golden bricks and purpose

i am returned to a memory where i was maybe 17.

there was a camping trip. a backpacking trip actually, starting at the trailhead at the top of the tram above palm springs. we got a late start, so we ended up catching the LAST tram up to the trailhead, and we would be hiking after sunset... in the dark.

in general, this is not a good idea.

i was with friends, and i had made the trip before, albeit during the day, so i was the local expert. it was about an hour and 15 minute hike up to a small campsite in a clearing next to a creek.

it was night time. it was only a matter of time. it took us all of 30 minutes to lose the trail.

before i knew it, we were standing on what was most definitely NOT the trail between the sound of two rivers. the forest was illuminated by moonlight between the branches. everything was either silver or black; a glittering and obscure amsel adams photograph.

honestly, i had no clue where we were anymore.

but i figured we were probably CLOSE to the trail, and we should probably head towards the sound of water... to... the.. right. yes, definitely the creek to our right.

and so we went onward, floundering, charging, tripping, laughing, cursing, stumbling through the woods in the middle of the night. every shadow behind every tree was a bear, or a crazy axe wielding woodsman. any moment now we were going to happen upon that creek that sounded so DAMN close and yet constantly eluded us, laughing the whole time.

then suddenly, i felt it.

it was a subtle change, but it was there.

the path. the trail. the golden brick road.

and just as soon as we found it, i saw the small wooden footbridge that we needed to cross, and we found ourselves at our campsite. it was one in the morning. we had walked for three hours. we had scrambled over tree trunks. we had crawled through crevices. we had doubted. we had believed. we had not turned back... not that we knew which direction 'back' was.

and yet, at the end... we were where we needed to be.

that's all. just a memory.

finished

the clouds are still breathing, and with the sunset the interminable raindrops seem to have washed all the light out of the sky.

i finished the last page of Middlesex. i recommend it... i was planning on saving it for monday while the movers packed and shuffled furniture into crates, but the inertia was too powerful to overcome. i couldn't put it down. i was thirsty but i didn't stop to grab a glass of water. i was hungry but i didn't stir towards the kitchen.

it's not that i couldn't have if i had wanted to... i just didn't want to. reading is SO much better than packing.

and it's saturday. so there.

but now i have no excuse. i put some marley on the speakers... bob and i go way back.

off to work.

people vs. the rain

it is still raining.

occasionally the water slows from it's torrent into a drizzle and then perhaps an actual pause. it is the wearied inhale as the skies catch their breath between gross exhalations of pent up weight.

i woke up this morning again to the sound of water running off the roof and across the window panes, blurring the obscured monochromatic world of wet leaves and roosting birds.

my goal was to be productive. i intended to embody an whirlwhind of efficiency, but alas i have been anything but.

i checked my mail. i went out and bought spackle to repair the myriad of injuries that i have afflicted upon my walls over the last few years. i ate a burrito. i perused a magazine. i read 40 pages of Middlesex. i had german beer that i cannot identify because of the completely illegible script on the label... it was pretty good. i have listened to at least 5 different albums all the way through... kruder and dorfmeister... iron and wine... frou frou... japancakes... hooverphonic.

i have not packed a damn thing.

part of me would like to blame the rain... blame it on the rain, the song goes. but alas, i cannot. it is only my genetic predisposition for severe procrastination and nothing else.

the rain is not to blame.

migration

it has been raining a long time... for days even. i woke up this morning at 7am and the sky never got brighter. the heavens have alternated between night and dusk, skipping day entirely since tuesday. if i didn't turn on a light, every room in my house would remain black and obscured.

but lights have been on, in every room, and i've been working. i've been separating my things, my belongings, into those-that-will-accompany-me and those-that-will-not. with the vast majority belonging to the latter.

i am saying my own little goodbyes to books that i won't read for a year... to furniture... to surfboards... to a very lovable couch. i am segregating the inhabitants of my kitchen into two groups... half the glasses to go with me... half to go into storage. all the knives. all the pots and pans. all the spoons... i couldn't manage without spoons.

it is challenging to pack your things while you still want to live with them. there is a small tear of separation when you unplug something you use everyday and you know it'll be two months before you plug it in again. it is a guilty and dependent kind of sensation, because you know there is no reason why you NEED that particular thing every day... but you do not welcome the daily pattern change with open arms.

how much easier it would be if i could just put it all aside and read a book until the movers come. oh but i can, and that is what will happen, but for now there is the slow and procrastinated measure of steps downstairs with each armload of sundries that will find it's way either into my new home, or else the cold purgatory of storage.

wish i didn't have to sell my car

perhaps i should start off with a little background:

i like my car. i would rather not sell it. i lovingly refer to it as a 1996 VW POS... because it is.

my car is red. my car gets 30 mpg. the air conditioner will give you frostbite.

i bought my little red POS three years ago for $2500. there were some slight things that needed to be fixed up a little bit, but i figured i could take care of them fairly easily, so i only asked to go to 2500 down from 3000 that my buddy was asking. sold.

one of the things was that the alignment was a little off... the car pulled to the right... rather aggressively... and the check engine light was on ('oh that light has always been on... it's no big deal')... and the ABS light light was on.

so the next week i took it in for an alignment... 'oh and can you check out the clutch cable? it seems like there is a lot of play.'

the alignment required two new tires.

the clutch had to be replaced.

the ABS light was because three of the four wheel sensors were kaput... replaced... as well as three of the four brake calipers because they were worn out of limits... replaced.

the E-brake cable was rusted through... replaced.

'i don't know why the engine light is on... perhaps there is a part missing... but it seems to run ok.'

awe inspiring service.

so now, after four and a half grand, i've got a strong running $2500 car. BUT WAIT! as i pulled out of the parking lot... the brake pedal went to the floor.

master cylinder... kaput... replaced... make that 4800.

did i mention that the exhaust rusted through? replaced... 500 more.

i also recently totally replaced the distributor cap, spark plugs and cables. i've got a real road machine here now...

until friday, when on my way out the door to catch a flight, i climbed into my car and turned the key... VROOOOMSPuttersputter...dead.

hmmmm.... that's peculiar... it worked just an hour ago.

VROOOOOOMVROOOOMSPUtter sputter dead... shit.

i called a buddy, tore him away from his glowering wife on a friday evening at home and got a ride to the airport. disaster averted.

i had to hitchhike to work this morning, and this afternoon i came back home to troubleshoot the problem, as well as try to figure out where to tow it to.

i really don't like the idea of paying someone to move my car for me, so naturally i came up with an idea to circumvent that. i figured that as long as i maintain the RPMs above 4000, the engine stays on... it's only when they hit 3000 or so that the engine dies... so if i could find a route with minimal stops and if i could keep the engine revved then i MIGHT be able to make it the 8 miles to the garage. i gave myself 50/50 chances.

i started up, revved the gas, slipped the clutch and eased out of my backyard... step one complete. i rolled out of my cul-de-sac in 1st gear, made the left onto the side street, and then seeing the traffic was clear, pulled a california stop straight into a 135 degree right hand turn.

during that turn is when i realized i didn't have power steering... after the turn is when i realized i didn't really have brakes... with 4 miles of downhill road in front of me.

it was pretty exciting. i'd recommend the experience to anyone. trying to time your entry into a traffic circle with downshifting and E-brake and then taking said (small) traffic circle at 40 mph is a humbling experience. it really makes you appreciate all the small things we take for granted.

so, i'm still alive. the car made it to the garage and i got a ride home. to my empty fridge... well mostly empty... the milk doesn't smell too bad... maybe i'll have some cereal for dinner.

i like to live on the edge.

wisdom

there are many lessons in life, and there are just as many different ways to learn them.

here is your lesson for the day:

IF you should come home on Sunday night to find that your power has been off since 9am Saturday (since that's when it always goes out) and you see that your fridge and freezer have defrosted COMPLETELY, do not smell the sandwich fixings (ham and turkey)...

JUST THROW THEM AWAY

IF you DO smell them and they don't smell odd, do not make a sandwich with them the next morning... let alone two.

IF you DO make a sandwich (or two... to be precise), do not let it sit in your pocket for another 8 hours before you decide that it's time to eat it.

IF you DO decide to eat it... don't... it's better to starve.

that's my wisdom of the day... from me... to you

the stage

there are stories that appeal to us. they reach into your chest and squeeze. they constrict the base of your throat and push on the backs of your eyeballs until they water.

sometimes they are silly. sometimes they are tragic.

usually they involve a person... a hero... who comes to a crossroads in their life where they are faced with something overwhelming... and they release all that is unimportant to them, and reach for everything that means anything to them.

sometimes they succeed. sometimes they do not.

but overall, the inspiring part of the tale is the fact that the hero made a decision to take his fate into his hands... the hero cashed in all his chips on his dream. her path. their vision.

one must ask one’s self:

if this is a story that appeals to me, then is this hero not someone to emulate? shouldn’t i take my opportunity to follow my life’s path? my life’s passion?

it is a rare opportunity. some people have more to risk than others. people have varying amounts of support from their network of friends and family. sometimes it all comes down to timing. sometimes there is never that overwhelming catalyst to come into the picture and force a decision.

but there are always the stories. there are always examples... and somewhere inside of us, we wish for the opportunity to be thrust upon us to have to make that decision ourselves.

until then, there are stories

on this day...

i had an idea. nothing earth shattering and not even completely original, put personal and possibly life changing nonetheless.

and i'm not going to share it here... not because i don't think you are important enough, because you most certainly are, but because it is still new and fresh. it still needs to gather strength and take on a form of it's own, outside of my mind.

one day though... one day soon it will be all growed up and ready to leave the house on it's own.

until then, i just have this day... and the idea.

reunion

there is something about being home that slackens the belt around my heart and lets the air back in. it’s a golden soft feeling that warms the skin from the inside.

i walked through the door today to a home that wrapped it’s walls around me and hugged me like an old friend. it was cold inside and out. since i had left the clouds had moved in and continually dusted the mountains with early winter frosting. the power had gone out, but thankfully i had the forethought to clean out my fridge before leaving, so even the kitchen smelled clean.

it’s been raining since i landed back on italian soil and it seems like each drop is on a mission to penetrate and permeate every layer of warmth a person could wear. the rain is cold and the sky is a leaded grey. i got inside and turned on the heat after i realized i could see my breath better inside than out. i have no idea how any of my plants survived. they are obviously hearty little greenies, and the artificial drought must have made possible their survival through near freezing temperatures. sure, there are some leaves on the floor, and Fozzie the fern looks like he has been living in a methlab, but overall there aren’t any in critical condition.

there was mail waiting for me. a card from heather, some movies, more grad school catalogs, convenience checks, and a replacement pizza stone for the broken one i received two months ago... the replacement stone was also... broken... although less broken (if that’s a saying) than the first, having a smaller corner broken off. so there’s progress at least.

the speakers in my house welcomed me the loudest with some ‘iron and wine’ to listen to over the rain. i walked through the rooms and turned on all the lights. i sat on all the chairs and visited all the plants. i ran the faucets until warm water came out. i put fresh vegetables in the fridge... three carrots, celery, two peppers (one orange and one red), asparagus, broccoli, and a somewhat jovial portabello.

so now my home is warm, my heart is home, and you are all in my heart.

welcome

master procrastinator

so here is a conversation with myself:

whatcha doin?

nothin

shouldn't you be studying for tomorrow, or doing something productive?

yeah

why aren't you?

cuz

cuz why?

cuz i don't feel like it

oh... well... are you going to get around to it? i mean, it's getting kind of late.

yeah... like eventually... i mean, when i feel like it.

...

i am such a wonderful procrastinator.

a note on this photo.

it was taken at RED FOX PIZZA PUB... which is quite possibly the only pizza pub in existence that does not serve pizza. when i asked the waitress what kind of pizzas they had (after noticing the rather conspicuous absense of pizza in their menu), she looked at me as if i were crazy.

the nerve of me

so here is my friend, Kaiser, enjoying his slice of our make-believe pizza that we wanted to order.

anti-pasta please

i had a great i idea of something to write about. but alas... in the last few minutes while i was wandering over to the ol computerdora to jot it down, it ran from my mind in a spastic frenzy and jumped out the window of my hotel.

i didn't sleep well last night. kinda have had a lot on my mind. also i've been gone out of the house for a while and i'm kind of tired of the hotel life. my recent quest for minimalism with my packing has inadvertantly led to an over-minimalism. i brought one book that i read in the first two days. i have yet to find an english language bookstore to find a replacement and all my compatriots are mid-book and unwilling to trade.

aparently bulgarians are fans of italian food. it is really hard to find a restaurant that doesn't serve only pasta and pizza... i found a few, but it is also difficult to eat at those same restaraunts day in and day out. so i left italy for bulgaria... and i'm still eating italian food.

the hotel leaves a bit to be desired. apparently, on the 15th of October, they shut off the A/C for the season... because the system can only be on hot... or cold... so i have my window open for all the noise of the street to come in.

the hotel also can't hack the present bookings. the elevators lasted all of four days before they went kaput. two of the three just don't work. the other one doesn't come to you unless you are on the bottom floor, or unless by luck someone rises up to your floor. so i've been using the service elevators and getting funny looks from the staff.

this isn't to say that i'm entirely lazy. i am living on one of the upper floors though. i tried taking the stairs for a while, but none of the floors are marked, so if you lose count you have to go onto every floor and look at the room numbers... if you go too far you end up in the sub-sub-sub-basement... which is like -4 in european terms... 0 being the ground floor. also at floor 0 there is a virtual maze of unmarked doors through the underbelly of the administrative branch of the hotel. it is almost faster to wait on the floor for someone to bring the elevator up, and a lot less stressful.

i went to the black sea over the weekend. i stayed in a summer beach town... it is definitely not summer. it was most decidedly empty... but pleasant nonetheless. just the same, i think i'll go back in the summer next time.

i had a fairly taxing day at work today. one of those 'life lesson' type days that you hope never to repeat. it turned out fairly well, and i fessed up immediately about my mis-doings to the boss, but my adrenaline was going for a couple of hours. needless to say i won't have a hard time sleeping tonight.

i'm freaking exhausted.

duvishdene

seven days late

today is the day that i was supposed to leave for Copenhagen.

but i missed my flight...

by a week.

how could this happen? i’ve been asking myself all morning. i’m a NOONAN! airline schedules run in our bloodline! i was probably conceived on an airplane!

i’m so embarrassed.

granted, when i bought the ticket over a month ago, there was a lot going on. i had a lot on my mind and i was a little confused over what was going on during which week and so forth. so my ticket was for last Thursday... but i did somehow manage to take leave on the right days.

i woke up this morning at 5am so that i’d have time to pack and get some food in me before running a slew of errands on the way to the airport. at approximately 0615, i decided to check my email really quick while i was making coffee to see if there were any last minute notes from my cousin Elijah, who i’m going to meet up there.

Lo and behold, there were... she was asking me to look at the dates of the itinerary that i had emailed her to make sure they were correct... she was making sure that i hadn’t bought my plane tickets for the week prior, when i was most clearly NOT in copenhagen.

silly cousin, of course i bought them for last week.

shit.

the airline and cheaptickets.com were not very sympathetic. to them, i was case number AP270301XZQJ2UJN. they had all the sympathy of an insurance adjuster who was working on saturday.

it was 6:30 in the morning and i already wanted to fall in a heap on the floor. a moaning heap with no bones.

well, what’s 350 bucks among friends really?... besides two (small) starbucks coffees (no milk or anything) a week for a year. or two months of gasoline in italy. or a flight to copenhagen. i’ll just see if there is another ticket available last minute... oh, here we go...

only 800 pounds sterling... nope, that’s not gonna work.

finally, at about 3pm, i came across a fare that was roughly similar to the original price and i said, ‘what the hell, i want to see elijah.’

now, thanks to mastercard, i’ll be departing venice at o’dark thirty tomorrow morning for the great nation of denmark.

AND i have a whole free day to do whatever i need around the house... like... laundry.

i’m so excited.

SCAD

so it arrived today...

the Savannah College of Art and Design catalog...

i requested one on a whim. i’ll probably look around at other schools as well, we shall see. i’m not sure how much graduate school fits into my grown up life, but it’s a nice idea anyway, and one that is fun to entertain.

the idea of an M.F.A. is kind of scary after having a ‘career’ now for a few years now. i’ve gotten used to a regular paycheck and the feeling that i can afford whatever kinds of groceries i might desire... instead of top ramen and chili-mac again.

the whole idea is at least six years away (minimum), but it’s a nice idea. another way that it is scary is the whole idea of a body of work. of a focus. of a definitive direction to my photography:

oh there's patrick, he's that (fill in the blank) photographer...

it’s kind of intimidating. for the time being, i just shoot, and whatever comes out is what i have. sometimes it’s landscape... sometimes people. sometimes formal, sometimes informal. that’s all fine if one is an extremely prolific photographer, but i only take between 400-1100 pictures a month.

these are the things that are intimidating:
going ‘incomeless’ for about three years
student loans
leaving behind a possibly lucrative career that might afford me the time to accomplish the same thing without an M.F.A.

these are the things that are attractive:
unabashed focus on the craft
the opportunity to surround myself with artist and art-minded people once again
the opportunity to find that focus and that definitive direction
the fact that i have the GI bill that would pay for the brunt of it

it sounds like a risk of course. but what is life if not risk and reward? what is a life passion if you risk none of your life for it? what good is a bucketful of what-ifs on your deathbed?

perhaps it is even more than six years away... i’ve got sixteen (minimum) until the GI bill runs out. perhaps i could find that direction ahead of time (with enough hard work and motivation) and then i could use those three years to refine it, instead of searching for it.

today, a pleasant daydream... tomorrow... who knows? certainly not me, although i have some sneaky suspicions.

sweet dreams love

all things oktober

it's about that time again... oktoberfest.

this was from last year, at the end of the night. the three of us drove up on a thursday night and camped in a soccer stadium.

i don't know how the hell i managed to take this picture. i had already lost my favorite sunglasses. i'm surprised i still had my camera with me. i sat down on the ground, totally wasted, told them to stand still and took a three second handheld exposure on Bulb... since my camera only goes to 1 sec.

better lucky than good, i suppose.

anyways. this picture is to restimulate the mood of oktoberfest. may everyone go at least once.

mmm, makes me want to grab a beer... mmmm

you should know these people:

dear reader, may i introduce you to Nico and Fairlight:

fantastic people they are. truly wonderful. favorites even. back when this picture was taken, there were but two of them, but they have since multiplied... and there is now zoe.

i have known fairlight for many moons. since the days of santa cruz. since the days of baskin art studios. she is artist and mother of zoe. when she isn't creating stained glass masterpieces or honing her photography, she contemplates the nature of the universe and goes on walks in the woods above her home, or on the beach by the bay, or she flies off to canada or mexico or countries-near-florida-with-whom-we-have-trade-embargoes.

burritos and beers are the standard reunion custom. it harks back to the days when i was a sleepless student in the art department at santa cruz. she would find my miserably hungry existence in the darkroom or painting studio after some inhumanely long period of time that most likely began the day before, and we'd roll down to mission st and grab a burrito and a beer and catch up on life.

she most likely saved my life... otherwise i might still be up there... developing just one more roll... toning just one more print.

you never can tell.

vortices

so these are old memories. from a time in sedona. i was just walkin down memory lane earlier, as i have a penchant for that kind of thing... from time to time

dogs

so i used to have a dog... i've had a couple of them acutally... by 'having a dog' i mean that my parents had dogs and i played with them and picked up dog poop in the backyard... when i was older i even fed them... but the primary dog-rearing was done by the primary child-rearers... the dogs themselves put up with me more than anything else.

now that i'm almost a grown up myself, it is almost second nature to want to bring a little four legged buddy back into my life.

right now is not the time for this to happen. however, that is not to say that i can't prepare for the eventuality when this does happen.

so i bought a dog book... how to understand dogs and that kind of stuff. it was highly instructive, and very interesting. if anything, it reinforced the fact that right now is MOST DEFINITELY NOT the time to bring a dog into my life, but i think it has also brought me a few more steps towards dog-preparation.

one of the things that it has made me reconsider is what kind of dog to get. it is easy to pick out a breed based on what it looks like or what the breed is known for... i think a lot of people pick out dogs that reflect who they think they are.

the problem is that the dogs will probably reflect those attributes... but that might not be who that person is.

i'm all about optimism and projection, but there is most definitely a gap between the world where people think they live and the actual world they live in... myself included.

so who am it? what kind of dog would i best belong to?

i don't know. while driving down the road to the beach with a beautiful rhodesian ridgeback sticking his head out of the window of a vintage bio-diesel converted land cruiser may sound romantic, do i have the personality or lifestyle to adequately meet that animal's needs? (exercise, social time, regular schedule?)

i don't know.

then i ask myself... am i a purebred kind of guy? or a mutt kind of guy? am i a big dog guy? or medium or small? do i spend hours training my dog to do cool stuff like find the remote control? is it an outside or inside dog? am i the kind of guy who gets a puppy and raises it from scratch? or would i adopt an 8 year old dog from a shelter?

so many questions.

good thing it will be a long while before that day comes.

it's kind of like the equivalent of studying for the SAT when i'm in third grade.

i'm kind of fiending for a milkbone.

and sometimes...

and sometimes, after i finish dancing, my water goes out.

it's a strange thing to say, "my water goes out," unless you take it in the same way as, "my power went out," i.e. i have no water.

for anyone who has lived through a hurricane or tornado or severe earthquake, this may not seem so odd.

apparently, nor is it odd to anyone who lives in my town... it being wednesday and all.

gotta love italy.

i've got to go find a beer to brush my teeth with... ciao bella

sometimes

sometimes i dance.

i’m not embarrassed about it one bit. sometimes i dance.

sometimes i wave my arms in the air and run in place.

sometimes i throw back my head in a silent leaky-eyed howl.

sometimes i can’t stop smiling and with a flick of the wrist the master valve on my heart is turned full open and the flood surges through my muscles and bones to my fingertips and toes, shaking my soul with the vibrations of it’s release...

it does not matter if there is no one to see...

i still dance.

sometimes.

imagination and beef stew

no. i'm not in hawaii right now. but that isn't to say that i can't pretend i am.

i'm actually at home, cooking beef stew. it's taking a while, but i suppose that is because good things are hard to rush. my stomach, however, has been rapping against my abdominal cavity for quite some time. the last thing i ate was a sandwich around lunch time.

i'm somewhat locally famous for my sandwiches... not because they are delicious... although they are... but rather because they are hidden in various pockets on my person for emergency use throughout the day. people think it is humorous... i think it's practical.

you never know when you might need a sandwich... or a breakfast burrito for that matter... i have pockets for those too.

one can never have too many pockets for assorted sundries.

that's my thought of the day... from me... to you.

totally related side story to the previous post

starting with a totally unrelated side note:

this belgian beer is Damn good... that's with a capitol D, if you didn't get it. i suppose that's what you get when you get a bunch of monks together to make a 10% beer.

mmmm

anyway. so...

i'm driving on a side road to Tuscany last saturday. somehow, i managed to travel 160 miles in the first two hours and only one mile in the third hour. it seemed like a sign that i was supposed to take the road less travelled, and so i did.

the thing with italy is... there is a thing called "Riposo" where everything closes for a couple of hours in the afternoon... generally between noon and 2pm... but it could vary by a few hours in either direction.

so i'm driving on SS64, which is a small state route that runs through the hills/mountains of NW Tuscany. absolutely gorgeous drive. the road wound through the tiniest villages in along the deepest river gorge with little stone footbridges that connected the road to teeny houses across the river. were i more comfortable with my masculinity i might even say that it was something straight out of a fairy tale, complete with trolls and winged godmothers.

green green, everywhere there's green.

so anyways, i'm driving around a particularly turny turn and my car starts beeping at me.

that's fine, beep away, i thought. the only thing that worried me was the the beeping (which had started happening lately) was accompanied by the OIL light... and it didn't stop beeping for about 20 seconds.

it had come on in the previous month, but only when i went around a particularly agressive corner. being the dependable little VW POS that it is, i thought its german engineered oil system just couldn't handle the incredible lateral G-forces that i was able to command from the old squeeky tires.

nope... the oil was just low.

long story longer, i pulled into the first gas station i saw and asked the old guy that i came across if the station was open for business as i needed both fuel and possibly oil as well, if it wasn't too much trouble.

literally, i pointed at the gas station and said (in italian) "closed?"

my italian is that good.

that's when i noticed the old guy standing in the doorway with a padlock in his hand. i looked at my watch and realized that if i had shown up two minutes later they would have been closed.

so i get my gas and check my oil... that's funny... usually i can see some on the stick... i was going to buy two liters of oil, but i thought better of it and bought three... at 12 euro per liter... luckily our dollar is so strong and it only cost 50 dollars.

my suspicions were confirmed when the engine swallowed two litres without flinching.

that's the end of the story. the light and beeping have not returned. the little engine is quite happy with it's haute couture tuscan oil, and i made it the rest of the way.

man... this beer is good.

two cups of thunderstorm and a dash of beer

currently, i am sitting at home, looking out the window at the thunderstorms that managed to sneak in overnight.

this morning was the most impressive. i was up at 5:30, just as it was getting light... except it wasn't very light. the sky was rather dark actually, and strobing with a most impressive array of lightning.

if there is one thing that i will miss when i leave here, it is the incredibly capricious weather.

i am more accustomed to thunderstorms that take their time building up through the morning and afternoon until about two or three when they vent all that pent up emotion and bang their fists across the countryside... it is indeed a most volitile storm that decides to begin before the sun has even risen.

so where did you spend the day patrick?

in a tower of course... the highest point for miles and miles around... with ten foot windows that look in every direction. i was so lucky to have such a dramatic vantage point for such an emotional sky.

but now i am back home, and the last of the storms are withering away and leaving a wake of blue skies behind. it's a wonderful view to enjoy with a fine belgian beer... and so i am enjoying it with said beer. Nelly McKay is joining me on my speakers.

a veritible splenditude of sorts.

the picture is from this past weekend... completely unrelated, as with most things in my life. i succesfully braved the italian intrastate structure to find myself in Lucca, outside of Pisa. my mother (hi mom) is hanging out with a couple of friends at a villa in Tuscany about 20 south of Firenze. they were in Lucca for the day and so i drove down to join them, it being a saturday and all.

i drove five hours (traffic) and found a parking spot. i had talked to her about an hour before and they were sitting down to get a bite to eat "in a square by a big church." so i walked into the town looking for the biggest church i could find. what do you know? i found a square with a bunch of people eating outside. surely they had to be somewhere around. my suspicions were verified when i noticed an open air bazaar in the square... they were definitely there somewhere.

luckily i am naturally endowed with a rather high vantage point. after only a few scans of the crowd, there she was... mom... perusing the expensive and throroughly unnecessary section. i walked up to her as she perused a particularly interesting piece. she must have sensed someone behind her because she said, "well that's cute, isn't it?"

"it sure is." i said

you can imagine she was quite surprised.

little did she know that is one of my little talents... driving somewhere without directions and finding exactly who i'm looking for with no particular plan. silly mom.

anyway, the picture is of the lake where we went to watch 'Tosca' at the Puccini festival... it was sold out, but we ate dinner at a restaurant by the lake and listened to as much of the opera as we could.

mainly it was just cool to hang with the ma

anyways. that's it for now.

much love and beautiful skies to you.

slovenia

august now

I’m not quite sure where July went, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t invited, because August and I are sitting here in a daze and I have no clean laundry.

Whoever said that time goes by when you are older… they weren’t kidding. I now count years off on my fingers instead of months… both looking forward and back. Mom is probably reading this and thinking… just you wait.

Hi mom.

I had lost the will to write for a while… it happens… life gets a little hectic and things fall out. Maybe I didn’t feel very bouncy and optimistic and didn’t want to whine too much, or focus on negative thoughts. Maybe I didn’t feel grounded enough to be able to relax in front of the screen and open my mind. Sometimes I get a antsy and anxious feeling and I just can’t emote. Poor Heather has to deal with it all the time. Recently we rediscovered our mutual love of cooking. Instead of mac an cheese, I was buying all-purpose flour and yeast… we made bread. We made pizza and pizza sauce. We made gnocci. We drank wine (a much neglected step in cooking). We bought more cheese than we could possibly eat… of a handful of varieties… and then we sat down with some bread and wine and devoured it all with big cheesy grins and distended bellies.

i’m listening to Death Cab for Cutie’s album Plans.

You should too. It’s a fantastic album all around. Good for all people. It’s especially good at full volume in the car with the windows down and shiny bits in your eyes and a full breath of air in your lungs.

I’m not saying it’s cosmic or anything. I’m not saying it’ll change the world or anything… but it just might change your day and that just might be enough.

officially cool

i am now officially cool.

before i was mostly unofficially cool, but today that has all changed. you see, dear reader, one is not officially cool until one decides to dedicate their entire Sunday in the striving towards something most incredibly delectable and unique.

today happens to be that kind of Sunday, and so today i am officially cool.

it all started with an idea, as most unabashed bouts of coolness do, but then it evolved into the most beautiful of ideas...

how does one spend a Sunday afternoon in one’s house in italy? a house at the base of the Dolomiti no less...and on a Sunday that is laden with storm clouds and the strong wind that ravages the flowers on our front porch so...

i’ll tell you how. a person wakes up brilliantly with a flash of inspiration and says to one’s self (and anyone else who may happen to find themselves in the immediate vicinity):

“do you know what i’m going to do today? i’m going to figure out how to make pizza dough and i’m going to make the best pizza in the whole world!”

because if you think about it, what could possibly contribute more to your happiness than the best pizza in the whole world... let alone if you were responsible for it’s creation? AND if you got to partake in its extraordinary culinary delightment?

it is truly a recipe for happiness.

and so it was made. and it was cooked. and it was eaten with much grinning and overjoyment.

you too can be this cool.

la concerta

tonight there was a concerta. it was a small one in a small town down the way to the west towards Belluno. it took place in a small art-cafe named ArtCafe le Maschere run by a wonderful woman named cinzia in a purple shirt.

the music was fantastic. i really wish you could have heard it. i love the singer and she was delving into all kinds of jazz renditions of the likes of Morecheeba and Lauryn Hill. there was a bassist and a trumpet and a drummer and a pianist. there was groove galore and not a foot in the house escaped tapping... not a head in the place escaped nodding to the flow... to the pulse of the soul. there was cake to be had and i was invited to display my work up on the walls in august.

not a bad Saturday in my long list of Saturdays.

a casa

why is it that nowhere feels so good in bare feet?

i am home

the stashe

how can something be as ridiculous as a mustache? it escapes me why anyone would want to sculpt their facial hair into a small hemisphere above their upper lip. kids find them somewhat scary. villains in westerns always had them. adolescent boys see them as a mark of manhood that they are yet unable to display.

 

and yet i have one. but not for long.

 

since christmas i have been growing this monstrosity. trimming it occasionally so that the tough little hairs don't curl under my upper lip. all the guys at work grew them. it was a common bond... kind of a *gag* fraternity thing. the spectrum of mustaches that grew over the first four months of this year was spectacular. everything from full-blown butcher's mustaches, to the borat-stache, to cat whiskers. one guy's is blonde and very fair haired, to the point that it is almost invisible in a photograph, but he perseveres.

 

the time has come to cast off these ego bearing follicles. to bare my upperlip to the world in all it's naked glory. to shave where no blade has shaved since christmas... the mustache must go.

 

i must say that i will miss it. over time, it has worked it's way into my life and even into my mannerisms. the mustache is stroked unconsciously when i cook up mischievous plans. the mustache filters and savors the most delectable soups and drinks. the mustache makes me look kind of angry, which at work is a most fantastic side effect... the best way to avoid line-of-sight taskings is to walk fast, seem busy, and look angry. with the mustache, all i have to do is walk fast and look busy, the rest is done automatically.

 

i'm actually afraid to shave it though. as if it has it's own life energy. what would happen if i shaved it off and all the little whiskerbits reassembled themselves in the drain into a sort of frankenstashe that would crawl up the drain at night in search of my upper lip?

 

that could be bad. maybe i'll shave it tomorrow instead

sun spots

when i was in school, i would lay on my back in the grass, close my eyes, and stare at the sun through my eyelids. it was a kind of mindless meditation. no breathing, no imaging, no relaxing, just the infinite shades of red orange yellow and black.

the colors were almost blinding. it hurt my eyes at first. it seemed too bright, as if i didn't trust my eyelids to hold out the fire. then i would settle down. my eyes would slow and focus on infinity. i would shrink inside a womb of skin and feel the heat radiate into me as the colors danced across my vision.

one by one, on the back of my neck, the blades of grass, that i had compressed as i laid down, started to push back.

press

i don't really feel like writing today, but i feel like i need to express.

 

express: to press out.

 

it makes me think of a swelling inside, under the skin, and pressing emotion out through the pores, like sweat that you can wipe away with the back of your hand.

 

i germinated an avocado seed months ago. i stuck three toothpicks into it's side and suspended it in a truncated water bottle bottom in my closet, so it would be dark and warm. for a long time there was no change. just the sense of pressure within; an intuition of potential. over weeks i have watched the case split as the taproot emerged and fumbled down around the bottom of its plastic home. i waited until the shoot stretched from the crown of the seed until i poured out the water and gave it soil.

 

by soil i mean mud. by mud i mean clay. there is no soil in this land. at least not within an arms reach beyond the fence. the clay is mud when wet and dust when dry. there are only a few wonderful days in between when it is just dirt.

 

the shoot stopped growing. it could be because it is adapting to its new medium. it could be because the soil is too wet. it could be because i waited too long to transplant it to dirt. it could be because it is only lit by a single 75 watt light bulb because if i left it outside, its little water bottle pot would dry out in the sun before i could get back from work. it could have given up.

 

i have to trust that it is using its energy to grab the earth with its roots. i have to trust that it is gaining strength and learning about it's new home. i have to trust that it still has that pressure inside that it needs to express... that its soul is still within... with purpose.

 

in the meantime i'll just sit and wait... and wipe the sweat off my brow with the back of my hand.

friendshippng

i think it is interesting how we informally choose who we wish to keep in our life as time passes. i was just thinking about that the other day. i have a good friend named kate. i met her in college. she was the roommate of a girl i was dating at the time. i don't talk to the ex-girlfriend at this time (she's the only one i have broken contact with but that's another story), but i still keep in contact with kate.

 

we were acquaintances in school; loose friends who traveled in different circles. we didn't hang out really very much at all, but we always got along when we bumped into each other in the santa cruz universe. i graduated, she graduated, and we went out separate ways.

 

one day, after driving up from southern california to the bay area for the sole purpose of breaking up with a different girlfriend in person, i was on my way back down south when, being rather upset, i pulled off the road in santa cruz with the intent of going to watch the sunset on the beach. i was a mess, mostly because i felt like a total asshole, but a mess nonetheless.

 

i got about halfway there, thought the idea silly for some reason and made a u-turn to head back to highway-1. as soon as i turned around, i saw the flash of a profile that looked like kate, but i didn't recognize the car. it was driving in the opposite direction. in an unconscious motion, i whipped my truck around and turned to follow. i wanted to see if it was kate. it HAD to be her, i could have sworn. in fact, i think i did swear:

 

'holy shit, i think that was kate.' of course i was alone in my car so no one heard me.

 

i followed the car about two miles as it drove down to the shoreline by the lighthouse and around to the north up to natural bridges state beach where the car pulled off at the edge of the sea. i pulled into the lot and parked and walked somewhat clumsily towards the car. the door opened and sure enough it was kate. she thought someone had been following her. obviously i never learned very good super-secret tailing techniques in stalker school.

 

it was SO good to see her. she had always had a wonderful ear and a patient heart and fantastic advice. in a way, she was the perfect person i could have ran into at that time. we talked for a few minutes, watched the sun set, and i asked if she was hungry and wanted to get something to eat. i felt like i had a ten pound sack of old wet tea bags to lift off my heart. we decided on pleasure point pizza and set off.

 

i was excited. life was giving me a friend to talk to exactly when i needed one. a trusted soul. she turned left, but i wanted to take the coast road around to the pizza place so i continued straight. when i got there she was no where to be seen. that was ok, i thought, i'll just get my pizza and grab a table.

 

10 minutes. no kate.

i was a little worried. maybe something happened. i realized i didn't get her cell phone number.

 

20 minutes. no kate.

now something was definitely wrong.

 

25 minutes with no kate i tried calling information to get her number. no luck. then suddenly i panicked with a realization, called information and asked the lady on the other end for the address of pleasure point pizza.

 

which location sir? i have one in pleasure point and one on mission street in santa cruz.

 

FUCK

 

i was fumbling with my keys in the ignition and trying not to drop the pizza slice on the floor as i sped out of the parking lot back towards santa cruz. it took me 10 minutes to get across town and i bounced into the parking lot.

 

no kate.

 

all i wanted was to sit down, have a beer, and a couple of slices of pizza and talk about life. i felt betrayed by the world. the next six hours on the road were absolutely miserable. an eternity of driving though a blurred world. i was already torn up over the breakup, but the fact that i was given the opportunity to spend some time with a beautiful soul and i mucked it up was actually a more painful loss.

 

i didn't get a hold of her until about a month later, when we figured out what had happened. we finally got to share a pizza over a year later, and we got our conversation about life and love and paths through the middle. now we still keep in touch... sporadically at times, but that's how it is with friends. it's always good to hear from her.

 

there is something magical about the people we choose to keep in our lives. the relationships might have old or thin or twisted roots; they may be based on chance and happenstance, but they are important nonetheless because somehow, on some level, we choose them... and they have chosen us.

where would you rather be right now?

it's an interesting question. first of all, it implies that you would rather be somewhere else. while this may be true, it also infers that you find yourself in a less than desirable situation, which is not always the case when a person asks you this question. generally it all amounts to focusing on the bad parts of where you are and the good parts of where you aren't.

while it may not make sense to focus on the bad parts of where you aren't, although that might be helpful sometimes, it is generally more constructive to concentrate on the good things of where you are, as small and delicate as they may seem.

aside from the philosophical and chi-related ramifications of asking such a question, it is a good question that a friend asked me recently, albeit somewhat off-handedly.

my first answer was 'with friends and family.' that was fairly easy. that is most definitely where i am-not right now. while my parents, sister, and i may all have strong personalities that cause a modicum of tension when we are all together for an extended period of time, i love being around them. my parents have both been an example, whether they have wanted to be or not, in just about every aspect of my life. as has my sister. as has my cousin elijah. to different extents, they are people that i admire and wish to emulate. why wouldn't i want to be closer to them?

then there is my friends. heather, fairlight, kate, sage, micah, crystal, nick, jeff, angela, and rebecca, to name a few. they have always been there with a patient open ear and a couch if needed. they are my net, and i can only hope that i give the as much support as they give me. it is priceless, intangible, and ever appreciated.

which brings me to my second answer: california.

i haven't been there more than a few days at a time for years, but i still feel like i'm washing the sand of it's beaches out of my ears. i'm sure there is still a little bit of seawater hidden up in one of the upper reaches of my sinuses. it is in my blood, my lungs, and my soul.

when i walked away from california, i wasn't quite sure where the path would take me. i'm surprised where i have gone so far, but i truly wonder how many other places that path will lead me before i end up back there. i am a believer in the road less traveled. i am a believer in forging a path of your own, of creating a unique life and living it for all you're worth. the funny thing about constantly wandering off the path, in search of something unknown and intangible, is that you will never know where you are until you look back. even then, it could be a mystery. another thing about wandering without a map is that people tend to walk in circles. that's fine for me. as long as my circle ends up in california, and as long as i can fill my bag with experiences along the way.

my third answer was the darkroom.

this answer is more symbolic than anything. it represents a place in my life where i am consumed with creation. it represents a place where i have the freedom to spend my time working on images and symbols. it represents the place in me that the artist lives. it represents minimalism and focus. it represents purpose and drive. it represents personal love of expression.

my fourth answer was surfing. i would rather be surfing.

deep space

some far out space shit

cosmic style with planetary type spinning gas masses and huge asteroid belts

heaps and heaps of nothing in a field of potential where particles
spontaneously exist and then are reabsorbed just as quickly...
with the deafening silence of solar systems sliding on massive ball
bearings in a synchronized dance of dizzyness...
where light moves so fast that it leaves a whisper of sound behind
like some sort of intergalactic skidmark...

that's what it's like in my head sometimes

only smaller

and with ears on both sides.

storms

there are a thousand fingers on my rooftop drumming impatiently as the
air above shifts and cracks with the weight of the storm. the thin
metal walls of the trailer magnify each vibration and flex with each
wave of wind. thunder sounds suspiciously like mortar fire and heavy
machine guns in the distance, and all the air in my nose tingles with
ozone.

it recharges me at three in the morning. all i want to do is lay there
and listen, and hope it never fades away.

i remember the sound of the windows in the house that i grew up. i
remember how they would shake in their frames until i thought they
would break when the wind came off the ocean in a grey momentum that
would fold the palm trees over and tear their hair out. i remember
laying in bed, under the covers, and pressing my forehead against the
chilled glass and the rain outside blurred the world. i remember the
feeling of the panes shivering as i stared outward at the whitecaps
inside the breakwater. everything was middlegrey and angry. the air
itself had emotion and screamed.

even then, when i was six, and huddled under my covers with just my
head peeking out… even then, i never wanted it to end.

inspiration and expiration

my soul is breathing

i can feel it expanding and contracting

with the shallow rhythm of someone who just ran too fast

 

it sweats a thin oil

that lines my stomach and ribcage

i can feel it sliding around

 

it is hot and flushed

with pink cheeks, blue eyes, and shaking hands on its knees

it wants to sit down

but there is no room

it already fills every corner of my being

the power of the subconscious

i'm listening to The ORB.

 

or as my co-workers would refer to it: my california hippie noise. but they don't really know what they are talking about... to them, california = hippie. they think all californians do is surf, drink wine, eat granola, protest stuff, smoke pot, and go to raves.

 

we do other stuff... i'm sure... anyways...

 

i'm listening with my frankenphones... also known as the really-great-earphones-that-i-broke-and-was-sad-then-fixed-and-was-happy.

 

i'm happy today because, once again, i broke my headphones and then i fixed them. actually, i broke them yesterday at the gym. my headphones were hanging out of my shirt as i talked to a buddy of mine at the bench press. it is polite gym etiquette to remove one's earphones when talking to someone so i had taken them from my ears. somehow, when i laid down on the bench and started exercising my relatively less-than-massive chest, my frankenphones worked their way over my sternum, directly under the barbell that was loaded with the less-than-impressive weight. when i lowered the weight to my chest and heard a pop, i wasn't too concerned. i often hear pops and cracks associated with belabored movements. it wasn't until after when my buddy reached down and picked up the insulted audio accessory that i realized what had happened.

 

but have no fear dear reader. i had some experience with this particular malady and i knew just what to do. for only two dollars i acquired a handy dandy applicator full of super glue and a roll of scotch tape. using my ever useful leatherman pliers and a wooden coffee stir stick, i managed to reattach and splint the beloved frankenphones back to a operable condition. it only took a slight drilling motion with a miniature screwdriver to break through the thin veil of glue that i, once again, managed to seal across the entire tube.

 

VOILA! auditory perfection once again, and this time with only a modicum of anxiety.

 

the subconscious effects of this event, however, would not become apparent until late that night, when deep asleep...

 

the dream began as a fairly innocuous one. i was sitting in a chair listening to my headphones, when suddenly i could feel something was wrong with my right earphone. i couldn't hear any music, although i could still feel it in my ear. when i reached up to my ear, i realized that the ear flange had broken off inside my ear.

 

at first i didn't panic. in fact, i laughed. it seemed pretty absurd to lose a earpiece inside your ear. i tried to grasp it with my fingertips, but to my astonishment it slid farther in. now i started getting a little nervous... out came my leatherman with it's ever useful pliers. i reached in my ear with pliers trying to gripthe end of the flange, but with each poke i felt it sliding slightly farther in, until finally it fell into my head.

 

the sound it made was similar to what you would hear if you pushed a cork into an empty wine bottle.

 

now i was more than nervous, but it simultaneously occurred to me that i was sticking something in my ear that was SMALLER THAN MY ELBOW! nevermind that i had just pushed a small plastic and rubber piece into my head... i was sticking pliers into my ear. luckily i happened to have a suitably large (elbow sized) pair of pliers close at hand and i tilted my head to one side and tried to grab hold of the flange with them instead.

 

now imagine, if you will, a person trying to remove the cork from inside the wine bottle with a pair of pliers the size of bolt cutters.

 

that was me. jumping up and down with my head tilted right in a frenzied swimmers ear hop with a massive pair of pliers stuck to my ear. meanwhile the little piece of jetsam was bouncing around inside like a pachinko ball.

 

never underestimate the power of the subconcious my friends.

 

and don't run with scissors

 

i'm now going to find some granola and practice my killer glowstick moves.

 

peace out

sometimes i swear

i cussed a few times today.

i'm not proud of it, but it felt good just the same.

why is that? what is it about expletives that seem to vent stress? i wonder if it really does, because usually the stress and the anxiety is still there when the steam clears.

it's like a dog barking... no, hear me out... what exactly is a dog saying when he barks? maybe that he's scared, or threatened, or happy, or that he feels neglected... but that is all in the intonation... the actual 'woof' is...well... nonsense. it's a sound.

when i yell out an expletive, it is my inner person barking. it tells the people around me how i'm feeling. it isn't the word itself, but whether my tail is between my legs, or if my ears are laying flat against my head, or if the hair of my neck is standing up, that determines what i am saying.

just like a bark there is usually a hard consonant or glottal stop at the end of expletives.

sometimes it is just hard to say what you want to say and a bark just works better.

ask your dog, he knows what i mean.

green

i think i'm going to miss my plants. i was never really a plant person before i met heather, but for some reason ever since then i have found that i have a bond with my photosynthetic friends. perhaps it goes back to my hierarchy of living, and i'm ready to progress to my next step, but that will remain to be seen.

 

i started by germinating two apple seeds, planting them, and growing them into small trees on my bedroom windowsill. i germinated three avocado seeds and gave the resulting plants to my sister and parents. i gave the apple trees to heather's parents when i left arizona. i would have brought them along but our new home was too far away.

 

in the last two and a half years, we have collected a veritable garden within the walls of our home. most of the plants were homeless, and we rescued them when their parents shipped off to other parts of the world. a few of them were bought in local nurseries. all of them are loved and appreciated.

 

since i've been gone on business, heather has been looking after our little green children in my place. usually i'm the one who talks to them and checks in on them. i'll be back to check on them soon enough, but what i'm thinking about is down the road. this winter the wind will blow out of the east and i'll be torn from europe towards my next home. i don't know where that will be, but i know that none of the plants can come.

 

it saddens me to think of finding homes for them all. i want to make a little journal with the secrets of watering, and which plants like to be in the bathroom, and which ones like the kitchen, and which ones like to look out the window. elijah is one of the window lookers. we named her after a marvelously magical individual that we both love and cherish. her full name is actually ubertreeelijah, but informally we just call her elijah.

 

i suppose there just comes a day when you have to realize your little greenies are all grown up and don't need you anymore. i just look forward to spending time with them before that day comes.

memory is fantastic... for example: i can close my eyes and see this...



i can smell the subtleties. i can remember what the wine tasted like. i remember it was a warm night in venice, among friends. i remember laying my head down on the table to take the picture and heather's beautiful face magically appeared.

it's beautiful i tell you.

breathing

step one: tilt your head back slightly

 

step two: close your eyes

 

step three: open your mouth

 

step four: breathe in like you've never taken a breath before.  feel every last corner of your lungs stretch with fullness. breathe in as if to replace the very soul in your chest with air.

 

step five: let it go

 

not just the air. the everything. the guy who took your cab. the subway door that closed in your face. the myriad of deadlines that we fabricate to satisfy our need for logical progression and our heinously imbalanced priorities. the sound of your alarm clock. the smell of exhaust. the fear of failure that keeps us from realizing our dreams.

 

step six: open your eyes

 

not just your eyelids, but your vision. your mind. your perspective. see the effects of a smile and an open ear. attempt to view the world through not only your eyes, but the eyes of everyone you meet in passing, without judgment or assumption. see the myriad of minor miracles that lie within an arms reach at any time and celebrate them in your soul.

 

step seven: open your ears

 

believe in the love that you receive. trust the support of your net. know that your friends value you as you do them. listen for every opportunity to listen instead of speaking, and in the process, learn something. everyone is a teacher. be a student.

i fixed my earphones

i fixed my earphones.

 

this was more of an emotional event than i had anticipated.

about 10 months ago, i made the mistake of falling asleep wearing my earphones, and when i awoke, the right earpiece was broken into two pieces. i must have rolled over it in my sleep and it snapped. i was traveling when it happened which made it pretty upsetting, but it felt like the loss of an old friend. the earphones were fantastic. they fit perfectly inside my ear and everything i played seemed to resonate in a hollow space behind my forehead. the music seemed more like it was coming to me from my mind than to me through my ears... at least that is how i could imagine it. i buried my face in my pillow and contorted my diaphragm into a completely exhaustive face reddening scream, and then i cried.

 

apparently super glue is a universally understood term, and i found myself sitting on the floor with some toothpicks and bits of paper trying to figure out how to mate the two severed halves. with a splinter tip of superglue, and shaky hands, i managed to mate the two pieces together and then i splinted them together with a piece of tape torn off my sketchbook binding.

 

after it dried, i nervously put the earsleeve back on the earpiece, put it back in my ear, plugged in some music, and hit play...

 

the effect was overwhelming and immediately obvious: the mended earpiece's volume was substantially muted and quieter, and in order to hear anything recognizable, i had to turn up the volume so high that it hurt my other ear.

 

my magical earphones would never be the same. once again i was crushed.

 

nevertheless, i continued to use them. even the pseudo-mono sound that i got was better than the other pair i had, and i just didn't have the budget to throw down on another $150 pair of earphones. over time, i just got used to the fact that i would ever after hear music through my ear instead of my mind.

 

until today.

 

what inspired me? i have no idea. i would like to think it was just time. i was listening to some music and i decided it was time to tinker. when i took off the earsleeve and peeked inside, i could see a small metal core with what looked like a screen at the bottom.

 

?what if the screen was simply clogged with superglue or something?

 

i looked around to see if i could find something that i could poke inside to clean the screen and i saw the little mini screwdriver attachment on my leatherman... perfect. i poked it into the core to see what i could scrape loose, but when i pulled it out, the whole core came out with it.

 

crap... now what.

 

then i dropped it somewhere on my carpet. shit.

 

but instead of panicking, i put the earsleeve back on and stuck the thing in my ear and hit play...

 

it... was... beautiful...  *sigh*

 

i just sat there and let the music flow into my head for the first time in almost a year. it felt like a first drink of water after days in the desert. it felt like the first night back in your own bed after a year on the road. it felt like home.

 

i've seen a lot of things over here that i really have no need of ever seeing again. i've watched people on both sides get killed. i can tell you what it is like to watch an armored personnel carrier get hit by an ied and burst into flames, with no one coming out. i can tell you what a rocket looks like when it explodes 50 feet from you. i can tell you what gunfire sounds like over a radio and how a tactical air controller sounds when he thinks you could be his last chance.

 

but i really can't explain why, when i filled my head with music for the first time in almost a year, my eyes couldn't stop watering.

awake

i can't sleep.

it's eight o clock at night and i'm sleepy, but i can't sleep, so i decided to turn on my trusty laptop and ramble a little.

 

hang on, i need a little music. what should i listen to... zero 7 seems suitable enough... a little pseudo lounge ambiance for my dark little bunk bed cave.

 

part of the reason that i can't sleep is my fault. i got 'home' from work at around 2 after lunch and i was fairly sleepy. i didn't quite have the motivation to go to the gym and so after about 20 minutes of just laying on my bed in a daze, unwilling to move for just about anything, i decided... screw it... i'll go to bed now and wake up at 10 or 11 tonight and go to the gym then when it is not crowded. that way, if i feel like i need to sleep a little more than 8 hours, i can... last night i got about 5 hours worth and it was by no means satisfying.

 

so i did. i brushed my teeth, pulled back my sheets, jumped in, and off i traveled to slumberland. then i woke up at 7pm just now... well 45 minutes ago... and although i am still sleepy (yawning even), i just can't seem to knock myself out again.

 

great idea dude... now i have 9 hours before i have to be at work for an 10 hour day... AND the gym is at its most crowded right now.

 

on a different note: my floor looks like a cock fighting arena... there are feathers everywhere. the somewhat less expensive down comforter that i purchased before i left seems to have been manufactured by the same people who put braille on drive through ATMs.

 

everyone imagines down feathers as such a soft and insulating material... what they fail to detect is the needle sharp little tips of each feather where it was originally attached to the bird. if one were to, by chance, pack several tens of thousands of these little feathery barblets into a low thread count cover and then sell it to unwitting customers who are only looking for a warm night of sound sleep, then one could probably make a fair amount of money. that unscrupulous individual would only have to come to terms with the fact that said customer would feel like he or she was sleeping in a porcupine nest... night... after night...

 

i've gotten used to the fact that feathers are everywhere. they are stuck to my clothes. they pile up in dunes across my floor. they weave themselves into the weft of my very soul and i cannot get rid of them.

 

that's probably a little overdramatic, but then again i suppose all duck lepers are a little melodramatic when they are tired.

peace out yo.