipper attitude, but inside i can hear that she is tired and kind of giving up.
i am far away and unable to get home.
i hope she doesn't think i don't love her.