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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
it's been a while since i've written. i guess i was a little surprised by the responses that i got from the last little ditty i wrote and i wanted to respond in turn but haven't know exactly how to yet... first of all, i loved the responses; there is not shortage of well written images of love and support, and i feel blessed to be able to receive that energy. at the same time i felt guilty. the five paragraphs seemed to strike a chord, and my sister was not the only one to write me and ask if everything was ok.
so i looked back at what i wrote, and it is SAD. i didn't think i was sad, a little homesick maybe... missing my wife, my family, my friends, good mexican food... but i didn't think i was sad. i was laying in bed looking through my iTunes library remarking on all the albums that i have had since the beginning of time, but that remain nonetheless unchecked... never to be downloaded onto my wee pod. i was wondering why i keep those albums, and i couldn't explain. i didn't know. so i figured i would ask one of them, "hey CD! yah you! how do you feel?" and see what they would say.
silly patrick, you might say... CDs can't talk
oh but they can.
they sing all the time, just like most everything... most people just don't take the time to listen, but there are songs everywhere. a sail can sing about it's weariness in a storm. an ice cube can sing about relaxing into oblivion. the wind can sing about the frustration of trying to grab the world without fingers. a dam holding back a great river can sing about dreams.
there is a voice for everything and anything can have a message that can anyone can understand... a poet or writer or songwriter is just a translator.
so yes. everything is ok. i feel a little far from the world at times, but i always was one to look for distance from time to time to regain my perspective. there are a lot of thoughts running around in this little head of mine, more than one of them is related with what i am doing over here and where that fits into the scope of the world, the universe, my life, my karma, and my future.
so many thoughts are not easily organized or easily shared. i am continually learning the extent to which i guard my thoughts, and i am constantly trying to relax my grasp on them. it would be nice to know what is going on in my center. in the meantime, i may ask a tree what it thinks... or a door... or a CD even. if you have any questions, let me know... i may answer here or perhaps in an email, but i'll answer if i can.
thank you. i love you too.
p
