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.

in the name of medicine

ladies and gentlemen,

i regret to inform you of the bitter illness that has beset your beloved. i am afraid to tell you that there is no quick cure, and that rehabilitation will be a long and arduous process requiring much trial and tribulation, as well as support and dedication from his loved ones.

 

the cause should be of no surprise. there is a plethora of scientifically sound historical evidence that link the known causes to this kind of affliction. unfortunately, in times of global crisis such as these, often the personal safety of the few is sacrificed for the effort for the greater good. it was also found that the required OSHA placards (that detail the level of risk that an individual may face in this environment) were conspicuously absent from the workplace.

 

however, regardless of the amount of information available or preventative measures put into place, the end result is the same: a testosterone saturated environment with only remote links to the outside world... your dearly beloved has been diagnosed with chronic maleness. the term derived from the latin root mal, apparently meaning bad.

 

the subject first started displaying symptoms about two months ago when the testosterone rich environment started affecting him almost immediately. within days there appeared the early warning signs of upper labial follicle development... also known by the layman's term 'silly mustache." this in itself is not normally serious. often things like this flare up from time to time, normally on weekends when accompanied by suitably stimulating testosterone producing activities such as auto mechanicalism, and other fixing or bug killing activities, but it usually disappears in time for the relatively benign work week. in this case however, the follicle development continued, nay was cultured and even encouraged within the social context of his work environment. now two months later, the silly mustache is fully formed and promises to grow even further with no sign of subsiding.

 

the next and more serious phase of the affliction was more surprising... with very little warning, the subject began to spend more and more time in a physical conditioning center, engaging in painful and repetitive activities designed for nothing other than the restructuring and manipulation of musculoskeletal structure and the cardiovascular system. again, this activity has occasionally been a part of our dearly beloved's life schedule, but usually in short bursts and never with the regularity and intensity here mentioned.

 

over time, this has lead to a decrease in the amount of time spent in correspondence with his friends and family. it has lead to a decrease in the amount of net creative energy excess and a reciprocal increase in the frequency and duration of shop talk and guy time.

 

one of the serious long term effects of this dangerous affliction is the possible dissolution of relation with the previously existing ego (in the Freudian sense) and loss of connection with all things beautiful and creative (think california). overall the subject has been prescribed pens, pencils, paints, and paper, as well as music and books. the sketchbooks, pens, and pencils are already in his possession, and a very large shipment of paints is enroute, but we may need your help with suggestions for reading and hip music to inspire this young man so that we do not forever banish him to existence as just another uninspired, commonplace, testosterone driven guy.

 

i plead for your assistance, in the name of medicine and all good things.