pause

once again, i haven't written in a while.

i suppose there is some kind of reason why it has fallen to the wayside. i was doing so well for a while. kind of like going to the gym... i'm not really that much of a gym-goer these days... ALTHOUGH, i did just get my new bike in the mail:


i replaced the white seat with a black leather Brooks saddle, but other than that, it's the same. i'm quite excited about it. it's a fixed gear, which means that there is only one gear and no derailers. the rear gear is fixed to the rear wheel so if the wheels turn, the pedals turn. there is no freewheeling on this guy.

when i first got him in the mail from the folks at Mission Bicycles in San Francisco, i put it together and jumped on to ride over to the bike store and doublecheck the tire pressure, which ended up being fine. on the way back to the dorms, i noticed i was riding right past the running/cycling track that runs around the perimeter of the base and couldn't resist taking it for a little spin...

so around the base i went, about 5-6 miles.

the first thing i noticed is what an entirely different experience riding a fixed gear bicycle is. because the legs are always moving, there is no period where one can rest one's legs, so i found myself getting into a groove with the motion. i also noticed quite quickly that i'm rather accustomed to coasting in a semi-standing position as i approach a bump... that doesn't quite work on this bike... you pedal over everything, whether you want to or not.

you also can't take corners quite as aggressively as you can on a freewheeling bike, as the pedal will hit the ground eventually.

i also noticed rather quickly how asymmetric my pedaling mechanics are. i've heard that fixed geared bikes were good at streamlining your pedaling form, but about mile 4, when my legs were a little fatigued, was when i really noticed how much i was favoring one leg. so strange.

the bottom line though: i forgot to wear gloves and it was below freezing, but even though my fingers were purple and felt like they were on fire for 20 minutes after i got home, i have been wearing a big smile on my face ever since.

hope you all had a happy holiday
happy new year

crastination

it's only 4am.

i have two more hours to kill before i roll into bed... i'm on the night train and i like it.

there is something peaceful about being up in the middle of the night when everyone else is in bed. i preferred it when i was in school, and i think i still prefer it now. as much as i like to socialize, i like to have my time to myself as well. i'm not sure if everyone i work with could understand that. most of them seem addicted to peer attention and social interaction. i guess i'm just not as much of a social animal... as much.

i'll admit, i like company just as much as the next person, but i rarely crave it in the way that some people around here do.

i'm listening to Amon Tobin's album Permutation. i just bought it today... i think i may be officially addicted to iTunes. they should seriously have a mileage program (or something) with their accounts... i'd have a free round-trip ticket to anywhere in the continental United States by now... anyways, the album rocks. me gusta... as them native spanish speakers say.

and, as i said that, i just bought Venetian Snares' album Rossz Csillag Alatt Szuletatt... somebody stop me... no more iTunes.

i put some more photos up on Flickr today. it has also been a while since i had done that... since early September, right after i got back from Mongolia. i figure it was about time... besides, i am working on a little project that got me refocused again.

i LOVE projects... capital L

now it's 05:30am... time for sleep i suppose... lest the sun rise and throw my clock off.
good night.

As-Salāmu Aleykum

myself: it has... once again... been awhile... welcome back me.

me: thanks, it's good to be back myself

myself: where have you been, i must ask?

me: apparently i have been waylaid by the distractions.

myself: the distractions, eh? do explain.

me: well, you see... the distractions are those little things that distract us... me, myself, and I... and depending on the current, the distractions can be more or less effective.

myself: what current might this be?

me: the current is the flow of daily life... it's tied into the larger flow of the week... and then again into the months and years that make up the current of our lives... it requires that there be a positive charge and a grounded element to create the motion, direction, and flow... IF one of those two elements is missing, the flow can slow, stop, or even reverse. THAT's when the distractions come in... they act as resistors to flow... they act to diffuse the current and to dilute it, creating a loss of focus and perspective.

myself: that sounds pretty cosmic amigo.

me: well, it is friend... quite cosmic indeed.

myself: so what has changed? i assume the current had stalled... and now it's flowing again?

me: good way to think of it i suppose... current can only go one way at a time. if it tries to go in to many directions at once, it'll stall every time, especially if there is no ground... and i had been missing a ground for quite some time.

myself: i would say so. it's been since July first, but better late than never i suppose. it's just good to see you writing again. it feels pretty cleansing doesn't it?

me: yes sir it does; quite cleansing. i can't even imagine at this point what would have made me put down the pen for so long... that's four long months.

myself: yeah, but you were pretty busy that whole time. you were getting ready to spend a month bouncing around between a week in Florida and two weeks in Mongolia... then you were back home for two weeks, then you were off again to Montgomery, Alabamba for five weeks. so now this is the longest you've been home in 4 months.

me: yeah, i suppose, AND i'm leaving again next weekend for Ubergirlelijah's wedding.

myself: TOTALLY looking forward to THAT!

me: indeed.

myself: so you're good? back in one piece?

me: i'm good. focusing on getting the current back on track... trying to keep it focused and not spread out in too many directions.

myself: Insha'allah.

me: indeed.

slightly watered down

a dilution of sorts

where the thoughts in my mind are translucent but i still just can't grasp them

i'm listening to kate nash. it's tuesday night and my cider is almost empty. my stomach is poking me in the ribs and whining, but i have yet to make a move towards the fridge...

soon, dear stomach, soon

i've gotten into a bad habit lately of procrastinating with my feedings in the evening. i wait and wait instead of just sucking it up and cooking something. then, when i can't stand it anymore, i fix something quickly... or i eat chips and salsa... the dinner for last night.

it's not exactly the most fulfilling meal in the world, but it is spicy.

a friend recently pointed out that perhaps i am too passive in my approach to life. perhaps i allow other people to take the reigns too often, they said. perhaps i should stand up for what i would like to pursue. i am truly thankful for this flavor of insight.

this is a wonderful idea, all i have to do is figure out what exactly it is that i wish to pursue. that, however, is where all the complicated bits come into play:

i want it all. i want everything.

i want experiences that no one else has. i want security. i want a chance to test my mettle. i want to be recognized for my abilities. i want to be anonymous. i want to risk and be rewarded. i want a slower pace of life. i want to draw my friends closer. i want to excel. i want to blow it off. i want to inspire and be inspired. i want to chase down my fears at a full sprint and tackle them to the dirt, laughing and tugging at their hair. i want simplicity. i want minimalism. i want clarity. i want freedom to say what i think and stand behind my words.

i want to know what my words would mean if i said them aloud
and to the people they are meant for

......

i would agree with my friend: i am passive in many aspects of my life. i do go with the flow to see where it will take me. as much as people think i stand waist deep in the current and dig my heels in... as much as people think i swim upstream... i think most of the time i'm floating on my back with my toes in the air and my eyes closed.

i'm making it up as i go along. isn't everyone?

two hours

the drive up north to where my friends live is two hours.

i don't have a lot of close friends up there... in fact, i could count them on less than one hand. some of them i've met recently, some of them i've known for years, but i trust them all.

the drive is a little long, but definitely worth it... especially now, and even in the heat with a car with a weak-sauce air conditioner.

it rained all the way up there, so i had the cool comfort of driving my warm and dry little bubble up through the deluge with windshield wipers furiously slapping the water away. instead of music, i listened to all my unlistened-to episodes of This American Life... the drive takes almost exactly two episodes.

usually, i listen to the episodes at home on my computer after work while i'm making dinner of some sort. this is the first time i've ever actually put my 'podcasts' on an ipod for use on the road, and i would consider it a success.

i found myself driving along and looking outside as i listened to ira glass' voice... listening to all the stories... i found myself looking at the endless sea of rice fields. every stalk looks like the exact same height as it's neighbor when witnessed at 60 miles an hour... every paddy looks like the rice paddy to the side. they are all stacked slightly so as to use the runoff of the rice paddy above it and so they cascade down to the sea around raised roads and ramshackle homes.

the sunset reflects in the water around each spike of green. the grey sky itself is reflected in the silver fields. i found myself remarking on the physical beauty of the place. i wanted to stop the car and walk about. i wanted to sit on a hillside and take it all in.

but i was in my little bubble rolling through the hills listening to ira glass' voice and contemplating the various stories of various lives... as well as my own.

and thinking about the sheer quantity of green that i was witnessing... and how as much as the country is now green, just 7 months ago it was that brown... with nothing green.

green to me is the color of freshness and rebirth. it is the color of both the struggle of life and the serenity that the struggle leaves behind in it's wake.

you can fit a lot of green in two hours

weird dream

so i'm going to do something here that i haven't done in a while... since i was a kid actually.

i'll explain:

when i was a kid. if i had a bad dream, i would most likely wake up, be all scared, then go back to sleep to the very same dream. it was so frustrating. when i was about 14 or so, i thought maybe i should try writing them down as a way to get those dreams out of my head, so i kept a notebook beside my bed. if the same dream woke me up a couple of times, i'd just turn on my light, write down as much of the dream as i remembered, and go back to sleep... usually peacefully, and often i'd never have that dream again.

so here i am. an adult, having a bad dream. granted, i know it's a bad dream, which i didn't necessarily know when i was six. it wasn't super scary, but it wasn't the most restful thing in the world either... i think bad dreams change as you get older... fewer monsters and more stressors.

but maybe that's just me... i can't say that's the case for everyone.

my dream took place in a variety of environments, and at the same time, in the usual temporally inconsistent dream fashion: out in the pitch black woods at night and in my old bedroom from when i was a kid, among other places that have now blurred away into the waking world.

in the woods i had the feeling that i was with a group of people who were hiding from something. i couldn't see the people i was with, but i knew we were all out there. it was some sort of game. we couldn't get caught. something... somethings were looking for us, and they were good. the had phenomenal hearing and smell. they could move around easily in the dark, but they couldn't see very well, so as long as you laid absolutely still they probably would find you.

but they would walk amongst you. i could feel their feet push off the ground next to where i was laying as one by one they stepped over me, and they were massive things. i could feel the earth displace with their steps. i was nervous they would crush me if by chance they accidentally stepped on me. but that was their game... that's how they got you to move. that's how they found you, because they could only smell you. they wanted you to make a sound.

meanwhile THEY would make sounds. kind of a humming moaning chant that sounded like a song.

there was nothing scary about their song except that it didn't have words.. and it was related to them, and that make it scary.

so then, in my dream, i woke up to find myself in the dark in my childhood room... in bed. i knew where i was because i could just make out the features. it was very quiet for a few minutes and i just laid there. then i heard the chanting/ moaning again... it was coming from the hallway outside the door, and i froze. i knew if i moved or made a sound that they would come in...

how did they find me in my old room? i don't know man, it's a dream.

suddenly the door opened, and my uncle mike walked in. he used to live with us growing up, and was like a second dad to me. he passed away ten years ago last february.

he was trying to say something to me, and he was obviously upset, so they words really weren't coming out very clearly. either that or i can't remember them anymore, but the jist of it is that 'why was i making all this noise'. at the same time, he wasn't blaming me. he knew i wasn't making it, because he could see me and still hear it at the same time. but he was a little upset... as was i. i couldn't explain it to him because i still couldn't make a sound.

like when you wake up from a dream when you're a kid and you try to scream but have no voice.

i couldn't talk, even though i wanted to.

so my uncle left, and i laid there for a few minutes until the sounds passed, then i got up and ran down the hall into his room since i could finally move, but he wasn't there.

my grandparents were in his bed, but i realized it too late, and had already roused my grandfather, who grabbed me in his sleep, sat up, and smacked me hard, thinking i was an intruder. then my grandmother woke up, and i tried to explain what was going on and they said to stop imagining things, and to go back to bed.

so i did, and the sounds came back... this time in my room.

then i woke up and found myself here. i thought it was perhaps time to revisit that old practice of mine, and write it down to let it go.

thank you for your help.
goodnight.

because

about this time yesterday night
conditions seemed to be just right
to pick some words, to make them rhyme
in simple metronomic time

there are no patterns in these deeds
no metaphors or hidden seeds
just rhyming words all in a row
they come as fast as ink can flow

when i was young i wrote much more
i'd lay stretched out upon the floor
with pen in hand and words in head
and little thought to what i said

i have no reason why i write
it's not from sadness, fear, or spite
more likely 'cause i like the sound
of metered rhyming words around

shells

there were some shells down by the sea
but they all looked the same to me
my feet were wet, my skin was burned
the sun had set, the whitecaps churned

then at my feet was one unique
and modest shell that seemed to speak
into my soul, into my ear
in one small voice that i could hear

i am like you, it said to me
i spend all day down by the sea
and i look up, while you look down
we both see sameness all around

but don't be sad with empty hands,
or pockets full of dripping sands,
for in the search it matters not
just what you find: it's how it's sought

bamboo

jeonju

a few images of this past weekend

return to Jikso Falls

Camping along the beach

more camping on the beach.

cinco de mayo: a 30 second history

Have a wonderful time celebrating General Ignacio Zaragoza Seguin's victory over the French forces led by Charles de Lorencez on May 5th, 1862 in the Battle of Puebla.

Napoleon the third was owed money by mexico and sent a veritable grip of troops over to collect. The Brits and Spaniards were owed money as well, and they jumped on the band wagon. After they showed up in January of 1862 though, they realized that there wasn't much reason to be there and they made their apologies and went back home three months later.

Napoleon's forces, on the other hand, got their butts whipped in the Battle of Puebla on the 5th of May because they stuck around. This kind of pissed off ol' Nappy and he sent another 15000 troops. It took him 5 more years to conquer most of Mexico.

Now I'm not a genius, but i think it probably cost more to fight a 5 year war over the Atlantic Ocean than Mexico could have possibly owed them... also, given the fact that I've never heard a Mexican speak French, I think it is arguably one of the stupidest and most pointless military efforts that the French have ever undertaken.

i feel like a margarita.

viva

wanderer

so i'm beginning to wonder...

what does it say about me that i usually spend a lot of time thinking about where i'll be going next?... besides the fact that i move often. i'm sensing a bit of overall restlessness in my lifestyle. it is a strange contradiction that a job with so much security might leave so much open to chance.

does the fact that i focus so much on where i'll be 8 months from now mean that i'm somehow not experiencing the present? am i living in the future? and if so, is that a bad thing? or does it crush my instinctive, seat-of-the-pants approach to life? or does it exacerbate it.

so many questions. all i know is that i spend a lot of time waiting for things to happen, instead of making them happen. i just hope i'm not solidifying a lifetimes worth of patterns here.

i suppose we shall see.

inspiration

comes from breathing in.

it comes from opening your lungs and filling yourself. it comes from the tingling in your skin and the pulse in your stomach. it runs through your tearducts and leaps our across your cheeks. it comes from the stretch of your muscles and the way you lean forward into your being, leveraging your strength with your bones.

you have to take that energy inside you and you need to release it. you need to focus that breath and concentrate on it's form. you need to decide if it is going to be warm and soft or cold and directed. you have to share it. you have to risk something. you have to put a piece of yourself in every breath. you have to invest yourself.

for what good is breathing in, if you never breathe out again?

i can't wait for a chance. i can't wait to exhale. i have to make the conscious decision to make it happen everyday.

maybe this blog is my small way of doing this. maybe it is a place to focus my breath from time to time... perhaps it is a surrogate form... a shell to carry the air for a while. i'm not sure if it is enough, but at least it reminds me of what i want and what i need.

i don't really have a good reason why i write here. there is no message. there is no intended audience. there isn't really any focus... mostly it's just a way of talking out loud... and tossing a little bit of myself out into the world.

drinking and devising

ah time for the drunken free write... oh so dangerous:

one never knows what one may reveal after a long week at work and a six pack of beers topped off with a white russian of the upmost caliber... if you don't know, i make a MEAN white russian... they taste more like vanilla ice cream than any sort of beverage. you should be so lucky as to taste one.

tonight was group movie night... unofficially... we watched 3:10 to Yuma, which is an interesting western... it left me feeling more for the 'villian' than for the main character... which is a little disappointing. it actually makes me rethink who the protagonist is in the first place.... more storytime and back plot is given to the 'good' guy, but the denoument seems to hinge more on the 'villian,' so there is a little bit of conflict there.

last night we watched Superbad... which was entertaining in it's own right... a little bit offensive perhaps, but entertaining nonetheless... definitely reminiscent of the shallowness and disconnectedness of high school.

a lot of people liked high school... they think of it as their wonder years... they have fond memories and continue to identify with their social status as it was formed in grade 9.

personally, i thought high school sucked. ever since i was a freshman, i couldn't wait to get to college. really i didn't care where that college was, as long as there were dorm pranks, since that is the 'college experience' that was introduced to me in freshman english by a substitute teacher, who thought that college was truly the time for a person to come into their own....

in the end... he was right... it was glorious.

wow... if any of that makes any sense... it is the result of pure luck.

peace

haiku for you

a haiku dedicated to all of those who have spent too much time at work:

twas dark when i left

and fourteen hours later
dark when i returned

here is another one for your haiku-lovin:

eyelids are heavy
sacks of rice in outstretched hands
beginning to fall

why not one more... we're on a roll:

white kitchen trash can
you reek of wednesday chicken
it's only thursday


thank you... thank you... you're too kind...

kool-aid: here's to drinking it

i find that in my profession (working for the man) there is often a feeling that one needs to forever strive to achieve a certain level that otherwise floats above the average person's head. not everyone will make it to that level, but they are expected to want that final goal just like everyone else. woe to the person who makes it known that they could care less about achieving that order of status, for they shall be smitten and cast aside in the 'lesser jobs.'

in layman's terms: drink the kool-aid... or else.

well, i don't know about you, but i don't really like the taste of kool-aid... it's too sugary... and it turns my lips pink. i'd rather have water, or tea, or coffee, or a beer... mmmmmmm... beer.

apparently though, kool-aid is the generally accepted and government endorsed beverage of choice.

MOST of the time, this isn't a factor... the kool-aid gets passed around and you smile and offer your cup, and after big brother passes on, you make a grand gesture with one hand as you fling the kool-aid behind you with the other.... for the most part, this is highly successful.

EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE though, big brother hands you a cup of kool-aid and waits for you to drink it right in front of him. these are the moments i fear. they are the moments when i wonder if my smile is faltering. when i wish i could control that insidious twitch in my left eye. when i hope i don't gag, or worse yet, vomit my kool-aid in a high arch for all to see.

lately though, i wonder if i shouldn't just look someone in the eye and tell the truth... 'no, i'm not interested in your silly kool-aid... that's great that you love it so much, but it's not for me... i prefer (insert favorite beverage here).'

but in the meantime, i don't... i drink it... i smile... i ask for another glass please and i lick my lips and rub my tummy and say, 'gee, isn't that the best kool-aid EVER! EVERYONE should want some.'

it is the little things like these, these little facades, that frustrate me... and somewhere deep inside of me, i wish i could just blow it off and say, 'hell if i care.'

the overall most confusing thing is.... i'm not sure if i don't.

long absence

i suppose it's been a while.

i've had an ebb and flow of creative energy lately... more ebb than flow... mainly i just haven't felt like writing. i've been using my time doing other things after i get home from work... mostly listening to music and cooking, i suppose. i've lately achieved a sort of locally esteemed status as one-who-cooks-really-good food.

actually, i am proud to say that in the last month or so, i've managed to create a sort of informal salon environment. i framed a bunch of art and hung it on the walls... a few photos of my own, a few paintings and prints from friends, and a couple of prints by jordan crane. ('below the dark water,' 'light for dark,' and 'alone with the world')

then i started mixing drinks... informally at first. white russians, bloody mary's (for those saturday mornings), screwdrivers, and some delicious concoctions involving vodka, OJ, and mango juice. strangely enough, people started to gather. we would hang out. we would watch movies. we would shoot the shit.

and then eventually, the hunger would kick in and out would come the banana pancakes, and the stir fry, and the steaks, and the pizza, and the late-night spaghetti, and the breakfast burritos.

rinse lather repeat.

as time passed, my repertoire grew into a veritable menu.

however, by saying that i have become renown for my cooking ability, i fail to put the situation in the proper perspective... for there are not a whole lot of people who actually cook food in this building... mostly people heat things to a palatable temperature. the fact that i have a shelf full of spices, the fact that i have tomato paste and yeast in my refrigerator door, and the fact that i cut an avocado in its peel are about as much qualification as one needs to differentiate one's self as a 'cook.'

so what else have i been doin?

well, take last weekend for example: friday was a evening of festivities, starting around 7 and ending around 1am. there was much drunken buffoonery and social imbibing.

the next morning was a social breakfast... which meant that i opened my door, started cooking, and people walked in and ate. i made breakfast burritos with onions, asparagus, peppers, eggs, sundried tomatoes, black beans, extra-sharp cheddar, and avocados...

i wish i had taken a picture, but alas the only memory is in the lining of my stomach... they were pretty sexy burritos, if one can freely use such an adjective in that context.

afterwards we all put our walking shoes on and set out for a waterfall about an hours drive to the south. the only map that we have showed the waterfall on the southern side of an east-west penninsula... the coastal road seemed to pass a few miles to the south of the falls so we decided to make our hike from the south...

once we started our hike we discovered two things:

1) koreans do not believe in switchbacks... the trails go STRAIGHT UP the mountain.
2) the waterfall is most easily accessed from the north... because there is a large mountain just to the south of the falls.

we made the first discovery rather quickly, but the second discovery was much more heartbreaking... we had barely made it up the 1200' altitude gain in 1.2km... the last thing we wanted to do was descend ANY AMOUNT AT ALL to get to the falls if it meant we would have to climb up again to get back to our car... it was quite a dilemma for a few minutes... we stood at the top of the peak looking down the path that curved over the edge and out of sight... no one wanted to say, 'let's go back' because we were already invested... no one wanted to say 'onward' because we had no idea how far down we would have to descend to the falls... finally we figured we had come this far already... and down we went.

the falls themselves were... well... pretty nice. the walk itself was beautiful... the last of the cherry blossoms are still clinging to the branches in the valley above the falls. it would have been nice to jump into the pool at the bottom, but apparently there are some fairly significant health related reasons not to.... so we didn't.

this is Colt as we emerged from the far side of the peak and got our first glimpse of the valley where our car was parked.

there was much rejoicing.

sunday is for SNDC, which is sunday night dinner club... this week, i cooked... usually we switch off, or it is potluck style... but this week i just cranked out four pizzas and a bunch of focaccia bread. someone else made a wicked sangria and yet another mustered a fierce salad.

good eats all around.
c'est la vie

creation

i am at a loss. i’m not sure where my creative juices have flown off to recently. possibly into my work... but it is more likely that they have simply evaporated into thin air, like sweat.

if i could watch the process very closely through a microscope, i would be able to see the crystals left behind on my skin as the small beads of creativity precipitate through the skin and glitter upon the surface before they shimmer away into the air.

if i licked my skin, it would taste like an idea, and flow across my tongue with energy and focus. the nerve endings below the capillaries would transcribe the message with their chemical binary charges and send it on the first train to my brain, which would reverberate the signal among the lesser avenues and boulevards to the low rent district where the artist nerves dwell.

and there would be a commotion. there would be a buzz of excitement as lights came on and voices assembled. one by one, a consensus would be reached about a direction and a message would be built to travel down to the arm and hand and fingers.

it would be a sort of symphony. there would be pages of dictation. there would be volumes of carefully orchestrated patterns of contractions and relaxions that would allow each muscle fibre to follow the plan... each fiber, each tendon, would be standing by, eager to sightread the directions at first opportunity... instruments tuned... synapses bristling.

and then it would happen... the first instructions would arrive... the dance would begin, with every instrument carefully measuring every motion, giving feedback to the composers up top with every fraction of resistance and friction.

and so it would go for as long as it needed to... those low rent tenants up top would organize and speak their mind, for all the world to hear.

wheels and pledges

i've been looking for a car for two months, and i finally got one on friday.

finally.

it is a piece of crap, rusted through to the core, to the point that the body and frame are more likely rusted together than bolted together... but it has style... possibly even a bit of soul.

it has been neglected at least for the last six years that it has been in korea. it has been abused. it has been taken for granted. in a way, that makes me love it all the more. originally i had plans to bring it back to life, to put some time and money into it, and to fulfill it's destiny as a great automobile.

but i think now that might be too large a task for me. i think there are many horse trainers who have hoped beyond hope to nurse a horse back from a terrible break into the winner's circle, and few, if any, have succeeded.

actually, i'm not even sure if it will make it through the year. but even so, i will not abandon it. i will not neglect it further. i will not drive it into the dirt until it crumbles. i will attempt to give it back some of it's dignity. i will attempt to let it wear, once again, with pride... it's name:

JEEP

necessary pause

sometimes you need a break.
sometimes you need someone to pat you on the back and say:
"well done... good job"

and sometimes you just need to take a moment and hold the walls up

sometimes you can just feel the rhythm.
sometimes you can be dancing and it feels like you are moving at a different pace than anyone else in the world.
you feel time crawling across your being, and you like it





sometimes you have to give props.
sometimes you feel it in your chest.
sometimes, on the dance floor, you have to flex your muscles





sometimes you have to show your friends that you feel the same way





and sometimes, you have to count to eight




twas a good evening tonight

wash

i think i need a new shampoo.

first of all. i think they could have could have come up with a better name for something you use to wash your hair... sham poo

in layman's terms: something that is purported to be poo, but is not.

i would argue that this is not a good name. likely that it was invented by the same guy that thought the Chevy Nova had a good enough name to market in latin america... never realizing that 'No va' means... does no go. i'm not even sure what is worse: the fact that it is purported to be poo in the first place? or that it is falsely advertised as poo, when it isnt?

i'm losing you here. i can tell.

but i digress... back to my sham poo and why i need to switch brands: i'm dissatisfied with the product. i believe that it is defective, because it doesn't seem to work.

why? because i see the commercials. i know what it is supposed to look like when you wash your hair. you're supposed to have a huge smile on your face. you're supposed to be standing underneath a showerhead that most definitely is not limited to 2.5 gallons per minute, and you are supposed to lather your head into a rich crown of bubbles as your eyes close, and the water decelerates to slow motion as it effortlessly rinses every remnant of the poo away. it's not supposed to get in your eyes... and you should never have to lather, rinse, and repeat. i mean, have you seen the size of the lather on TV? that should be good enough the first time around.

although, i'd have to say, if taking a shower was really that much fun... i would probably lather all day long.

but it isn't... and i don't... it has to be faulty sham poo.

checkers

the album of the day is The Digital Chronicles by Trentemoller.

it's what is going through my ears as i write this... not a bad little mesh of inner head sounds to rattle around. i came across it today in my meanderings and i thought i'd check it out. it is kind of an electronic version of Japancakes... sort of... but not really... ok, they don't resemble each other at all.

and for something completely unrelated, there is www.themoth.org

it is a gathering place of sorts, probably more correctly referred to as a venue, for storytelling. normal people with their stories... of the varieties made famous by campfires, and salons. you can check out the website as easily as i can explain it. there is an option to listen to a cross-section of them, and i would recommend it, assuming you have a few minutes and assuming you enjoy that kind of thing. perhaps you don't.

it is a cleaning day today. i've lived in a state of clutter for too long in this place, and since a low drag life was my resolution, i decided i had lived with drag for quite long enough.

i put away laundry. i cleaned dishes. i went though mail and filed papers. i went back over my taxes to make sure i didn't forget anything. i cleaned off my desk and actually threw things away instead of just shoving them into a drawer. i feel like i squeezed a whole can of shaving cream into my hands, rubbed it over my entire apartment, and shaved it smooth with a razor.

i even went back once more and went against the grain, lightly, and rubbed it over with my fingertips to see if i had missed any spots.

then there was the steaming hot washcloth to pull everything out and wash it all away.

my space feels clean again; soft and comfortable.

so my apartment gets a little stubbly from time to time... it happens. it is the breathing in and out of my space. it is the yin and the yang. it is the ebb and the flow. nevertheless, it is probably no surprise that i absolutely loved the bar where we ended up last night.

for one, it was down a dark alley:

EVERY good bar belongs on a dark alley, away from the hustle and bustle, and known only to the unassumingly hip.

second of all, it was full of stacks of old CDs... mixes and albums, both store-bought and burned. it seemed like a forgotten cemetary of mix tapes, left over from middle school crushes... once lost behind the couch or discarded, they slowly began the endless march around the world towards this bar... DeepIn. one by one they have arrived over the course of decades.

one might wonder what it is that calls to me in that place. it is simply my favorite kind of bar: small, dark, lots of wood, and filled with the handmarks of patrons past. the bar itself wasn't polished to a glossy sheen, it had the matte worn grain of wood that has held up ten thousand pints, hundreds of games of cribbage, and the occasional game of solitaire.

soft conversations were going on at each table and people took their time. there was no raging dance party. there were no waitresses on roller skates. there was no meat market.

there were people leaning into each other, with a beer in one hand, and a story in the other... like moths lean into the flame.

green door

apparently i haven’t been much of a writer lately.

so what have i been up to, you might ask? good question. both lots and little.

i am reminded of family dinners long past... the seven or eight of us gathered around the dinner table... dad had just come home from a trip... all he wanted was to catch up on the current events of the household. there was the inevitable question. it wasn’t a difficult one, and yet for some reason, i could never really think of a suitable answer:

‘so patrick, what did you learn in school today?’

‘nothin’

this was of course a source of endless frustration for my father, because ‘nothing’ was not an acceptable answer. it did not even come close to the intent of the question. of course, at the time, my mind was truly obscured with the fog of puberty, and my world extended approximately to my fingertips in all directions around me. i did not realize that a more suitable answer would have been:

‘you know dad? at my current phase of development, i am mostly overwhelmed by the unstable social foundations inherent in the hormone-saturated environment of my high school, and that tends to take the majority of my daily focus. instead of daily homework and class discussions, my concentration floats more around whether or not it is too revealing to sit next to a certain girl that i may (or may not) be interested in. then, if i do decide to sit next to her, i have to try to use my highest order of problem solving skills and non-verbal cue recognition to determine whether or not she thinks i’m making an ass of myself and whether i should be more overt or more covert in my emotionally charged yet highly directionless undertaking. so while you are most likely referring to what stage of modern world history my test is on tomorrow, realistically, i have no clue... because i gave her a note after lunch and have yet to receive a reply.’

instead... i would say:

‘nothin’

and focus dilligently on my mashed potatoes and chicken breast... hoping the question would go away or be passed on to the next person down the line. it never worked.

but WHY? you might ask... WHY did you just sit there when all of that was running through your head?

like i said; fog and friction. those were confusing days, and besides, those battlefield decisions were such an everyday fact of life that they seemed trivial... both unworthy of discussion and embarrasingly raw at the same time.

which brings us to today. what have i been up to?

nothin

appetite

i ate seven hundred and fifty five of them today... in handfuls.

sometimes i eat macaroni and cheese in that fashion almost swallowing without chewing, and i chide myself... for one should chew. i've been trying to chew more lately, but somewhere along the path i started a habit of inhaling, like a jet engine inlet... more of a rush to fill an area of low pressure within me.

sometimes it sweeps in bugs and pebbles... at the worst, small children and mammals.

today there was apparently quite an area of low pressure, because i inhaled seven hundred and fifty five pages... two books...

in one sitting... well, not one sitting exactly.

i got up a few times to pee and once i had to leave the house for 20 minutes to walk down the street, since i'm out of food, but then i was back to the inhaling.

which books? i thought you might ask... over christmas my revered and beautifully amazing cousin elijah presented me with the dark materials trilogy by phillip pullman. i read the golden compass on the flight over the pacific, but then i hadn't yet touched the second book until this morning... when i awoke, turned on the lamp, and reached for it next to my bed without even adjusting the pillow.

i constantly hunger for a good series, and i'm always a little sad when i come to the end. i wish perhaps that i had chewed a little more.

but it isn't really a conscious choice, is it? because once the images start flowing in your mind and the words blur off the page into faces and landscape, the story itself choses the pace.

here is a photo that i took on the flight from frankfurt to L.A.

i share it because it is of the ice floes east of greenland, north of the arctic circle. the sun is on the horizon at noon because we are so far north. i had wondered if the route would take us north of the sun. i sat by the window and watched in wonder for hours as we drove from the sun until it fell to the horizion and seemingly grappled with the earth with every color in it's power to regain it's footing... which it did, slowly and surely.

a four hour sunset followed by a four hour sunrise.

it reminded me of the landscape of the book, in the beginning, in the north. in the land of Iorek Byrnison and beautiful lights.

it's no wonder i couldn't slow to chew.

2008

something for the new year:

for one, my resolution. everyone makes resolutions. even if you don't sit down and hold up a drink on new years eve and say, 'this year i resolve to...', you still make them.

my resolution this year is a new one. it encompasses many different facets of my life. it was suggested to me by a close friend and i have chosen to take it up as my own..

this year i resolve to reduce drag... to live a low drag life.

by that i mean that i want to reduce things that stick out in my life. i want to lay aside those things that weigh me down: if there are dishes, they will be cleaned instead of just laid on the counter. if there is laundry, it will be washed often. if there is clutter, it will be tidied. if there is a lack of energy, i will go to the gym. if there is something on my plate, it will be taken care of early, instead of being steeped in the guilty stress of procrastination. if something needs to be done, i will do it.

in addition, this means that i will not play games. scrabble and parcheesi, yes... social political games no. i will be clear in what i want, so that i do not confuse myself by striving for what someone else wants for me just because it seems like it would keep doors open. i will focus on the path that is mine and not be apologetic. i will own it. i will live out of purpose instead of fear. i will live in action instead of reaction.

if i was an arrow, and i was to find my target and pierce it... i would have to point at it. i would have to shut out distractions. i would have to calm my breathing. i would have to steady my pulse. i would have to extend my very point out across space to the place where i wished to be... before i ever even left the string of the bow.

i will strive to live freely in a streamlined and conscious manner.

i resolve to live a low drag life.

*whoosh*

rootless

it is a pretty good description of how i've felt lately, and for many reasons.

for one, i've been essentially living out of a suitcase since the 5th of december... it is the 17th of january now people... and i have another week from today until i'll be able to move into my new home.

since 1995, when i graduated from high school, i have moved 18 times. that is an average of one move every 36 weeks. while most of those moves have been back and forth between northern california and southern california (or colorado) during school, a great deal of them have been to overseas... switzerland, italy, korea... and a great deal of them have been in the south... georgia, alabama, texas.

one could say that i have fostered a lifestyle of mobility, and one would think that i'd have it down by now. perhaps all of my furniture is collapsable, or better yet, inflatable. or perhaps i don't own any, preferring the sparse interior design of an art gallery. but no...

i have tons of shit.

heaps. veritable boatloads... perhaps a small boat, but a boat nonetheless.

i have drawers full of projects to be completed. i have tools for every opportunity. i have every type of art supply. i have boxes of pictures to be scanned and restored. i have boxes of books i have read. i have rooms full of furniture that totally doesn't go with anything else i have.

and this is AFTER the great purge... the great burning... where i tried to minimize my clutter and streamline my possessions. i sold the recliner couch and the oversized armchairs with matching ottomen... (ottomen? ottomans?). i put things in storage. i gave things away.

molto. that's italian for 'a lot.'

i have molto.

soon i will move into my dorm room. that will help. i will unpack my bags. i will set up my computer. i will turn on some music. perhaps some little roots will form.