An excerpt:

In prison they own your life. You’re not your name, you’re not your family’s name, you’re not your age, not your color, not your lineage, not your hometown.
You’re 30583-012.
Your daily life depends entirely upon the largess of the prison staff. The playing field is tilted in their favor, and if you fuck up and they catch you— and they always catch you— you’re going to lose out. You’re a pawn in a field of queens— an analogy that would be lost on most of the staff, who’d think you’re accusing them of being queer. They’re a reactionary bunch. The primary difference between cons and screws, besides the color of the uniform and the hourly wage, is a divine directive of control. Underneath, everyone’s just people.
Losing privileges like the weekly trip to the commissary is bad enough. Having visits canceled, phone calls revoked, mail call held— these are things you come to rely on, and when they take them away, you feel like shit and there’s nothing to break up the press of time. But for things like fighting, talking back, stealing, getting caught with drugs— the punishment is orders of magnitude worse.
The hole.
You can’t imagine what it’s like if you’ve never been.
Panic sets in. Closed spaces with no escape. Sweaty palms, trembling, chills. The walls close in. The food slot grins like a jack-o’-lantern, mocking— always mocking.
Solitary is one of the worst punishments you can get. Officially, anyway. Sometimes a convict who really gets on the wrong side of the corrections staff will find himself with a price on his head. And then it’s open season. There’s no surviving that kind of sentence. But mostly when you break the serious rules you wind up in solitary for a little while— just until you cool off, pal.
No contact with the other prisoners. No contact with the outside world. No fresh air. Limited contact even with the screws who only come by to fulfill mealtime duties.
It’s just you. All of you. Every one of you. All alone.
The food’s the same— just less fresh. The mattress is hard. The molded bed is even harder. The fluorescent lights colder. Bars replaced by stamped steel and rivets.
The funny thing about solitary is that it’s also known as protective custody. They put people in there who’d get mauled in the blocks. People like pedophiles, celebrities, snitches, cops. For them it’s a thing of survival. For everyone else the hole is a reminder of why it’s best to behave.
At first it’s a relief to get away from people for a little bit. There’s so much goddamn politics and games in prison, it’s exhausting. But after the first few minutes, when you count on your fingers and toes, and lose track of how many more hours you’ll be alone with barely more than a wingspan from wall to wall, awash in the sterile light of purgatory, hearing, seeing, smelling, feeling nothing but yourself, your yammering mind; it starts to eat away at you, and you lose track of the silence, silence broken only by the thud of your heart, the sound of your thoughts the rasp of breath, the drumming of fingers, the grinding of teeth, the crawling of skin, the periodic clatter of food trays; as you listen to your hair growing, scratch a thousand times across the same patch of beard, calculate how many cubic centimeters of air are in this sixty-four square-foot room, wiggle your ears until they hurt, brush each tooth for a fifty-count— and still not pass more than a few minutes of what turns out to be the longest thirty seconds of your life, repeated ad infinitum, a series of moments with no beginning and no end, all strung together, all so badly the same in their emptiness that you have to fill them in somehow; maybe counting to sixty sixty times; once… twice… three times… four… five… six… seven… eight… nine… ten… eleven… twelve… thirteen… fourteen… fifteen… sixteen… seventeen… eighteen… nineteen… twenty...twenty-one… twenty-two… twenty-three times, noticing how odd it is that the words for numbers have no quantitative consistency in structure or sound— like something you’d read but not yet understood in the Theory of Relativity about patterns and relationships of things and nothings— or maybe having the same dreaming moment over and over and over and over until the edges of everything blend together, or maybe puzzling through chess problems, writing letters to long-dead friends, fantasizing about burying your face in some tail, doing pushups and sit-ups and just pacing back and forth two and a half steps at a time until… hell, just doing it, just doing something, anything, everything to escape the nothing, and always questioning, always wondering, never ever ever ever quiet, as you sit there in silence saying nothing, voice cracked like old leather and impossible to regulate with no volume difference between thinking and screaming, thumbs aching from twiddling, toes tired from tapping; bored of breathing, bored of pacing, bored of thinking, bored of listening, bored of counting things, bored of being bored, trying not to think about the walls closing in, leaning in, reaching in; counting cinderblocks and wondering how often in life does a person ever spend more than a few hours at a time alone with thoughts, alone with himself, and there are moments of self discovery and inner peace and even something you might call enlightenment— according to the Dalai Lama—the awareness of being aware, the consciousness of consciousness, the soul soul-gazing outward, recognizing the body for what it is, and thoughts for what they are, and Being the entity behind the body and underneath the thought, and discovering that the inner voice is not You, but just an internal facade and a cloak of habits worn to protect your true self from drowning in the sensory saturation of the universe— but that it’s actually choking your experience— and that is terrifying until it’s uplifting, mystifying until it’s clear, impossible until it’s recognized; and Einstein’s ghost joins up with Jesus to explain that there is no white-bearded, robe-wearing, staff-holding Man in the Clouds, no sandaled ego sculptor with a mysterious name and omnipotent wrath— or compassion— no celestial control tower directing things; that there is only what comes out of and goes into the space between your eyes, that almost everyone has missed the point, and that prayer and meditation and self-reflection are three of the many words for the same thing, and it turns out this is heaven and hell in the same room, all contained in uncountable electrical pathways burning their way through some gray matter, a transaction conducted through a few gallons of the same stale air, and energy is matter and matter is energy, and while you breathe it in and breathe it out and breathe it in and breathe it out, you become the room and the room becomes you, until the circulation is visible like fingerprint whorls, and the spirals of the airwaves start to dance before your eyes and the whole cyclical nature of the universe becomes visible tangible audible olfactive tastable knowable, and you sink into it, riding the waves of awareness, not so much floating above your body, but flowing into the body so completely it disappears, joining in with something bigger— or not bigger, but a reality so microscopic it’s only theoretical, taking away the limiting factors of time and space, breaking down the elemental into its essential, and loving the Being loving the membership loving the absence of form, loving where, when, and how it takes you— until you snap awake—or rather drift off again— and your brain renews its filters for your sensory analysis, and you see only white-washed cinderblock, poured and painted concrete, a rolled-up mattress used for biceps curls, a splash of some food dropped decades ago, the nuts and bolts of incarceration; hear only the echoes of footsteps; smell only the heavy air and a perfume from long ago; feel only whatever you’re touching; taste only tongue and teeth like steaks and croutons, and this continues on and on, back and forth, forever and ever because there are no clocks down here, not even the count, count, count, count that serves as the slow pendulum of time upstairs, and just when you think you’re going to lose it again, a new idea that you’ve had before occurs, and the whole damn trip repeats itself— and you’ve exhausted only five minutes wallowing in the sentence.
You’re stuck in a picture. Twenty-three hours worth of eternity. Then escorted down the hall in silence for a solitary shower. Which is the only thing that goes by fast. And then more eternity. When you crunch it out like that, even a few days turns out to be a long time.
It’s possible to get years.

11/1/10

The city erupts. A sudden rush of noise, cars honking, people screaming, sirens wailing, flashes and bangs.
The Giants have won the World Series.
Car horns, some held long and loud, some staccato, all jubilant, all communicating the same thing.
We won.
The uproar continues. A SmartCar toots through an intersection. A taxi beeps past, ignoring the man with his arm raised in the air.
Explosions.
Fireworks.
Screaming citizens
The city is roaring, alive and cheering.
United.
A man whips a sweatshirt around over his head. A truck roars with delight. Deserted streets are packed with noise. A woman whips a sweatshirt around over her head. Screaming affirmations, yelling gleeful nonsense. Shrill.
Empowered.
A crotch-rocket revs. Giants flags flap. Fireworks pound overhead.
Someone drains a foghorn.
Each new stream of honking cars renews the jubilant cries of the pedestrians. Waves of glee reverberate through the streets.
Driveby congratulations.
Whistles.
The noise.
Even the cop lights look happy. People clap fives, cars rev, bicycles clang, and motorcycles honk.
I'm reminded of the sound of Endor after the Death Star was destroyed.
Fireworks.
Cheers.
Songs.
Elated bicycle taxis. Elated vagrants. Elated professed non-sports-fans. Someone blows a trombone. An SUV answers in kind. Drivers honk melodies. Passengers hang out windows. Pedestrians run alongside shaking hands.
Fireworks.
Cheers.
The clock sweeps toward tomorrow.
But Right Now the noise continues. A crowd moves past.
"LET'S GO GI-ANTS!
"LET'S GO GI-ANTS!
"LET'S GO GI-ANTS!
"LET'S GO GI-ANTS!"
A motorcyclist rips through, fist pumping over his helmet.
This is 50 years of waiting.
The Giants have won the World Series.
The noise.
The ebb and flow--but uninterrupted.
Ole
Ole ole ole
Ole
Ole.
The Giants have won the World Series. (and the 49ers stuffed Denver yesterday.)
Flags and hats and hands, horns and cheers and applause. United by sports. The team extended through the whole city. Joined in jubilation. Communicating through glee. Pedestrians responding to horns responding to cheers.
A high-riding pickup on fat off-road tires booms pas, open to the breeze and flying a huge SF flag on a tall pole. Groups cheer at each other from parallel sidewalks, hopping and skipping and cheering on the way home. A group of three stops in a crosswalk, waving signs and cheering at cars.
People share taxis.
Police allow rules to bend.
Everyone is happy to see everyone.
This is how is should be. The World Series should be every day. (But then it loses its power.)
Crescendo.
Fireworks.
A lull.
A truck blares through the intersection, renewing the noise. A Giants-decaled van alternates between gas and brake, simulating hydraulics. Nobody thinks it's lame.
It's awesome.
"LET'S GO GI-ANTS!
"LET'S GO GI-ANTS!
"LET'S GO GI-ANTS!"
A cop waves to a guy cheering out the sunroof.
"LET'S GO GI-ANTS!"
Fireworks.
Horns.
A train.
A cowbell.
The clock sweeps toward tomorrow.
Schoolnight.
Workday.
But Right Now,
none of that matters.

Two candles sit sputtering
on a short sheet of poetry
filled with longing
loving
craving
doubting.
The ticking tone
of a clicking clock
beats forth from the page
A rhythmic reminder
of achings past
The candles
seem immortal
and alive.
One tall and proud
One melted short and slouched
flickering with hidden drafts
Rendered visible
by fire!
And the cadence continues...
thump thump!...thump thump...
thump thump!...

The voice of the lyrical letters
whispers indelibly
inaudibly...almost...

Before The Aftershave

9/2/10

Standing here, watching the shh shh of this thin little blade against my skin, peering close and squinting, I feel a tremendous amount of power, and a looming loss of control.
As it glides over the contours, barely hesitating at each hair to whisper shh shh, bubbles of soap curl back to reveal shiny skin pink with freshness.
shh
shh
With an angle just right comes an easy stroke and the tingling freedom from stubble. But change the angle only slightly...
shh
The badger-hair brush slops on a foam of soap, warm and scented like an old chest found in the attic. A thin blade, scooped and shiny, winking under the light.
shh
Around the jaw, which shelters a hot grid of blood vessels, an impossibly complex circuit between jugular and carotid. A scarce few layers between life and a blade so sharp it's touched up on leather.
shh
A gruesome, frightening tradition; a dangerous desire to be above nature. How odd that it comes with scents of oak, a feeling like pine needles, and a flaring of nostrils smelling rain and fire.
shh
Miss a spot; pull the skin a different way, shh shh smooth like wood stripped of bark, feeling the cold and rebelling with a rustle. Twist and turn under the light. Shorten a bit here
shh
straighten a line there
shh
movements all defying the rhythm of blood underneath. The eyes ask a question. So easy. It would look like an accident. shh The power over life and death balanced between my thumb and forefinger, and resting lightly on my pinky.
Just like that...
It would be so easy. This choice--a hovering between outcomes, a weighing of explanations and reason. This choice is what it means to be human.

Civilization/Anacoluthia

Gar!
Moving what the god world. What is this shit?
The bus lurches through the intersection. Knuckles whiten on rails and stirrups. Feet stumble for balance. Someone honks. A service dog retreats against his rigid leash.
Whose Morgan seat and the goddamn worst peace.
Windows rolled down once again let in a breeze, and the pedestrian timer ticks outside. Sparks fly on unseen catenary wires, and zero emissions are released. Here we are: mass transit. This is [your stop]. A pair of Asian school boys get on, standing there looking up at everybody. Only one person looks back.
Hahaha! Ching shong dinga wonga. Heh heh.
Passengers get on. Passengers get off. The hydraulics kick in, and the bus kneels to accept its latest human inventory. The driver stares in jaded acceptance as dollars are pushed into slots, and transfer tickets are waved with halting confidence. He stops when he should, avoids bicyclists, and he nods or waves at commercial vehicles and cops along the way. The brakes sigh and snort, and the bus rolls forward again.
Hey lookit! Gotta garble and toss everything in the sanded hat. Every day like this.
Gar!
Every day, and aisle beach with the lingering chazmontz.
There's a constant web of communication among these packed-in dozens, a constant buzzing of silent discourse, as feet nudge away, hips twist almost imperceptibly, hands move back on rails, bottoms shift, eyes dart without lingering. Ups and downs, lefts to rights, boys to girls, men and women, ancients with children. A multitude of methods and a topographical hierarchy. And all focused around one dubious hub.
Sweet and stuck! Like a shifterly mother-ruck. Kids and then clouds. What's it all coming to? You're all fucked up.
You don't understand.
We don't get it. Just make room; leave a halo--and don't stare. He's just a human. Sort of. On your guard, but not pariah-izing. Wary but never condescending. And for god's sake, move back! This is just part of being in the city.
Gar!
Gar, gar gar, GAR!
Rumpled monger and drink some water. That's I say.
Everyone sort of holds their breath. Shallow huffs--just enough for oxygen. Muscles tense--touch no one!--and skin crawling. No one comfortable. Everyone dealing. The bus lurches around a corner.
Oof!
She screams shockingly, briefly, and cringes in disgust.
Gar. Umsorry.
A grungy water bottle rolls against ankles. Someone reaches for it gingerly, hands it across the aisle between two fingers now aching for a bar of soap. Nearby passengers reach for stop-request cords. Let us off! We'll take a cab. Or walk. How far are we? Which line is that over there?
Chuckling and leaning a clammy forehead against the overhead rail, the vagrant stares aghast at the reflection in the window.
We're all here.

The Ocean, at Night

There's something about a girl's hair when she runs naked through the surf, splashing through her lunar-shadow, frolicking in the cool night air. Arms crossed, I stand and watch, as she, silhouetted against the almost-full moon, skips through the white foam.

Then she turns and races into my arms.

Her fingertips leave dog-print patterns in the wet sand as she kneels before me, hair blowing in the breeze, skin glowing in the moon. The full kinesthetic experience surrounds us, embraces us, chills us, supports us, as we look around enjoying the view--almost hoping for a wayward observer. Behind us, the ocean crashes and broils, as it has for umpteen years, and as it will for eons--no matter what we do to it, no matter what we dump in, harvest from, spill on, or take away--as long as there's a moon to guide its ebb and flow.

When it's done, she slowly stands, sighs, and shuffles toward the waves, bow-legged, rinsing herself, cleansing herself, giving herself and me to the saltwater from which we came in bygone eras. A sacrifice of innocent proportions, unmarred by dogma or rite or law or sanctimony.

The tide wraps around her knees, as she stoops and splashes, digging her toes into the sand--or are those my toes burrowing in, up here beyond the reach of the water? I stand and watch, proud, happy; feeling something more than myself. She jumps and stomps both feet down, hair wild in the wind, arms flung out for balance. Wisps of clouds caress the moon, and the surf thunders over all.

Arm in arm we stumble home through loose sand and fragments of shells, as behind us, the ocean reaches out and calmly erases our footprints, knee craters, and elbow grooves. As if we've never been there. As if we weren't there now.

4/18/10

It's a log. Just a piece of wood, stripped of its bark and drying imperceptibly in the cool air. Once a growing thing, grains and veins flowing with water and life—now cut, sectioned, and alone. Just a log.

But then take a closer look, maybe squinting, and there's something else. A promise. A shape. It carries its own inspiration, and suddenly the tools on the bench vibrate with magnetism, crying for help: use me! Gouge, shave, and trim. Caress the shape from its hiding place; encourage the intrinsic design; open the doors whose outline is only just visible, and only to the seeing eye.

Curls of wood bloom and fall, liberating themselves from the amorphous whole and leaving behind footprints to what's hidden within. Bit by bit, shave by shave, the path spreads out, and there's something vague on the horizon, something coming into focus with the gnarled patience of its willow-tree former self.

This dip too shallow, this angle too steep, this knot rounded down, this edge softened up. The hush of sharp steel, the grunts and tuts and low whistles of exertion and complete absorption.

Shavings tumble and catch on hair, knee, knuckle, and carpet, hanging on to watch the birthing. There's a song, a vibration barely perceptible above the wind; a sort of keening that surrounds the scene in a concentration of focus and dedication of the senses.

A droplet of sweat turns a woodchip into a reservoir. Another splashes a tear in a newly formed eye, winking up and wondering at its place in the universe, an unattached piece of awareness, seeing but not yet registering.

Some careful wiggling with the tip of a knife, and sinuses are cleared. A lip curls into a slant. A chin appears, gouged into a pointed goatee, jutting forward. Sandpaper rubs a healthy glow in the cheeks. The nose wiggles—something's not quite right...

There. That's better.

Outside, shadows lengthen—but overhead, the light is steady. Creating in a created world, all the more real for being imagined. The light catches mistakes and reveals improvements. Shavings peel back from cheekbones and jaw, curving around ears and swirling into patterns of hair. An eyebrow arches, a brow lowers.

And then the sound changes. No longer the steady buzz of concentration, distinct noises murmur free with each slow slash, filling the air with burbling attempts at communication, rough-hewn words of anticipation and...something else. Something frightening.

What is it, that's trying to get out? And what happens if it finally does? Another notch across the grain, and a sharpening of the nose. The wood is warm, hot. Flaws melt away like wax, joining a discarded pile on the floor, and pulling away more and more of the wooden bonds that have kept this visage shrouded for so long. It's just a log...

Eyes narrow. Tools move on their own. A pulse. Breath. A voice. Hollow sucked-in cheeks and pale glowing eyes. Breathes in, and the carver withers slightly. Exhausted, he flags—but the wood whispers MORE. A veiner scoops out a furrow in the brow, and a sweep hooks the ear. All the better to hear you with...

The figure gains vigor as the carver huddles forward, panting and shaking. RELEASE ME cries the figure—just a log!—and despite himself, the artist peels wood back from the neck, strengthening muscles strained in twitching eagerness to be freed.

No more, please, no more, whispers the exhausted creator. You aren't what I meant to create. Not what I expected.

Then bows forward until foreheads touch with a surge of something like understanding, or a crackling acquiescence.

A moan of triumph, rattling windows and stirring the heap of shavings, unheard by the slumped artist whose tools clatter from unfeeling fingertips. Splinters and chips fall free of sweater and corduroy, joining the pile, waiting for broom or spark. The fiercely grinning face tilts and falls, cushioned by the remnants of its disintegrated cage, no longer supported by the rough hands of the carver, staring at the scuffed side of a shoe, unable to turn and look at its world or remove itself from the remains of its former cell. A shriek of anguish, and a scene frozen in time, susceptible only to further decay without the help of its creator. It's just a log.

Beach-House Reunion, Outer Banks (OBX), NC

One Fourth of July
Paul D Blumer

A fat yellow sun loitered at the edge of a wood-slat fence around the pool, understandably dawdling at the approach of evening. The heat had mellowed out, leaving us decorated with streaks of sea salt, patches of scarlet skin, and deep eye-wrinkles from laughing at the burning orb as we rinsed the ocean off in the pool. The idyllic summer vacation.
Just minutes ago, we were gathered around the deep end of the pool, watching Nate streak back and forth, working to break his own record of three lengths with no breath. This is what we do. Compete to survive. If you can't do it, we'll still hang out with you—but you won't be quite as cool.
There was the "three club," consisting of Nate and Erik. There was the "two club," which didn't exist, because just two was for chumps. The rest of us were in that club.
This is it, boys, Nate huffed, filling his lungs, I'm getting four.
Do it.
He reared back and launched himself in, wake churning a v-for-victory, as we chatted and gossiped, and watched him flip-turn perfectly against the back wall. Then again on this side. Streaking across with slow, deliberate strokes. Another perfect kickoff over there.
Here he comes. Our excitement buzzing with the cicadas. Almost there. He's got it.
The halfway mark.
Another lanky kick—two thirds.
The crown of his head at the surface like an otter. Wanting air so badly; discipline and machismo growling go! go!
Almost there. Arms reaching forward, fingertips stretching out, muscles straining.
And then a foot from the wall, he stops.
"What's he doing?"
Arms drifting.
"Dude, he definitely made it. I think we can give him that."
"Why doesn't he just touch the wall? He can easily reach it."
"I think he's fucking with us now. He's gloating."
"Is he...?"
"Wait, Nate...?"
He floats up and then rolls slightly over, sinking to the floor of the pool. A string of bubbles connects his mouth to the surface.
"Oh my god, you guys! He's out!"
"Get him up! Get him up!"
Thrashing, diving, scooping, dragging—a dead weight rises from the bottom, a dozen desperate hands scrabbling to help.
"No, like this!"
Arms crossed on the pool deck, forehead on forearms. Just like you're taught. Plant a hand on his wrists and hoist yourself out. Just like you're taught. Reach under his armpits; squat, twist, and stand up; get the victim clear of the water. Just like you're taught.
"Nate...! Nate...! Wake up, dude!"
"Please!"
Nothing else for it. Tilt his chin back. Look, Listen, and Feel for breathing. Just like you're taught. Just like you're taught. Just like you're goddamn taught! Find the xyphoid process. Position the hands. Just like you're taught. Only—do you go for the diaphragm and push the water out? Or compress the sternum and get his heart beating again? Which––? Wait, which––? Is this really happening?
Jesus Christ, what were you taught?
Just do something! Solar plexus. Push. Push. Pinch his nose, make a good lip seal. Breath. Breath. Listen for air. Breath. Bre—
He sputters, water burbling from his lips.
Turn him over! Turn him over!
Nate on his side, sputtering. Is this really happening?
"Cough! Keep coughing!" Screaming just like you're taught.
He retches.
"Fucking vomit, dude! Get that shit out!" Just like you're taught.
"Turn him over again, do it again," someone shrieks.
No, he's breathing. Let him catch his breath. 

"Puke it up, Nate! Wake up!"
He's awake. Oh my god, he's awake.
Eyes flutter. He rolls over, supporting himself on a hand. Sits up, elbows on knees, head in hands, drool and tears dripping onto the concrete.
Sputtering. Breathing. Blinking.
Alive for the sunset.

Sex

I'm writing a sex scene. This is among the most difficult of writing objectives, because if you fall short of the mark, readers become intensely dissatisfied, and are more likely to stop reading than at any other part. Sex is such an important part of our human experience, that in reproducing it, we are bound by several things.

Accuracy
A sex scene must not be unreasonable or beyond expectations. It must fit with the character as well as with his/her partner. It must feel natural, as though it were actually happening. It must fulfill both sides of the gender role, and must be a situation that can (or has) actually happen.

Allure
A sex scene must appeal to both genders. No one wants to read a sexual encounter that appeals to purely one gender. A guy must read the scene and get an erection. A girl must read the scene and become wet. The only acceptable byproduct of a well-written sex scene is a reader who sets the book down and looks around, wondering, "can anyone tell that I'm supremely turned on right now? Who's that guy/girl? Why do my pants feel so tight? Why is my skin tingling?"
and then reread the passage, thrilling and squirming at every paragraph, gulping and cringing at the need to penetrate/be penetrated.

Amazement
Readers need to stop halfway through, wondering how it's possible the writer knows so much about what he/she is thinking. A reader should be almost shocked at the closeness of the scene, nearly stupefied that the writer is so deeply connected with humanity to understand so completely what's going on on both sides of the slish contact between two people that the writer must be schizophrenic, or at least godlike in ability to round out the connection.

This is what I must accomplish. A weak sex scene is enough to destroy an entire book. It can be a make/break scenario within which, a reader's life can be changed merely through the emotional impact passed along by a few choice words.

How to make that connection? How to accomplish that accuracy, that allure, that amazement? Practice, practice, practice...

Shackled by rules and thoughtless law abiding.

A clot of vehicles sit waiting at a red-light, tapping fingers on steering wheels, resting hands and elbows on window sills, lazily rubbernecking passersby. The doppler whoop of a siren echoes off building facades, soon joined by a set of flashing blue lights.

A few cars edge toward the curb, grateful to be out of the way. Cars in the middle lane almost visibly freeze, as though the tension of their drivers had found its way through electrical conduits and into the cars themselves.

The police car brakes behind the mass of cars, trying to get through the intersection.

Wheretogowheretogowheretogo? The line of cars sort of vibrates, but doesn't budge.
It's a red light.
The police car leans on its horn, willing the sound waves to burst through the panic. The front car creeps forward.
It's a red light.
The horn blares. Everyone freezes.
The drivers in the cars wave their hands.
Go through! Go through!
The intersection is clear. The cop needs to get by.
Ignore the red light.
Frozen.
This goes on for nearly a minute before the driver finally swallows hard and edges into the intersection, at least enough for the car behind to zip past and the car behind to zip past and the car behind to zip past.
The cop tears through, fervently hoping he's not too late.

But Nature isn't an entity in the way you're espousing. Nature is a series of adaptations designed to keep the species alive. It's ingrained, not innate.

Kind of the opposite of original sin, I think people are born essentially blank slates. Every second of our existence, we scribble away at that slate, first with huge big swirls and then adding smaller, more complicated patterns between the chalk marks as the space fills up. Though it gets pretty crowded, there's always a bit more space to work with, until time dries out the chalk and it sort of blurs into deteriorating flakes.

But not before other people have seen and been influenced by the markings on your slate. And not before you've taught other people and fed to their experience.

There is no outside entity that lays out our path, except the entity of prior knowledge passed down.

Careful what you wish for, a rhetorical circle

You're always questioning people's ability to change. Stuck between a lefty brain and a righty attitude, you wrestle with the disparity and lash out. The part of your conscious that thinks, that really thinks--not the part that sounds the thoughts, or gives voice to the notions, but rather the deeper instantaneous thought--is at odds with your voice. You're suffering a crisis of Ego, homie, and that's pretty damn cool. Proprioception, awareness of Self--you're thinking about thinking. Seeing that the Ego and the Consciousness are separate subjects is the only way to really be aware. You're on the path to enlightenment--the first step of which is to realize there is no path.

What it comes down to is that the Ego is the front we wear like armor--or like fashion. Choose your simile. It's the consciously crafted work of art that is often mis-named and mistaken for "I". It's been passed along to you from your antecedents--family and otherwise--and much of it has to do with social interaction and self preservation. We become what we're supposed to be, photosynthesizing other humans' expectations. You are the current embodiment of a string of collective conscious, the product of experience clusters. In other words, pure learned behavior--there is no nature.

This isn't such a scary thing as it seems. In fact, pre-ordination, or my understanding of "nature" is far more frightening. Even though I am just the reception of a bunch of other people's experience, that means I am constantly, perhaps infinitely, subject to change. There's no such thing as a reaction I can't control with a delicate series of burning pathways into my brain. You can grow or sever any behavior you want to, because it's all just different degrees of habit. You are basically amorphous, if you can conceive of yourself as just a bunch of neurons and electrical impulses. That's so sweet! You can do whatever you want. You can change or not change, whether in a unilinear fashion that you seem to espouse, or in a chronic cycles spirals ebbs flows and orbits, like how I tend and try to see things.

But the question comes down to what about the entity that thinks the thought? It's so quick, so nearly instantaneous, that it's hard to recognize. We're so used to the sound of the Ego that we disregard the other, deeper, I. Become aware of that eye, and you'll be glimpsing enlightenment. It's not some kind of outside divine flashbulb brought on by any sort of set-out process of asceticism or sacrament or ritual or prescription. It's a process of making that recognition and awareness permanent instead of fleeting. Which, oddly enough, is a strengthening of a habit. Weird.

Lucky Me

I was reminded today, while strolling Scooter behind the country store, of a long-ago football practice when I found a genuine four-leaf clover while stretching. I was so excited by the find, and allowed superstition to trump healthiness, popping it into my mouth to absorb the luck. How could goose poop and chemical fertilizers faze me when I had such fortune? I think the luck is still running through me, branching hither and thither through capillaries and follicles and neuron pathways, guarding my soul. Life is grand.

New Experience

I was a bit nervous getting on the horse with no saddle and only a simple bridle with no bit and a tucked-in lead rope for reins. I really only pretend to know how to ride a horse, replacing ability with confidence and a john-wayne attitude that will probably get me killed some day. But I tucked the nerves down in my shoelaces and hopped on the rickety stool, grabbing mane and rein before throwing my leg over his back.

At about 17 hands, Duke stood a bit taller than most horses, but his demeanor made him an easy sit, and I relaxed my hips and gripped with my knees, clucking to get him moving. He snorted and walked toward the fence where the cow stood watching, rubbing her skinny horn against the post and flicking a lazy tail.

"Be soft with the reins," my companion called, "Give him his face."

I pretended to know exactly what she meant, and pulled the rope to the right, squeezing my heels to get Duke moving. He bobbed his head and paced the other way, toward the open field. I could feel his spine moving under me, and his muscles rippling with every step. Much more in tune than chafing atop a saddle, and even the lack of stirrups was no problem at this speed.

Naturally I kicked his flanks to get him moving once we made the field, and he trotted across. I wanted more. I kicked again, and he cautiously slipped into a lope, and I couldn't help but giggle at the smooth rocking motion and powerful grace beneath me. And then I started slipping.

I pulled back on the reins to slow him down, and he broke pace into a trot, throwing me forward on his neck, trying to squeeze my knees, but the change in gait threw me off and I was falling. I scrabbled for mane and threw my arms around his neck, but the trot jostled me off, and I was falling. I hit the ground with a thud, and twisted away from his hooves, envisioning myself as a bloody pulp and trying to catch my breath. The horse stood calmly as I pulled myself to my feet, laughing and feeling a bit sheepish. Across the field, the llama and sheep watched as I dusted myself off and hobbled toward the barn. Ready to try again.

inappropriate self-aggrandizing analogies

The other day I walked into the Apple store with my expired student ID to purchase a new computer.
"This one's expired, but I'm starting grad school in the fall," I explained, trying not to bite my lip and expose the stretched truth.
"Yeah? Where you going? Here in boston?"
"No, California. San Francisco. Creative writing master's." My heart started pounding around looking for some wood to knock on. I hadn't heard back yet from most schools, and my primal superstition floundered around for a buoy.
"Nice, man, nice. San Fran is sweet. I'm jealous, dude."
We talked about music and creativity and the world, and I eventually left with my new computer under my arm.

Today I packed up the computer and left starbucks, heading home to change for work. In the lobby of my building I hesitated, weighing laziness and apathy before checking the mailbox. There was a large envelope addressed to me from California College of Arts in San Francisco.
My heart thumped in my throat, and my knees threatened to give out as I opened the envelope in the elevator.
Dear Mr. Blumer,
It is my pleasure...
The rest faded in an adrenaline haze as I stumbled into my apartment, reminded of Saint Elizabeth.
Where are you going? What's in your apron?
Just roses...
Let me see.
She's caught. Her husband will be furious when he sees the loaves of bread stuffed in her apron for the poor. She sighs and drops her apron, bracing for the worst. Her husband stares agape, quizzical and at a loss for words.
Dozens of roses cascade to the floor at his feet. He stoops and lifts one, burying his nose in its delicate folds. He meets her gaze with a glint in his eye and a smile to match.

Okay, so it's a totally inappropriate analogy, but the relief she must have felt probably pales in comparison to mine. A weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and stressors suddenly seem weak and trivial. So thank you, CCA, thank you for lifting my spirits and whiting my lie.

Nostalgia

I got to thinking about a particular summer I had, realizing with a truly painful jolt how great it had been. And then I thought about another summer I had, actually wincing about how great it had been.
Nostalgia can be physically painful. It can also lure one in like the sirens, spinning deeper and deeper, reflected in a distant smile of whimsy.
It has a very different emotive from daydreaming about the future.

Life Falls Under Catch-22

There's a funny thing about being a driver: lot's of down time. It seems like an exciting job, and it can be a lot of fun, if the money flows, but there are elements of boredom. What it amounts to is that every single job is horrifically boring and below my capacity--bar one. And that one is hard because at the moment it doesn't pay the bills.

Damn you, Murphy! Damn you to a boring, fiery hell.

On Being Studied

My alarm goes off early. Gratingly, shiveringly, numbingly early. I groan myself out of bed and flip it off, waging a silent debate about hitting the snooze button.. It's 8am.
I'm on my way to participate in a psych study looking at the effects of a certain ADHD drug on driving concentration. I haven't started the meds yet. I hop on the train. The commute nods past, and I arrive at MIT. After just one misturn, I wind up in front of the lab building and hike up the stairs.
I locate the room easily enough--a candy-apple-red Volkswagon beatle hunkers in front of a big TV screen, poised at the center of a web of wires. A tall girl with what I call 'hacker hands' stares at a computer monitor until she notices me waving at the door.
"You Paul?"
"Sure am," I yawn. (an aside: did you yawn reading this? I yawned writing it. Every time.)
She has me fill out a questionnaire. I probably lied when it came to how drowsy I'm feeling. Then she hooks me up to an EKG and a breath-depth sensor, and tapes a sweat-measuring pad to my fingertips. Make a fist, she says, wrapping the wire up my knuckles onto my wrist. Tape. Arm straight out. Tape. Put your fist on your shoulder. Tape. She leads me into the car.
"Should I buckle up?" I ask, reaching for the belt. "Force of habit." Wouldn't feel comfortable driving without the comfortable weight of the seatbelt. Something akin to the leaden blanket at the dentist.
"Some people do; some people don't," she chuckles. I buckle.
She adjusts the volume and the camera aimed at my eyes. I adjust the seat and wish I had functional sideview mirrors.
"There will be an accurate rearview mirror picture," she assures me. One glance makes me a skeptic.
The gear shifter is nonfunctional.
The stereo doesn't work.
Roadsounds comes from speakers.
The pixellated viewscreen is tiresome and uninteresting, aside from some moving objects designed to catch my attention. At least the pedestrians shuffle across the intersection just as the lights turned green. And big vans are parked in front of stopsigns, blocking half the view. And construction cones spring up like mushrooms after a thunderstorm.
The worst thing about it is the lack of feeling. Forty-nine percent of the driving experience is absent. There's no rumble of the engine, no rush of wind. No connection with the car, no sixth sense of periphery. And no acceleration, up or down. It's flat, and it makes me heartsick. And slightly seasick. It's not driving. It's a mockery. Plus it puts me to sleep, and I struggle not to nod off. They're going to see everything on the cameras. Damnit.
As it turns out, I get bonuses for not getting in crashes, for not getting caught speeding, for not going over the time limit. I lost half my starting points, mainly because of trying to shift lanes without a sideview or blindspot window. With all due respect, that accident was a fault in programming. I glance in the mirrors and see gray carpet and a few posters on the wall. This is pretty difficult.
At one point I had to make a hands-free phonecall, being told and memorizing information, and then relaying it to the voice-activated device.
At another I had to play a pattern game, listening to a series of letters and saying, "check" when a Q was followed three letters behind by an A. Question and Answer. QED. Que? Oh man, I most definitely have ADHD.
TIJQIEJAcheckEIJAJQIQIEJAcheckJEIOQEQEUTAcheckEIAJLAAIEJQIEPAcheckIPQRMSAnd so on.
I miss a couple because my mental priority stayed on driving. Of this I am distinctly proud.
I fill out another questionnaire about my experience, being more honest on the drowsy section. Comments/Suggestions: Maybe position a fan outside the window.
I pocket the bonus $10 and head off to breakfast, itching to get in my own car and drive.

Girls girls girls girls, why are you so magnetic? What is it that shoves me and you together, regardless of feelings or convenience or rationality? Where does your power come from, that I'm so enchanted, so enamored of our interactions? The magic of pulses throbbing together, eye contact and skin-to-skin electricity, throwing caution to the winds, and making fools of us all.
It's like a chess game going on all around me, churning calculations, learning from mistakes, bending the will, and making the move, withdrawing and staring in eager concentration waiting for the next turn. But every piece looks like me. All I can see when I look at you is warped reflections of myself. Smiling hair-preening eye-batting conch-shell reflections, mocking the loneliness of being human.
We all just want connections. To get close. To get inside. What we have now is a paltry substitute for interspective. But god save us all, it's what we've got, so let's indulge.
There is only me. And underneath that, there's the consciousness that recognizes the me. Everything else is a shade of my perception.
But what a pretty shade, girl. You get one kiss...

Don't blink

The view from my window is priceless. My desk fronts against a three-paned window almost six feet across. At a certain angle, the view is all I see, except for off-white blurs in my peripherals and a cherry-colored accoutrement-cluttered lap to remind me I'm still here.

Across the way the Prudential Center rises into the blue, reflecting a sun-tinged liquid pillar with space-age lines and a swelling presence. Its back building rises even higher, like a sager older brother. The street corner at its base supports a few trees, and its cobblestone surface looks smooth and soft, like an old carpet.

Or is the Pru more incoming than upreaching? Abutting the crossroads with an entrance awning like a cattle catcher thrusting forward, the Pru sprawls back a whole city block, connected to the next block by a skywalk. Like two self-sustaining space ships, you almost expect the Pru and Copley to blast off at any moment. Escape pods of society, exemplifying the culture.

The traffic pattern at the intersection feels like perpetual motion, tick-tock with a new representation of time. Everybody is trying to get somewhere, but they just keep twisting circles and circles around the city, magnificently complex gears in the timepiece of the city.

Windshields, headlights, rims all glitter in the sun, avatars of people wefting their way through the warp of pedestrians, weaving comet-tails of stories.

Shopping bags, school bags, bag lunches, bag ladies, shoulder bags, baggy eyes--everything down there has its meaning, its reason for being arranged at that point in this moment. A trolly tour jangles past, pushing a yellow light to keep the tour moving steadily.

A building rises up next to me, thick concrete framing business-like layouts, ever-shining fluorescents cowering from the sunlight.

Movement catches my eyes--all three of them. A peregrine stoops away from a chasing swallow, doubles back toward the office building across the way, and circles back again, as if trying to get to something. What is the swallow hiding? Or is he just being a dick. Maybe the swallow is stealing the peregrine's nest. Or maybe protecting his own. Who am I to judge? So it is and so it shall be.

I have so much work to do on this freelance assignment, but all I want is to write some fiction. Making a living means losing the living. I should've been born a hunter/gatherer--but then the stories would all be oral, passing down through the collective conscious, sending waves of character down through the ages. Ancestry.

If i could otherwise devote the time I spend at work, I could get some serious progress down on what I really want to do. Could get those chapters rolling in. Start collecting those rejection slips to climb their sickly pink mountain to the heaven of publication. It's just a matter of catching the groove. But Catch-22 has me firmly in its clutches, and it's loving every minute of it. Cheeky bastard.

Time to work.

Therapy

It's gone. They stole it. They stole my fucking car, and now it's gone. Here I sit, face a blank page of crestfallen disbelief, passive and empty to any onlooker. I'm wearing this vacant mask to hide a molten core of rage, whose burning I can feel between my straight-line lips and in the whorls of my ears, and thumping against my scarf. But to you I appear impassive, bored.

But it's gone! I can see the little punks, rummaging with glorified coathangers between window and door, racing to see who could pop the lock first. Their flushed faces, heady with anticipation, hearts pounding.
click!
"Got it, boy," one proudly croons, dropping his jimmy and yanking the door open.
And then they're inside, talking excitedly in whispers, as they rifle through my CD collection, steaming up the windows with their nervous breath, pawing through my worthless possessions and trying to rip out the radio.

Where was I while this was going on? Probably asleep, alarm set and dreams churning, ready to spring out of bed for an honest day's labor. I wonder, did they leave the door open for a quick escape? or close it against the cold? How long did it take to splice the appropriate wires? Did they grind the sensitive clutch? Probably. Little punks.

A Honda Civic, whatever its benefits, is notoriously easy to steal. Oh my god I can't believe it's gone! I've seen a towtruck operator jimmy one open in a matter of moments, as I sipped a coffee on a restaurant patio along the street. Guy barely even looked at what he was doing.

Where were the cops when they stole my car? Probably munching Dunkin Donuts, or busting up drunken pedestrians on their way home from the bars. What are the chances they stopped any real crimes that night? Care to bet?

So my car's gone, my plans canceled--a contract broken. I'm sharing this cold aluminum bench with an ugly dwarf of a man, a shriveled old hunchback in a tattered Patriots sweatshirt whose primary movement seems to be squirting jets of tobacco juice at random intervals in the general direction of a crack in the sidewalk. The bus should be arriving at any moment, but my hands flex with longing to grip the steering wheel, to make my own way at my own pace.

So long, I worked, to afford that car, that unattainable luxury, and in the space of a few minutes, some delinquent bastards have gone joyriding, squirming their illiterate baggy jeans on my seats, smearing their fetid sweat all over the dashboard, cursing my boring music taste and wishing for some innocuous bumping hiphop.

Worthless wretches. The short-sighted government would have been better off subsidizing their mothers' abortions instead of sucking eggs on a stupid vacuous issue. Because you, John Q Taxpayer--rest assured--will end up paying for these assholes to eat three-square and sleep in sheets. I can only dream of the violent pain and irrevocable damage caused by their shower rape. I can only wish I could watch them get caught and fucked.

But for now, I suffer, the wool-blinded fodder of the American Dream.

On this cold bench I sit, listening for the grumbling diesel of the bus, feeling the hollow sucking of my soul where all my hard-earned material manifestation has been yanked away at the whim of some brat who can't see enough past the end of his fat nose to care about the harm he's causing another human.

What would his mother say?
Hell, it's probably her fault.

A young man joins us on the bench, baggy jeans flopping against the seat. I wonder if his cornrows make his scalp cold. He thumbs a cellphone, not meeting my eye as he sits. I pull out the police report and reread it for the umpteenth time, hoping for a clue, or a new bit of information, or something that doesn't tell me my car's gone without a trace and there's not a goddamned thing I can do about it. It'll probably show up gutted--
"Hey, man, you got the time?"
I turn to the youth next to me. He's holding up a darkened phone and looking at me quizzically.
"Uh, yeah," I say, looking at my cellphone. "It's nine forty-five."
"Hey lemme get that," he says, nodding at the phone.
"What?"
"Give me your phone. And your wallet, man."
"What?"
"Motherfucker, quit fuckin' around. Give me your money and your phone, and whatever else you got." He stands up, threatening.
I frown and glance toward the old man, who's up and shuffling down the street, leaving me alone with the kid. He hold out an orangutan paw, pale palm stained and clammy.
"How about right now," he mutters, twitching his fingertips as if to say Gimme or Come Here. His other hand is behind his back, ready to pull a knife or a strap.

My insides boil over, but I keep a sheen of fear on my face, the only emotion these dustbunnies understand and respect. I rise to my feet, hands out disarmingly. I don't want trouble.
"All right, all right," I nod. "Here you go. Here's my wallet."
I reach back for my wallet and shuffle closer.

Suddenly I'm upon him, throwing my entire weight behind a right cross which connects CRACK on his chin, and following through. He stumbles back, and I swing around with my left, smashing my fist into his temple. He drops to the slushy sidewalk and I'm upon him, fists flailing, red mist rising before my eyes DIE you fucking worm piece of shit--my fist again and again, socking wet and hard into his ugly brown face, drawing back and throwing myself down again, fists elbows fist fist fist blood spraying teeth bared screaming MOTHERFUCKER venting DIE as if he were the accumulation and effigy of all the evil in this world, CHOCK chock thuck tap thap the back of his head cracks and spills red DIE on the pavement, wide wet eyes cross lose focus, arms fall to the draw of gravity as his body gives up, and still I DIE thrash and flail and mash his face again and again with raw knuckles elbows bleeding breath ragged DIE DIE DIE as he goes limp beneath me, my knees soaked through with melted snow and hot blood, heart thumping fists pumping, rage throwing fireworks at his eyes, unseeing eyes, and his head cracking against the pavement with each savage blow, brap brap brap as my fists take on a life of their own, skin splitting, teeth flying, tongue bitten through, skin rent torn and bruised, losing shape just a DIE mass of blood and cells and follicles of DIE misdirected youth and MOTHERFUCKER DIE poor timing as a victim turns around, refuses to bend once more, and becomes the murderous unfettered vengeance of
"Stop!"
uncountable robberies and thefts and rapes and murders DIE and victimizations and rage as I sob and scream and thrash this fleshy pulp against the wet pavement, spilling blood and mingling slush and gore and pent-up anger resentment loss injustice and I'M GOING TO KILL THIS KID ignoring the little nagging voice You're Going To Regret This voice as I pound and pound and
"Hey, stop!"
pound and ignore the spinning world around me, focused only on the utter destruction of this worthless bag of petty crime, this blight upon the imperfect rest of humanity, the embodiment of all that's wrong in this world, and I'm going to KILL IT--

Until I look up into the cold cyclops eye of a Beretta and see this kid's homie trembling behind the trigger. He's dressed in fear and stolen Timberlands, bowing under the weight of golden chains forged in hell.
"Stop it," he says, as I sit there poised over his friend, with a ragged bloody fist. All I want is to be home and none of this ever happened. All I want is to strike again, though there's not much left to hit, I realize.
A sneer twists my lips, and this new kid twitches
FLASH