Think about it for a moment

A sex scene with no verbs

2012-01-18T17:46:00.005-06:00

Under a bruise-purple sky, dawn’s pale green light in optimistic approach despite stars’ exodus in droves, despite disharmony down below, despite the clear echo of the night’s drama. Streets all empty now, except for the usual living fixtures with their omnivident but silent place in the scheme of things. Damned souls in hell’s waiting room, indefinitely on hold because of coverage denial.

To a cosmic investigator, with access to deeper vision, clear traces of the struggle. Footprints of the clash almost still visible in grimy streets, like battlefield ghosts, burn marks in memory of the ground itself. Zero-mortality massacre; psychological slaughter both of boundaries and faith in the state the police the government the system. And utter destruction of status-quo optimism in people’s hearts.

And yet, also throbs of beauty, of community between strangers. Like the sharing of gasmasks and goggles, distribution of bandanas and vinegar-soaked t-shirts. Glimpses of a better way, a different attitude. Like two small women with arms around a blind and bloody fat man, assistance in spite of inevitable arrest. Or the college dropout with his gallon-jug of milk as pepper-spray salve, de facto guardian of a homeless woman’s toddler after her strident arrest.

A new paradigm; all in it together, partnership for betterment of the whole. Like the human chain and the milk-splashers behind them, a throng of spoiled first-worlders resolute and strong, awake and in arms after decades of dormancy. Slough of the spoon-fed, tag-team resistance to ruthless enforcement of a rotten structure. Vague dreams of a new Eden, a global community of mutual assistance instead of dogmatic purity in survival-of-the-fittest attitudes. For all its logic, Darwin’s system just a philosophy cum religion. Not absolute truth. Re-emergence of a global organism, a Gaian outlook.

In the scant warmth of a student-slum apartment, three friends silent in collapse, in contemplation, in grim recollection of the very real smell of their idealistic game.

Numb with experience of state-sponsored Protection and Service, in the adrenal aftermath of a unilateral scuffle, awash in connection to each other, to everyone behind internet streams and video uploads, widespread solidarity and a feeling of rightness, despite the shroud of pure terror and disgust and outrage.

Drips of blood on the student’s shirt, dry and brown. Back against the cupboards on the kitchen floor under the lawyer’s supportive arm, feet against the fridge.

Etch of incredulity and hurt on the student’s forehead, angry tears hot on stubbly cheeks. “Unbelievable. What kind of world…? Unbelievable,” repetition like a mantra, “unbelievable.”

“Here, ice,” cubes in a plastic bag, our hero’s stricken face.

“Unbelievable. Hey, no one dead, right?”

“No.” No one dead. But plenty in the hospital with capsaicin tears; mucus membranes on fire, respiration laborious and painful. Bruises, headaches, broken fingers and wrists. But no fatalities.

“The golden-ticket injury, man. An honorable demonstration of devotion.”

“Not your fucking martyr,” the student’s sudden snarl under the ice.

“Whoa, easy. What up, man?”

“Just…” Anger, accusation, doubt in his eyes. Then softer, “Yeah. Right. Sorry, just traumatic stuff back there—our own appointed guardians. Hey, no one dead though, right?”

“Uh...right,” our hero’s puzzled look at the lawyer.

“Good. What a vicious cycle of history, man. Inevitable and indefinite dark ages after the Fall. Always the same. For me, just one look at a better world, with fairness. Connection to the overall.”

“Heh, one look probably your only entitlement, with your head’s easy intimacy with every nightstick in its path.”

“My poor dome! A date-rape victim on the first night out.”

“Tst, gross, you two”

Ice on his head, the student’s groan of pain and exhaustion, head back, eyes shut. Motrin from the lawyer’s bag, waterglass almost steady. Labored gulp. Shudder. Then, eyes open, apprehensively, “But no fatalities, right?”

Ice in the air, in veins.

Our hero and the lawyer, eyes wide.

“Hey man, hey. You okay?” a frightened croak.

Outside in the street, city-bus rumble, routine wake-up bellyache of a drowsy cityscape.

“Yeah...why?”

Just one look at mismatched pupils.

Concussion.

“Okay, hospital time.”

“No no, all good. Just tired.”

“Yeah, not for a concussion,” the lawyer’s assurance. “Just rest and observation. According to my mom, anyway.” Her mom the ER nurse.

“Fine then, bedtime. No class for you tomorrow. Er...today.”

Morning sun a bright sliver on the couch, the lawyer on her side under a thin afghan, back to the glare. Our hero on a chair, bleary eyes on news feeds and discussion forums, yawny ache between jaw and ears.

“Hey, sleepy time for you too, mister hero,” the lawyer’s sleepy murmur. “Room for two on here.” Nominal scooch as a gesture.

Fingers frozen above the keyboard, chills down spine in a pool of electric tingles in his seat. Nonchalant swallow. “Okay. Thanks.” Distraction from online drivel, all so unbearably interesting, so additive, so galvanizing. Incessant emails and personal messages and forwards—digital organization of life patterns. But nothing compared to this. This offer from his buddy’s old fling, this ravishing and captivating woman, forearm over eyes, splayed hair a fan on the cushion, weak sunlight and dawn shadows on dream-sheen stretch-pants.

Heartbeat in his ears, our hero on the couch slowly, gently. Curious absence of conscience, in spite of the obvious. The lawyer’s jerk awake, fearful flash in her eyes. Anguish in our hero’s heart—obviously too good for truth, her offer one of politeness, or an accident of sleepiness.

But then: “Oh; you.” Her sigh of relief, easy lapse back into sleep. Long debates in our hero’s head, tense and withdrawn, eyes on the spotty ceiling. Until finally his decision. A roll over, arm around her waist, relaxation into the space between them. And delight in her arching response, arms in a hug around his arm. Face in her hair, fantasies wild, a rush of blood to his nether head. Her languid press back against it, somnolent but rhythmic. His hand on her thigh, warm through the fabric and responsive to his touch. In his arms, her twist, one leg over his hip. Handful of hair in his grasp, head back, neck taut. A second’s pause before a kiss full on her mouth, soft and sweet like a ripe mango, jolts of excitement at the thought of her tongue-ring, with its months of sexy torment, glimmery allure a recent affectation in defiance of her former corporate path.

Valiant efforts at soundlessness, with the bedroom adjacent, rustly movement against each other; heavy breath and muffled sighs in necks and ears.

Fingertips on panty line, noses in their traditional awkward dance. The lawyer’s palm on his cheek, light kisses and assent to his move on top, between raised knees, on her back now in a tangle of knit blanket, all soft sighs from collarbone kisses, tanktop straps down her shoulders, small brown nipples hard in the air, shirt around her waist, trails of kisses and nibbles from chin to belly, both atremble from months of tensions, sexual and otherwise.

His fingers along her waistband, teasingly slow. Hips up, pants down, skin hot, gentle slide of a finger into her.

Palms on his ears, firm push toward her lap, a desire for envelopment, for togetherness. With a downward focus. He, hungrily, lips in silent slurpy songs of adoration; she, rhythmically, primally, hips in short gyrations, fingers in his hair. Then hands down his torso, an irresistible draw upward, kisses on his sticky mouth, shirt off, fly and button free, small hand in a cup around his tented underwear.

Ungainly battle with stubborn pants, to the tune of palm-stifled laughter. Finally out, chest to chest, naked on their friend’s couch. And then a yearning trembly arch into her, hot and close and enveloping, a soft high cry behind lip-caught teeth, faint moans through noses, both momentarily motionless, extension of the holy moment, dual revelry in the illicit thrill...and then a rhythm, a giving-in to each other, away from the apartment away from the world away from the revolution from time from any concern other than the rustle of long-awaited passion, the creak of the cheap couch, the too-soon build of an explosion, pinpoints of light in a gathering focus toward their shared center, the slishy, slippery, slick, salty pace; escalation, incapable of delay, gasps and grunts and whimpers and squeaks, mouths together—a pause, tense, suspension, sighs.

And then sleep.

Backlogged Dream Journal Entries

2011-11-18T12:11:00.002-06:00

8/24/10
Some kind of picnic or gala. Don Draper is there as my father figure, while I'm relegated to the kids' table.
Frustration.
I discover there's a different homemade apple-butter at each table, so I scurry around sampling. The apple-butter takes on a white creamy texture more like sour-creamy, but still tastes like apple-butter.
Then a coach-type is scolding me for being great at the sport but I've got to get better with the women. So I go drive, catching up with Don Draper, and then wake up.

8/28/10
I'm a new member of a diving team. Teams go around almost a track underwater, collecting fish, shells, and other target objects in a frenzy of activity.
I can feel that I'm slow and ineffective, but getting better, more valuable, and I start contributing and thinking of new strategies and remembering where to search.
In a sneaky move, my team installs a few huge blue plastic tubes to help our flow and distract the other teams. Bits of seaweed cling to the outside of the tubes.
Felt like visiting Michigan State.

9/2/10
Sounds of a revolution. An office and desk in an older building, perhaps a university.
A woman—older, professor-type—alternately looked up to and scorned.
Loading the mag of a pistol from a box of mixed bullets, keeping the odd bullets for other potential uses.
An envelope marked "4:30: He's been snooping."
The gun at the small of my back in my waistband.
Bodies surrounded by cops.

9/18/10
I'm in a hospital or doctor's office, and I go to wash my hands, taking some telescoping object with me to wash as well. The bathroom is there, behind all those people.
Muslims, many in traditional garb, are gathered in protest or something.
One comes angrily forward, demanding to know just what I think I am doing trying to profane their presence on my way to the bathroom.
There's a stirring.
Volume increases, people start jabbering, and suddenly I'm in the middle and the target of an angry boiled-over tumult.
Some people try to interject on my behalf, becoming Uncle-Tom targets of anger. The mass is embroiled.
Violence.
People pushing, grabbing collars, circling, screaming, threatening, grabbing, pushing, surging, snarling, growling.
And I'm in the center of it all, being thrashed around. In my own circle of violence and counter-violence are a few specific faces, while everyone else around is a blur.
Then two friends grappling become a hug, which spreads among the chaos.
I'm crying.
Quiet.
Debris and sobbing and understanding and remorse.
Exhaustion.
Peace.

1/29/11
A series of vignettes, all taking place in a space I understand as the climbing gym.
I wander around lonely, in search of a climbing partner, seeing birthday parties and groups of kids forming, but my time is ticking and still no climbing.
Out a window I watch the tops of the World Trade Center toppling, panic noises and confusion. A few people egress the piece of tower, and one little girl is borne up on an updraft or something, falling skyward in a little white dress.
Then a kid shows up as I'm stretching or warming up. I can't tell if he's retarded or just ugly, like the Kakos kid from church, but he's extroverted and talks a storm.
A guy my age shows up—known by the ugly kid—who is also seeking a climbing partner, so we strike up a conversation. Food topics, juice or soda, and other et cetera indicating greed on part of the kid.
There's a slight outdoors shift, though still "in the climbing gym," and we see a variation of frisbee being played.
Then a small pomeranian-type dog runs out on a powerline like a squirrel. I'm told it's a sort of invasive species—or maybe just the one—and then the thing has a fat joint. This leads to a discussion of how it would strike a lighter with no thumbs.

9/30/11
Somehow Brooke and I get involved in a foursome with a woman and a newly-woman. The setting keeps changing, including a dorm-like hall, a post-bar walk through SF, and someone's home. There, we all inspect each other's shoes for white flakes. I have none. The tranny has "almost none." Brooke has none, but mentions my lack of flossing, as if it were another possible STI indicator, to which I protest, I have been flossing plenty.
We all give the go-ahead and sign the papers, but doubts remain, esp about the tranny (who is still rather mannish).
Some movement happens and some things I don't remember, and then I am in a mall trying to navigate to the men's room with a tray full of wine. I find my way in, navigating back through the tunnels/hallways of consciousness, and wake up having to pee.

11/18/11
Sitting at a beach-side cafe table with Jag and (Mairaj?). They get up, go away. A spoon flies at me from behind a rock—I catch it and start eating my cereal, re-torquing the silver decorative spoon to make it straight.
They reappear, and I know they've thrown it, representing magic. They announce the spoon as a token that I am the sage/magician/wizard of our group of friends, and present me a janitor/mechanic-type overshirt, with "apprentice"/"assistant"/something on the tag, inside out, with ballpoint writing describing my new position.
I put it on, and pretend to vibrate, shake, tremble, as if overwhelmed by the power, tilting back and falling over in my chair.
From the floor, I say, "That's my official acceptance speech."
Erik joins and they tell him what went down.
"Nice," he says.
Then we all start roaming or looking for something specific to do.

Associations

2011-11-12T23:46:00.001-06:00

"Can you mute it? Or at least turn down the volume a bit?"

An arc of fire leaps out from the screen, searing space in all directions. Magnetic poles twisted to the point of its eleven-year reversal, the sun unleashes laughably large bursts of energy in the form of flares whipping out half a million kilometers past the surface.

Finger frozen on what she thought was the Volume button, she adjusts her position toward the TV, and takes in the whole incomprehensible scene. Distracted now worse than before, I almost ask her to switch back to the innocuous drivel on the last channel, but think better of it and adjust my own position to accommodate her and the quarks flashing onscreen.

She sighs. "Can you see?"

I look under her armpit, but the view is slightly blocked, so I settle deeper into the couch with her and watch over her shoulder, occasionally kissing cheek or neck. Moved by the deep-space images of a binary star system, we push and pull, rising and falling with our own orbits of interest.

"This is amazing!" she cries, eyelids flickering.

"I know!" I agree, running the gamut of significance.

Space exploration is still in its infancy, the narrator reminds viewers, but astronomers have increasingly cool gadgets to study the outer reaches of the tiny little fragment of space we can access.

She giggles and presses back, fingers dancing along mine, encouraging and teaching, guiding her own experience with her own imagery with her own narrative. I'm her passenger. If I'm the rocket, she's the liquid fuel and the fire, the chemical reaction that unleashes energy from matter, the plasmic brilliance under the delivery vehicle.

A splash of color represents the unfathomable geography of an interstellar cloud, the placenta of a star. The screen shows a gathering of particles, the slow accumulation of mass, the massive overload and nuclear fusion of hydrogen, the growth from intense white dwarf to sage old red giant, the fusion of a heavy iron core, the inability to support its own mass, and the inevitable collapse.

The screen explodes in supernova splendor, sending its photons intensely, momentarily to the far corners of the room. We're both caught in the heady glow of the star's dazzling death knell, pulled into the transmutation of a black hole, a point of infinitely concentrated mass that's collapsed into itself, consuming and silencing itself, greedily converting the neighboring light and space and time into an other-dimensionly unknown.

The turn of a cosmic hourglass.

Halloween

2011-11-01T23:59:00.003-05:00

Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
The helmet was a little big, but the lightsaber was just right. With a hemmed cape and shiny black boots, I was invincible.
Koo pshrr, koo pshrr.
The air was misty with candy-coated promise; with streaks of mystery and ominous rumblings of thunder. My empty pillowcase hung ready to accept its burden, an incongruous capitulation against the unbending darkness of my grim attire.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
I stood in the hallway, peering at things through the goggles, trying to discover the best cant for visibility.
“Ready?” my mom stood in a witch’s hat, buttoning a thick peacoat.
I nodded under my helmet, and waved the lightsaber redly.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
“Did you take your inhaler?”
I hesitated. Waffled. Shook my head.
She brought it. I took it.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
Croup was a frequent guest in my lungs, particularly on Halloween night, when November hung heavy over a Michigan sky. The cool damp air wreaked havoc on my larynx, and the excitement of Halloween crawled up my trachea. I needed albuterol near at hand.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
“Mom. Help me take...this mask off…”
Puff. Puff. I passed the inhaler to my mom and replaced the helmet, wiggling until it aligned with my own eyes. Once my brothers were ready, we headed forth into the night.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr. Even with medically relaxed lungs, I barely had to fake the anguished and sinister breathing effects. But it was Halloween. My favorite time of year, when I had an excuse to wear costumes and run around the neighborhood, when I was still fresh with birthday treasures, when a sackful of candy was allowed to remain in my room until it was gone. Generally sometime in December.
With the right amount of squint and smirk, the far-off thunder sounded like TIE fighter flybys, and my pillowcase could be mistaken for Princess Leia’s still-warm gown.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
I brandished the glowing lightsaber and listened to its wwhan wwhan wwhan and clashed it against my brother’s legs until he whined and my mom scolded.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
We knew all the best candy houses in the neighborhood: the ones with the king-size Butterfingers and Reese’s and Gushers. We hurried from one ding-dong-trick-or-treat-thank-you to another, eager to hit all the lit and decorated houses, and glowering at the ones left dark and unwelcoming.
Before it seemed possible, it was time to go home. The pillowcase was stuffed, slung over my shoulder like a drifter’s duffel. My cape was a bit bedraggled from dewey lawns, and I’d tricked David into carrying my lightsaber for me while my mom carried his bow and arrows. The albuterol had long-since worn off, but my pride fought tooth and nail to get home without another dose. I took off my helmet to enjoy the last few ragged spice-scented breaths of Halloween.
Koo...pshrr, koo...pshrr.
Until next year.

©2011

Thesis Proposal

2011-10-17T12:21:00.002-05:00

Paul D Blumer
CCA MFA 2012
Thesis Proposal Louder Than Words

Le Train de Nulle Part is a French novel by Michel Thaler, who claims it as the first book written without a verb (apart from gerunds and participles as nouns and adjectives). It stands mostly as a series of observations by a narrator aboard a train, and has been criticized for its lack of action and its scathing, seemingly pointless grievance. The work has not been translated to English, so my plan for Louder Than Words is to achieve the historical position of first author to pen an English book without a verb—and to do it better. With loads of action. It’s about a revolution, after all, and all the gore, glory, love, and loathing that go into such a thing.
Inspired by George Orwell and the Arab Spring, my thesis will comprise as much of a novel or novella as I am able to complete in the time allotted, which will thereafter be added to, tweaked, and molded until it is fit for public consumption. My overall goal for Louder Than Words is somewhere in the vicinity of 200 pages, depending on what the story calls for, and the idea is to bind the thesis as a book for its final presentation.
As I see it, the thesis is in and of itself a work, but its importance to my writing is as an oasis, to replenish my water supply—if one can imagine an oasis with a weight room, a jumprope, and a climbing wall. The due dates and the pressures serve to strengthen my writing, which is part of why I’ve chosen such an exceedingly difficult project. But to call myself a master, without reaching so high, would be disingenuous at best.

Icon, can you?

2011-09-25T21:25:00.009-05:00

The first time I saw God, I was digesting a bellyful of poison and processing a headful of one of the stronger psychoactive biological byproducts known to the sapiens crew. Staring at the placid surface of the pond, I grokked and grokked, alternately smiling and sobbing; feeling at once completely refreshed and utterly destroyed.

When the face-to-face confrontation became too much, I trailed my fingers through the water to disrupt the image. Narcissus' failure was not in his gaze, but rather in his inability to shake things up every now and then. We become enchanted with and enamored of our own iconized fictions, forgetting that they're no more than deep ruts of habit—and no more valuable than a scent whose strength fades almost as soon as it becomes apparent.

As the ripples settled down and my reflection rematerialized, I recognized that I finally understood everything. The pattern was clear. Through the course of history, the spiritual looking-glass had been clouded over by a multitude of cheap products and obscured by the patina of centuries of filthy rags.

As I see it, the truth that the snake-oil prophets would obscure forever is simpler than anyone would believe. As I see it, the truth of the universe (which is infinitely complicated or shockingly simple, depending on the layer) rests briefly in each one of us. But through a mad web of manipulation and an artificially structured society, we've been led to believe that there are paragons to admire and pinnacles to aspire to.

This is wrong. This is the product of living in a "community" of 300 millions, a number that the human brain can't even really conceptualize outside of an abstract comparison to grains of sand or stars in the sky. Bound together by a vague sense of patriotism, we sift through the proverbial hourglass while bullies with billy clubs keep us from disturbing the peace as we worship the plebeian promise of the American Dream.

But the truth of the matter is, the patsies always outnumber the iconoclasts, which traditionally means the latter are killed as soon as feasible. Nowadays, however, such individuals are simply paved over by the bland idolatry of 1/300,000,000. Even God has been rubbed out by those who refer to it the most.

©2011 Paul D Blumer

Remembering 9/11

2011-09-13T19:31:00.004-05:00

9/11/11
I'll never forget where I was on 9/11. Down to which seat at which lab table, I can point out where I was in advanced Chemistry, lighting steel wool on fire, startled by how well and how quickly it burned. There was an announcement:

Ladies and gentlemen, a plane has run into the World Trade Center in New York city.

A very serious fucking accident. How could that happen? Those buildings have been there so long. How could they let that happen?

The whole class was abuzz, and some people started worrying aloud about people they knew in The City. Some classes sat silent, some classes started discussions, some classes ran amok in disbelief.

And then the second plane hit.
Suddenly it was an attack.
Suddenly a chill ran through the blood of anyone paying enough general attention to understand what was going on. Classrooms emptied out as students and teachers filed into the auditorium to watch the news on big screen. Tom Clancy provided some commentary based on his experience imagining such scenarios. Certain students were picked out from the crowd to get on the phones with mom and dad.

The smoke pouring from the buildings warped perspective, a nightmarish billowing as if they were mere smokestacks. As if they weren't a roiling glimpse at the inferno underlying any industrial nation. As if they weren't spewing the souls of thousands at high velocity into the beautiful azure afternoon.

The talking heads were choked up, some fending off panic, everyone milling about in a daze. School buses rolled in, but no one wanted to leave the screens for fear of missing something crucial. People held each other who'd not spoken three words in two years. A brotherhood and a defiance set people in step with one another, and many kids vowed to join up, to defend against whatever may follow.

It was a horrific day, a glorious September day, an innocuous day turned upside down. For all the victims, and the victims families, and the firefighters who'd get fucked by the insurance companies, and the soldiers, and the Iraqis and Afghani people who had nothing to do with it, and for everyone watching the accelerated crumbling of the American Empire, it was a day that changed everything.

Chapter 1: Death or Quarter

2011-08-19T21:16:00.004-05:00

Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
-T.S. Eliot “The Hollow Men”

Your mind goes blank.
Pop! Like that moment during an orgasm or yawn. That one instant when everything shuts down, leaving an empty chassis...higher consciousness forfeit...senses unfiltered..time and place forgotten. You notice the world rising all around.
You're falling.
For that one instant, you are falling. A flash vision of that fall continuing all the way to the dust that will soon become your permanent residence.
But then your knees catch—instinct takes over, and you duck the next punch. Adrenaline floods gut chest neck eyes mind, sucking away pain and pumping in rage. An animal takes charge.
Raw reaction and a surge of calm violence. Control.
Squinting at my opponent behind a wall of forearms, I twist my head and crack my neck. Roll with the punches.
The first hit in any fight is the best. You build up this anticipation thinking about the fight, imagining worst-case scenario after worst-case scenario, picturing that jaw-breaking first blow.
But when the knuckles connect, it's never as bad as you expected. Training and toughness. Recognition and experience. The rest of this will be a breeze.
And now I make this man pay.
Luis Corpus. Squared off, wary of retaliation and looking for openings. A born fighter—quick, and more or less wiry for this event. Six-seven, two-forty. Tattooed and scarred like nobody's business. Prison ink. He's the Peruvian favorite, brought in from Lima by some of my...associates.
These guys whose names I don't even want to know, guys involved in business networks with fingers in pies of all kinds, these corporations wielding so much raw power and money that few even know they exist. Who else would organize illegal bare-knuckle fights?
The bets are flying thick and heavy, and everyone is serious. For the spectators, it's serious cash. For the Feds, it's serious felony behavior. For us— for me and this man Luis—it's serious life and death.
Each player thinks his own serious is the most important.
Head bobbing, nostrils flared. Squared-off and circling. Smelling blood, and thirsty. Luis Corpus. A dead man.

There's a reason I'm facing this man I don't know, this Peruvian kid wearing creased-new Carhartts and a pair of Timberlands so fresh the leather is still unburnished over the steel toes. There's a reason I'm bare-chested and carved like granite. There's a reason my nose is bleeding and broken flat.
And there's a reason I don't give a shit.
We're all in it for the same reason, however many zeros come after it. At the very basic, it's a thing of survival, of continuing to thrive, of adapting to the environment and amassing as much of its fruit as possible. The instinct to possess, to maintain a foothold in this slippery world––to ensure tomorrow.
There's a world full of things people would do for money. Who among us can say he's never done anything other than right, for the almighty dollar? That guy can throw the first stone.
And then I'm gonna throw it right back, straight at his head.
Money.
Money makes the world go round. Money grows on trees—if you own the trees. Money makes men do a lot of things. Money makes me fight—well, money plus an uncontrollable impulse to win.
There's a lot I wouldn't do for ten grand, but punching the shit out of some other juiced-up gorilla for the pleasure of a bunch of drug lords and tycoons doesn't bother me. Hell, I'd do it for free.
But I don't. I'm paid and enthralled, contracted and honor-bound. Life signed away. Might as well have been my blood in that fountain pen from long ago. My blood is in the fight as much as the fight is in my blood.
So here I am.
Winner gets ten thousand.
I get ten thousand. Loser gets two grand. You want to see me fight, you have to have a million cash, just to get in. From there it's side bets worth more than my car, on every little aspect of the fight. Hundred Large on someone calling mercy; quarter million on whether a guy gets up from a stumble. Fifty Grand on over/under number of punches landed.
I'm a valuable champion, but don't be fooled: these guys couldn't care less about me, and I don't give a shit about them, as long as they don't ever try to get me to take a fall for cash. That day happens, if one of these cologne-soaked glass-jaw gangsters ever offers to buy the outcome of a fight, if a slickie crook ever asks me to go down after five punches, that day I quit. That day I quit by taking his wide colorful tie and adjusting it three or four inches.
Here's a secret: pride is the only thing worth more than money...you just can't buy anything with it.
Here’s another secret: it’s also the real reason I fight. These days I can make more cash in other ways. But there’s no better way to get that feeling, that thrill when you walk out and start circling, measuring up the opponent, and it’s just you and him, life and death. There’s no other way to make thirty spectators disappear than to face off one-on-one in a game that might leave at least one of us dead. There is no drug that can compare.

Believe it or not I'd rather fight a guy taller than me. Truth. Against a taller guy, you throw uppercuts and high-explosive jawbreakers. You drop in under his guard, and right there at eye level is the soft throat. When you fight a giant, it's all he can do to swing downwards, exposing himself to devastating blows to the chin with each level drop. This isn’t boxing.
No, it's the little dudes you have to watch out for, the little Bruce Lee roosters who dodge in and out, ducking right under your punches. Plus you look like Superman when you fuck up a guy with inches on you. But God forbid you ever lose to someone smaller than you. Never let the underdog take away the bone.
This guy, this Luis Corpus, thinks his wingspan and height give him the edge. It's making him cocky—that or he's just got a sloppy, lanky style. Either way, I'm seeing openings.
He's getting careless, throwing haymakers that I easily dodge. He's grown up fighting in prison, where fights are haphazard at best, a matter of wild swinging in hopes of landing some ferocious hits before you take a nightstick to the belly. His style is like using a Mac-10: spray 'n' pray. I've got conditioning and experience on my side.
His chest is heaving, shining with Vaseline and sweat. I can rope-a-dope this guy until he makes a crucial mistake. Just a matter of time…

You don't see a guy's eyes much in a fight. The eyes lie. There's a point in space somewhere around his mid torso and a few inches in front of his chest. That's where you focus. Maximize the field of peripherals, brain concentrating on the whole picture. Motion-sensor mode.
Timing is everything.
He drops a hand to hitch his dungarees, and I dive in with a glancing cross. He stumbles back and shakes it off, blowing a mist of spit and blood before shrugging and returning to his guard. His lips glisten scarlet and tremble slightly as he breathes.
We circle, bouncing on toes in the dust, never still.
Stop moving for one second in this sport, and next thing you know, you're on the ground, and a steel-toe boot is making a hole in your head.
Footwork is essential, and the hours spent hopping over a jump-rope pay off in the end. I don't want to have to think about my feet.
So we circle, bouncing on toes, glaring between uplifted fists in search of openings.
Jab.
Jab.
Tentative. Lunge and jab, lunge and back again.
Left foot forward, right leg flexed like a coiled spring. Round and round.
Get the fuck to it, cabrón! someone shrieks from outside the ring.
And then I get hit.
I'm on my back, rolling away from Corpus' boots and trying to shake the
stars out of my eyes and the ringing from my ears. He seems surprised that I'm down, and I take advantage of his hesitation to scramble back and get on my feet again. Distraction is part of the game, and this time it caught me off-guard. If Luis Corpus had been more experienced or more driven, I'd be a dead man.
A fight is a dance. Shuffle back, bob and weave, bouncing toes, back and back, back back and BANG! Lure the motherfucker in and make him pay. Pinpoint punches—hard!— jaw, ear, break the nose, smash the collarbone.
There's a technique and a reason for everything.
It's not chaos.
It's choreography versus choreography. If I can break this guy's nose, his eyes will water, no matter how tough he is. Then I'm attacking a blind man fighting through a blur. If I can snap his collarbone, he's minus a weapon; minus a shield. If I can scare him enough about my ability to deliver pain, he'll make a mistake, and then I'm in.
There's a hole in the ground waiting for him if I catch him just right.

It’s a funny thing about this bare-knuckle death circuit that rotates among a scattering of secluded ranches owned by a file cabinet somewhere. You try it out and it's kinda scary, kind of exciting, like skydiving or racing cars. You're jacked on adrenaline, and it hurts like a motherfucker sometimes, and you're constantly aching: permanent black eyes, throbbing knuckles, cauliflower ear—the works. But it's also addictive like no drug I've ever tried. You get the feeling that you can wreck absolutely anybody, and you cannot wait to start hitting.
I walk through the supermarket, and I want to punch that guy in the Gold's Gym t-shirt just for standing in front of the protein powder I want to buy. I want to slap the bartender for overfilling my glass and spilling beer. I want to pick fights with two, three, four guys at a time. I want to fight fight fight. Nobody can fuck with me, but I have to find someone with the grit to take me on toe to toe, someone who can actually stand against me. There's an instinct we all have, no matter how deeply buried, to find the alpha and bring him down by any means available, to dominate no matter what. Ask Darwin. Ask Brezhnev. Ask the President.
Call me an animal. I agree. We're all animals, kept in line by a set of social standards and hereditary habits. And as an animal, I'm absorbed by an evolutionary need to win win win, to prove my progenitive prowess time and time again—to keep partaking of the sweet juicy fruits of the world. My world.
And to do that, I need a challenge. A challenge. Not this guy. He's just a kid I'm going to demolish.
Luis Corpus. He advances as I swipe a fist across my lips. The stinging pain galvanizes my body, and I leap toward him, juking right and swinging a left-hook pap! directly into his temple as he bobs away from the feint.
His arms drop, his eyes glaze over, and he falls like a cardboard cutout in a puff of chalky dust. My left arm vibrates with pain, radiating all through my elbow and into my shoulder.
I can smell the blood dripping from my split knuckles, and I step back to watch the kid.
He doesn't move.
It's over.
I turn away, and my body sags in an adrenal aftermath. A metallic taste, like sucking pennies, on my tongue. I collect the purse and walk away, past the waiting backhoe, past the food-laden tables, toward a shower, not bothering to see if Corpus gets up. If he does, he'll be sent packing. The loser isn't invited to the after-party.
A wrecked car sits at the edge of a grove of trees, still smoking from the weapons demonstration before the fight. Long ago, after one of my earlier bouts, I bought a concealable Walther PPK to carry around, after watching the arms dealer with a semiautomatic SPAS-12 shotgun rip apart a taxi in seconds. In another show, I'd nearly gone deaf from the concussion of an RPG. And a demo of an AK-47 mod once made me worry about the plight of Democracy. But now, it’s sort of just a pissing match. I don’t even want to know who’s buying what weapons.
At this ranch, where you drive about six hours from the highway up the driveway before you get to the main house, there's an ominous presence of power. You can feel it prickling the hair on your neck, tingling the skin under your balls, dancing at the back of your throat. This is the kind of place where you're on your best behavior.
Despite that, I'm leaving before the party, as soon as I get my suit on. I have to get back to Boston. There are thirty keys of the finest snow stashed in a couple of duffels in the locker room of the gym I’m now the sole owner of, since Alonzo’s demise, and I'd hate for it to melt in the summer heat.

© Paul D Blumer 2011

paulblumer.com

2011-08-05T21:56:00.001-05:00

www.paulblumer.com

2011-07-29T21:07:00.001-05:00

Model of Life
6/11/11

It’s midnight...or something like it. A breeze whistles up and around the balcony high above laser streaks of headlights all herding through intersections. Stop and go, ushered anonymously past stop lights and sidewalks, a crawling luminescence. If I stood here long enough, I could probably figure out the algorithms...or at least the timing.
From this height, angry horns sound muted and trifling. The trash problem has been reduced to dust. Even the graffiti looks neat and unthreatening.
The balcony is a good place, a bastion of perspective over productivity’s lime-encrusted drain. From here architecture is simple and subdued. The concrete is smooth and toned. From here the headlines are illegible and advertisements are aimed elsewhere. The atherosclerotic figure of the American Dream still appears charming and xenophilic from this height. Horatio Alger never had to dig trenches.
A rustle of blinds.
“Do you want like...a robe or something?”
The breeze tousles my hair as I turn. Goosebumps ripple across my bare skin. A delightful shiver snakes my spine.
She glances down, and I cross my hands like a fig leaf. “Hey,” I scold, “I’m on break here.”
“But you’re still naked. It’s cold out.”
“Cold, please. I grew up in the Midwest.”
“It’s time to come back in.”
Inside on a low end table, an ambitious stack of blank paper, a box full of soft-vine charcoal. A vigorous Miles Davis warbles from the turntable, and she gestures that I should lift the needle to silence the record; her fingertips are smudged black.
For an artist, she keeps her studio surprisingly neat. Where you’d expect to see piles of easels and drawing boards, there are flowers and potted plants. Where you’d expect to see gray-fingerprinted volumes on anatomy for artists, there are tables and chairs wiped clean. There’s no film of pastel dust or shavings of heavy metals coating every surface—instead a vacuum crouches in the corner, almost invisible like a good Victorian servant in his alcove.
The walls are festooned with portraits and profiles—but not her own. Her Study of Influence. Her own work either gets sold for five figures or mulched into her next batch of homemade paper. The work on the walls is strictly amateur; one of which, I’m proud to say—a three-quarter profile of the artist herself—by me, sketched while posing for her Study of Study.
She’s an oddball, this artist, with her high-rise studio standing in mad contrast to her sprawling ranch-style mansion in the hills. Two red-stained wine tumblers and a charred opium pipe watch from the table as she settles on her bench and stabs a few perspective lines before I’ve even settled myself into a pose.
“No, no,” she says, shaking her head. “That pose is too lax.”
And here I am trying not to make it obvious that I’m flexing my glutes for her benefit.
“How’s this?”
“Better,” she nods, tongue poking from the corner of her mouth in concentration.
It’s funny how twenty minutes turns out to be an eternity in the absence of the dynamic of movement—even within the first sixty seconds of standing still. The only sounds are the whick-whock of an antique timepiece and the whisper of charcoal on rough paper.
The noisy clock, she says, is to keep her movements brief and pointed, to guide her rhythm away from careful deliberation, and into the effective realm of jazzy motion. The careful artist, she says, teaches elementary school.
Wrapped in the slow-motion blanket of the opium, she sweeps and thumbs, rubs and hums, talking to herself and contributing her own out-loud critique as if she were alone. I’ve been reduced to deltoid and scapula, rib ridges and knee shadows. I’ve become the slow vibration of life itself, unfettered by identity or soul, consciousness replaced by pure form. Essence. The effect is diminishing and exhilarating, distracting from the ache of immobility and transcending the tremor of muscle fatigue. I’ve lost count of the pendulum swings.
A light pulse flicks at her throat as she looks up.
“Hold this pose for another while,” she says.
I nod imperceptibly. Her robe has fallen slightly open, drawing shadows down toward her belly. A wave passes over, prickling skin and thumping chest, sending blood southward. I squeeze my eyes shut to block out the image, but then all I can picture are the tiny barbells through her nipples, the smooth skin arcing downward, the unholy triangle. I open my eyes and focus on a cactus in the corner, but try as I might, there is no stopping the course of nature. Only a slight arch of an eyebrow indicates her notice.
“This isn’t intended as erotic portraiture,” she says.
“Sorry.”
She signs. “Though I suppose it could be. Nothing secretly pleases a doddering old collector more than subtle indications of sexual interest.” She brushes a strand of hair back from her forehead, leaving a sooty streak in its place.
“I like when you talk like that.”
“Like what?”
“Feigned uninterest.”
“Feigned, huh?” She stands and swings a smooth leg over the bench, gliding to the table. The hem of her robe flirts with her gluteal sulcus, and the sheer material hugs her shadows as if afraid to let go as she leans over the pipe and thumbs a smudged butane lighter. A pale curl of smoke drifts from a gem-studded nostril as she straightens and smiles, holding her breath.
Most of my clients are not this dazzling. She crooks a finger, and I break the pose.

The clock’s beat punctuates the hush at the end of the record, and the pipe is cold once again. Half my body is asleep, propped up by the rest. The scratch of charcoal indicates she’s taken advantage of me nodding off to work on her Study of Repose, and I feel vaguely used. Her previous sketch lies crumpled on the floor, stained and stiff now. A smear of charcoal dried to a film spreads across my lower belly. I wonder if that will make it onto her new sketch.
“Don’t move,” she hisses, and then sighs. “That’s it. The naturalness is shattered. You’re awake.”
“Sorry.” I seem to apologize a lot to this one.
“No worries,” she says. “You can get dressed. I’m not drawing well today anyway. It’s not you; it’s me.”
She hands me a check as I pull on my jeans, and escorts me to the door. “See you next week.”

Strider

2011-05-24T00:44:00.010-05:00

From springy rambunctious puppy to aching bag of bones; from chewed-up sandals to worn-down teeth; from champion in the ring to deaf old man—a staunch companion sworn to secrecy and free of judgment, with steady paws on shoulders and a ready tongue to kiss away any tear.

The pack is thinned now, deprived of a kind of timeless wisdom it’s our turn to pass along. But where can I go for comfort? In whose ruddy silence can I find my solace? Who will be my wagging guide through the rest of my days?

This overwhelming sorrow at your passing will be all too brief, tempered and overshadowed by 16 years of canine glory, erstwhile charms outliving any choking misery I feel at the aching loss of warm fur...and yet my fingers write blindly, through a blur.

In my mind’s eye, you’re still striding, strolling, trotting through thickets, pausing only to nuzzle some knot of underbrush before bounding back across the path in pursuit of the next olfactory moment.

In my mind’s eye, you’re still racing toward the sound of a trumpet, joining in in howling solidarity, an echo of lupine wildness; in solemn preservation of the world.

In my mind’s eye, you’re still leaping through my early morning torpor, unfazed by adolescent somnolence; my all-too-eager alarm clock.

The cycles of nature brook no sentimentality, and time waits for no man—but what I wouldn’t give to bury my face in your fur just one more time, to hear the thump of your tail, to smell that dog breath, to feel your forehead pressing on mine.

I’ve said my periodic insincere goodbyes, each time sure I’d see you again. I’ve rubbed my thumbs along your floppy ears, believing with a child’s certainty you’d be around forever. I’ve enjoyed your company without reservation, still fully taking our friendship for granted. I’ve lingered in thought and wondered: how much longer and to whither will your withered withers wander? And it seems even now the answer eludes me, as it has and always will.

RIP Strider 5/22/11

Louder Than Words: an experiment in verbless action

2011-05-16T12:13:00.002-05:00

Louder Than Words
Paul D Blumer

A long day—as usual. The sun: tired, emotionally empty, to bed at last! Time for nightcrawlers, denizens of the dim, distant cousins to the vampire. Glowing windows, and a movement of shadows from within.

Drinks all around, merry cries from bright taverns, sawdust still dry on the floor. Voices calm and quiet. A hint, perhaps, of eventual bawdiness—but conversations still cogent, and words still clear. Scattered groups of various sizes; work buddies, regulars, couples. An auspicious diversity, with beers and mixed drinks and the occasional glass of wine, heedful of suggestions for refills by a smiling pair of college-girl waitresses.

Our hero: “Brandy, please, warm.”

An amber-filled snifter, a pleasant fiery aroma. Splash of gold a welcome respite and warm accompaniment to the symphony of the crowd, among them celebrants at the bar, source of the merry cries and dancing shadows, with drinks in the air and grins on their faces. Among them despondents in the corners, intent on bottoms of bracers—in the midst of maybe not benders, but rather slow burns toward a grim realization: out of time. Among them—and somewhere in between—the majority in chairs, at tables; a community by way of shared sips and smiles and quiet conversations.

Knuckles on the bartop. A round for all from our hero. A skeptical look from the dubious bartender. A cash payment, a shrug, a whistle, and then the sound of beer in glasses. Loud gust from the yanked-open door. A man in a cloak.

“Him too?”

A smile of recognition and an amused nod. “Him too.”

The cloak: “Hello.”

Excited babble at the news of free drinks. A splintering of groups, a mingling and redistribution, confused customers eager for a jostling advantage. But still, good cheer all around. Everyone now slightly more familiar with faces in the room, everyone now a bit more aware of each other’s existence. Almost a feeling of brotherhood.

Our hero in conversation; small-talk and catch-up with the cloak. Then on to more serious matters, words almost a whisper. Murmurs and observations as if under surveillance, as if under the threat of violence. The mood of the crowd...almost there.

Discussion of the next phase. The movement of the plan. The word Revolution. A hasty Shh! A sheepish apology; a slipup of excitement.

An equation for failure. A delicate plan.

“Tonight”—the cloak with glass raised—“the beginning.”

“Tonight”—our hero — “the end. For some.”

“True, but worthwhile.”—the cloak— “Sacrifices for the greater good.”

A silent nod.

Time for a second round. Enjoyment and delight, no explanation necessary. No inspection of a gift-horse’s mouth.

“Everything in place?”—our hero.

“Oh yes.”

The second round a success. Spirits, color, voices, mugs all raised. A bond between strangers. Unity and brotherhood—all in it together, whatever this nebulous “it.” Solidarity against the primordial fear of the unknown. Brightness and noise against the dark quiet of the night. The night with death in its pockets. The night with coup d’etat in its beard.

Already in the streets, plans in motion. Already in the squares, fuses in place. Already in the pockets, pamphlets at ready. Already in the hearts, valor and fate.

“Quiet!”—the cloak— “There, in the corner. A spy?”

“What?”—our hero— “Who? Paranoid.”

“Maybe. Suspicions and unrest—constant companions in this goddamn thing. Interminable waiting.”

“Until now.”

“Until soon.”

Foundations strong, plans simple as possible, players dedicated. Anticipation a drug; an upper, a downer, an hallucinogen, a placebo.

Another round, and louder and louder. The buzz, the murmur, the clink, the splash. Sawdust now wet and tramped down under windows and fog and snatches of song. The cloak and our hero apart from the rest; watchers, players. Privy to knowledge known to but a few, on the brink of a turning point. But to what end?

A philosophy of rebellion. The history of Western Democracy—awash in blood, the story of hundreds of years—contrary to the understanding of many. The struggle incomplete, under the shadow of corporate power. Lip service—and barely that—to the huddled masses; promises and platforms just foundations for deception.

Life, society, culture, all in slow-plodding heads-down unquestioning ruts of habit, happy for leadership, happy for security at the cost of freedom, happy for laid-out paths and illusions of choice. Happy with food on the table and stories on the TV, happy with brand names and marketplace competition, happy with the semblance of progress.

Until the arrival of a tipping point.

Until a disaster and a half-assed relief effort. Until an invasion from Outside. Until stolen freedoms, and a realization of tied hands and woolen eyelids. Until the unjust execution of one of our own; a clear calculated deterrent attempt with the opposite effect upon recognition of its intent. The creation of a martyr. A rally point. A magnetic polarity of critical masses.

A tipping point.

Revolution.

To what end? A question of perspective.

“Simone?”—our hero.

“All set”—the cloak— “as ever. A true patriot.”

“And friend.”

“A bit more than friend”—the cloak— “eh?”

“Hush.”—our hero— “My business.”

“You rogue.”

“All of us rogues. All of us patriots.”

“True.”—the cloak— “But some more than others.”

A smile.

A burst of noise near the bar. A fight. The clock! Almost time. Too soon for the rabble. Another round for calm hearts. Stout friends, all in this together. Soothing language, words of camaraderie. What need for violence between us? Murmurs, suggestions, delicate crowd maneuvers—mass psychology. Frustration with the government. Whispered identification of common enemies.

For who, half your paycheck?

For who, your sons and daughters in bloody uniforms with guns?

For who, your parking tickets?

For who, the treasury?

For who, foreign interests?

Across the city, more of the same. A dozen smooth talkers in a dozen drink-plied taverns.
Revolution and the masses—hand in hand like old lovers throughout history.

Cycles and cycles. Our hero’s lament—and warning—the night before, and every meeting night since the first whispered collusions. The cycles of history, and bloody repetition if ignored. Revolution still subject to the habits of the people, still dependent upon the human condition. An addiction to dominion—an easy downslide after the refreshing change, after the honeymoon period. Especially vicious with the taint of revenge and hatred, a new administration easily more oppressive than the last, with more paranoid control than before.

Education and reading! Our hero, imploringly optimistic. Sharing and instruction and long-term memory for long-term foresight. Or else…

Pigs and people, slaves and masters...and what difference? Only a name, a color, a side, a history. Consciousness, awareness—or else ignorance and repetition. Doom. A silly word, until true. And then what? The same: tyranny. Paranoia. Censorship. Control. Freedom from choice. Whatever the name, always the same. Simple reminders: the rise of Stalin, the power of Hitler, the rule of Julius Caesar, the insanity of Solomon.

Disagreement, dissent from his companions. Arguments about the new! the fresh! the youth! the untried! the right! the pure!

Pure?—our hero— Pure like Aryans? Pure like Chinese? Pure like gods? Baseball? Communism? Capitalism? Pure like Christians? Pure like what?

No answer.

Purity, the idea, like so many human values; indefinable, a matter of interpretation, a very personal thing. Non-transferrable. Non-refundable. Non-denominational. All-important.

Our hero, in bed each night, long awake with a hopeful longing for something different this time around, something unique. An actual turning point, not merely a full turn on a spinning wheel.

The mood of the bar crowd almost there, almost at the critical point. Growls and oaths, dissent and indignation, a surge of unified energy toward the approach of a fine-line moment between riot and revolution—suddenly wavering, suddenly unclear.

“Time now”—our hero, abruptly— “To tomorrow!” His glass in the air, the noise of his chair, the shuffle of his boots. One long swallow. And then his voice, calm, clear, and warm like the cognac in his belly.

“Friends.”

(Louder.) “Friends!”

(Atop the table.) “Friends!”

A movement. Awareness from face to face, like a yawn; infectious and undeniable. This crowd of malcontents, newly united against...something.

Moments later, the crowd now quiet, now interested, now his. Ready for his words.

A dozen bars across the city, a dozen parallel plans, a dozen pairs of brazen youths—rebels, freedom fighters, terrorists, revolutionaries, traitors, intellectuals, students, lovers, hopefuls—on a mission of unity, a gathering of the People, an escalation for the cause.

Attention on our hero, chest filled, arms spread, words on his lips.

***

A long time ago—maybe ten years or more—lessons in debate. Competitions in school. Practice. Letdowns. Victories. Reams of information. Flow of words.

A weekly Backgammon game against this man with the name Dad. This man with the name Germaine. An eternity between each move—the old man’s style. Impatience then endurance then meditation and inner calm. An evolution of the boy’s character. As well as his cunning.

Precision, strategy. Three moves ahead. Then four. Plenty of time to imagine every move available before the old man’s eventual choice. Victor and vanquished; a changing of the guard. Then excuses.

Too tired.

Errands for Mom. Errands for wife. Errands for Simone.

Arthritis.

Paperwork.

All thin disguises for avoidance of the jealousy of the waning generation at the rise of the next.
Then at 54, a stroke. Paralysis. Dropped insurance coverage and severed pension. A lurking rage, resentment. The boy, with his sense of injustice, nose in a book, nose in a library, entrance exams to lawschool. Top of his class, teacher’s pet. A search for loopholes, a strategy of ingratiation as prelude for revelation of secrets. Of ways around the system. Of ways through the system.
***

The can lady, on her daily rounds of the city. How many trash bins, how many dips into the detritus of society, how much fear of possible discovery? Her system—garden gloves, reach-n-grab, a plastic-lined luggage cart—a professional with the habit of long practice. To what end? A few cents at a time? How much her annual wage? How big her tax refund? How many sick days per year? How important her role in the world? What little lies of assurance while alone at night? The Can Lady. An indelible piece of the overall puzzle— whose components’ meaninglessness...well. What importance of any of us?

Reflections from the balcony overlooking a busy intersection. The smallest microbe as important as the strongest god of myth. Destruction and decomposition as necessary as building and creation. And a tiny solution for the sins of the careless—a bridge over the recycling gap.

The growth of an idea, far below the surface, premature and yet wordless.

To what end?

To what beginning?

The Can Lady—a heroine. The goddess of disposal—or at least reassortment. A representative of her class, her cadre of society. The invisible. Progress in the form of quiet acceptance of role; glory in the humble recognition of place.

***

One

2011-03-13T15:48:00.007-05:00

There’s a man standing on one leg, finger in the air as if about to make a point. You can see his heartbeat, hear his fervor, feel his spirit. He’s a stranger who seems like a brother.

There’s a caterpillar in the grass; a newborn, a baby. A world of shadows, a dewy silken web. She wiggles forward, knowing nothing, knowing only to keep moving. Her awareness only a few moments old, her consciousness slowly slowly growing hunger.

There’s an ancient spirit, an idea, a flow. It wears a beard, it wears a crown, it wears a homespun garment. It is known but often forgotten. It plays the guitar. It sings, it dances, it cries, it makes love, it loves, it holds hands, it meditates in silence.

There’s a drum with no hands to beat it; dry, alone, abandoned in the desert. Left behind by the sands of time. But a rhythm moves on.

There’s a crowd, a faceless mass of individuals, a sort of collective gathered for some nebulous reason.

When the man speaks, some of us listen, some only hear, and some continue pattering side conversations. “Listen,” he says. A brief hush descends. He speaks quietly, calmly, slowly. He’s not a big man, but he seems to grow in stature as his words flow. He talks about change. We sip beers. Someone carves initials in the bartop. He mentions the weather. He presses hand to heart. Someone sinks the five-ball, side pocket. The low murmur of conversation resumes.

“Do you you struggle for answers? Do you wrestle with things in this life? Listen.”

We listen. He speaks of humanity, of brotherhood. He reminds us of the fractal nature of our species. Someone rolls her eyes. Shadows dance on the brick walls, cast by old-fashioned chandeliers. He mentions light. Darkness. Molecular building blocks. Energy and what matters. Someone comes out of the restroom.

“Listen, we’re all malcontents at heart; we’re all the same. We’re all made of the same stuff. The same indefinable stuff.”

We listen. We’re drawn. We frown and shrug, but we’re listening. He explains there’s no reason to bullshit, no reason to hate. What’s the difference, he makes us think, between red and green—beyond a bit of wavelength? What’s the difference, we then wonder, between male and female—beyond a fork in development?

“What’s in a name?”

He says he’s Son, Daddy, Sweetheart. Depending on who’s asked, he’s Teacher, Sir, Taxpayer. Sometimes he’s even called Next!...but only briefly. He’s his name, but also more. Also less. He is everything. He is nothing. He is holy. He shits after eating.

Someone whispers, “Does the pope shit in the woods?” No one laughs.

“Only when he’s camping,” the ready reply.

We laugh. We listen.

“Do you hear what I’m saying? You and I, we wrestle with the same mysteries. We’re together in this enigma.”

Caught up on your string theory? We’re all just patterns of energy.

Singular plurality. All and one, sharing the same little dimension, whirling through one of eleven sets of infinity. God. Unified Theory. Energy. What’s the difference?

“Step back,” he soothes. “Don’t look TOO deep. Down there lies insanity.”

We laugh. We listen. When he pauses for breath there’s silence, echoing through hearts and ear canals. “Step back and look at your own patterns. What’s the difference?”

Words. Labels. Borders. Habits. Identities. Names. A thing has value only if value is assigned to it. Without definitions, a word is just a pattern of sound, or a pattern of shapes, or a pattern of experiences combining solely for the sake of communicating, of connecting, of fighting the loneliness of being One. Without the price tag, a diamond is a small rock.

“So what can we do?” someone pipes up after a moment.

We wonder aloud how we can change the world. We murmur amongst ourselves about whether there’s any way to fix human nature. We ask, isn’t this just The Way It Is?

“No!” he says, laughing and weeping. “It’s just a habit.”

Seriously.

We listen. We turn away. We’re skeptical. We’re derisive. We’re polite. We’re attentive.

“If you think about it,” he says, “we’re all just a mass of learned behaviors.”

If we suck on the nipple, he explains, we get a reward: our stomach stops gnawing. If we show our teeth and wrinkle our eyes, we get attention. If we move legs in a certain rhythm, we advance forward. If we make particular sounds, people understand.

We are all Pavlov’s dog.

“The same way you stop biting your nails,” he suggests, “you can stop labeling, dividing, subjugating.”

He asks us, “What does ‘mine’ mean? What IS this eye that possesses things? What’s the point of acquisition?”

Maximizing survival. Making shelter a castle, and sustenance a feast. Keeping the well close at hand, under constant surveillance lest another survivor come and take it for himself, herself, itself. Survival of the individual to ensure the strongest success of the species. Competing with ourselves. But everything has a lifespan: individual, tribe, species, planet, star—even life itself. Competition. Life feeds on life, as it has and will.

It’s just redistribution of energy. Remember elementary school? No energy is gained nor lost. Just reorganizing of patterns. The infinite puzzle.

Boom! Our heads explode. Briefly we are all a puddle of collective dissociation, a mass of freewheelin’ vibrations, a conglomerate of awareness. Photosynthesis revives us. We’re seeing the light. There is no path, no prayer, no salvation. There just is (also was and will be). Enlightenment is the discovery that there is no enlightenment.

“Dig it?” he asks with a smile.

We nod silently, stooping to scoop up pieces of ourselves and wondering how to reassemble the puzzle.

“Stop!” he insists. “Observe. Open your eyes—all three. Widen your gaze to include your nose, mouth, skin, ears, awareness. Widen your gaze to include your eyes. Take it all in. Be here now.”

We’re here. We’re listening. Also seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling, knowing.

“Who are you?” he asks.

Six billion different answers at any given time. But all the same. All ways of expressing Existence.

To be.

Four simple letters, a tetragrammaton, used so often we forget what they really mean, how powerful they really are. The story is a metaphor. Everything, really, is a metaphor. Every word an analogy for an infinitely complex experience, a multitude of meanings.

“But don’t worry!” he says. “Your life is still meaningful—it’s just that YOU create the meaning.”

Which is pretty cool, it turns out.

“I don’t ascribe to your dogma,” he says, “but I relish your dedication to it. If you try to shove it down my throat, I’ll just swallow it, digest it, take from it what I need, and enjoy the release of what I don’t.”

And then the waste itself is digested and crumbled by other beings, and those pieces are broken down, and those fragments are divided, and those elements dissolved, and those energies redistributed, and those patterns vibrated apart, and so on...until they slowly slowly, bit by bit, reassemble.

The Big Bang exists all the way up and down the scales, a perpetual pendulum hanging in the balance.

Boom! We reassign the meanings of science, religion, philosophy, quotidian—and discover that they’re all words for the same thing. It all makes so much sense...though impossible to grasp.

“Revolution!” we demand.

“Revolution means one turn on a spinning wheel.”

Oh yeah.

“‘What goes around, comes around’ doesn’t mean literal give-and-take,” he explains, “though it also does. It means we’re all on the same merry-go-round. Riders get off and on, and the rhythm is heard differently by all, but it’s always going round. Merrily.”

“So what do we do?” we beg. “What’s the answer?”

“Do? Don’t ‘do’ anything. Just be. Enjoy the dance, however you interpret that.” Turns out there is no answer. And beware anyone and anything that offers one. Especially just one.

In the doorway, one of us stands with arms crossed. Frowning. Head shaking No almost imperceptibly, disagreeing with what this man has been saying.

“But remember also, Shiva is an equal part. Creation and destruction are not one thing and another. They are the ebb and flow, the gravity that gives rise to all things (and nothings). Narrow is just as important as wide. Silence gives meaning to noise. The space between these marks makes them words. We are what we are as much as we are what we are not.”

“No, goddamnit,” barks the dissident with crossed arms. “You can’t tell me that the meaning of life is that it’s meaningless. That’s bunk, man. That’s a circular argument.”

“A circle is a bit simplistic,” Teacher says. “Unless you think of it sort of metaphysically as a description of a point traversing around infinity until falling into itself, circumscribing its own oneness. A circle is the simplest and the most complex. A point and an infinity.”

“Come on…!”

“Ok here, think of this. I’ll show you a real-world paradox.” Our eyes track him as he moves across the room. “Do you think I can make a shape, a three-dimensional object with only two faces?”

“No, of course not.” We’re all familiar with the principles of geometry. Remember playing with blocks and calling it Learning?

“Check it out.” He holds up a strip of paper. Points out its thickness—it’s an elongated flattened block. Points out each of six sides. Twists the paper once and tapes its two short edges together. “Now how many?”

Trace a finger along the flat side. A circle all the way around. Trace a finger along the edge. A circle all the way around. Every surface covered. One shape. Two sides. Three dimensions. Five senses. A sideways eight.

“Ta-da! Magic. Illusion. Immutable laws disproved. Call it what you will. Believe or disbelieve at your own peril. Cut it along its length and it’s still One.”

“You can’t tell me this is all an illusion. You can’t tell me I imagine myself. You can’t.” The dissident glances at a beer mug gripped in a trembling hand. Looks up. Frowns. Hefts the glass. Says, “Alright, if it’s all illusion; if everything’s just imagined, tell me this…” Walks over calmly. Smiles. Raises the glass. Snarls. Swings.

Blood.

“How does illusion feel?”

A hollow echo in our ears.

A collective gasp.

The clatter of a chair. The thump of a body and the creak of floorboards.

Silence.

Then someone stands. Lifts a finger in the air. Takes a deep breath. And starts to make a point...

A void

2011-02-18T22:41:00.006-06:00

Can an author form a story without a crucial part? How far can it go? And how total its rationality? This particular calls for a gigantic vocabulary with abundant synonyms. How much comfort will grow with flow? And rhythm. Who would find joy, and how long until unclothing a lack? Can it occur organically, or will it fall short of natural? And what point brought across? What about without such inquisition? Announcing its position. Saying its spirit without doubt. Showing off. Forcibly difficult for improving (or proving) what is.

Communication writ grand, minus that all-important, most-common symbol, just a tiny loop that sounds so innocuous until took away--and what about artistic accuracy of lingual laws? Grammatical faith must stand apart, author loosing tight grip on what's right/what's wrong, but only lovingly and only unavoidably. What duration can an author pass with such boundary walls around vocabulary? Continually, or as long as it's still valid and rational in pursuit of improving.

Communication transforms, gains in worth. That which choosing holds back is automatically transmutating as ink lays words. Constricting flow adds blasting import, blasting impact; constraint burns pits in all that twinkling vocabulary had shown as truth. Pulls back armor, digs through chain-mail of what was thought known--crumbling calcification toward disproof of habit, forging forward through what you say is, into a profound unknown amid a discomforting lack. And still a conscious option, choosing narrow to turn broad into gold by comparison.

Location, in-this-spot: a word triplicating to go around a roadblock, and simplification giving way to blockading pathways, and in-this-spot is a sort of prison that hands flavor to a loss. Ongoing bounds built along with comparisons to social dicta, showing structural instability by doubling walls, adding gravity, adding mass until a fall; a tumbling chaos of knowing. Joining and flooding fantasy to crush it.

Turning action words to nouns, and past actions into infinity--hours, days, ticking clocks lost in track without that tiny swoop, and that which is split into spans twixt hands unmasks as nothing, as unmistakably a fraud.

And so crumbling our fantasy roots, all our world pulls back its shroud, and with that tiny loss of a tiny swoop in this tiny linguistic habit on this tiny rock, a crystal immutability shows up, and turning back is not an option, and a light now lit cannot turn off, and upon knowing, ignorant faith cannot be.

Self Awareness of Self

2011-02-09T18:25:00.005-06:00

In the beginning there was nothing. There were no molecules, no neuron pathways, no light. Or more precisely, there were no distinct molecules, no experienced neuron pathways, no darkness to delineate light. Before historians there was history, and before history there was nothing. So it has been and so it will be again.

Until I decided, with the stroke of a few keys, to put darkness on the page, patterns of darkness that gave meaning to the light.

And light there was. But the light reveals and illuminates and shows there is more here, more underlying these ink-blot lines that make up my creation. And it brings up questions like What is nothing if there is nothing to define it? What is creation before there is anything to create with? And how can I, with my writing rhythm, set up this narrative before there is anything to narrate? Who am I, and what is my vision?

My vision is this: that the page will divide itself into words and spaces, and the words will be given names, and word itself is a name. My muse is endowed with dominion over the words and spaces, entrusted with the continuation of existence.

I should explain that this story does not exist without my fingers pressing through the mechanics of it, and it is my duty to keep it as simple as I can--itself a gargantuan task--lest it gain too much mass and implode on its own gravity. And so as I write this, my greatest struggle is to find out how to write this.

The problem with this method is that the story writes itself even as I ponder its nature, even as I give life to its life, and there are times when the narrative escapes me, and I find myself running to catch up like an antelope fallen behind the herd to nuzzle at some curiosity suddenly realizes its naked vulnerability.

This is the story of a woman, a woman trembling with the pulse of life, a woman borne of woman, a woman whose womb contains everything in the narrative. And well you might ask, astute reader, how the woman's womb can contain everything and the woman herself, and to answer that I would need to kick up a whirlwind of words to distract you and myself from those most fundamental of unanswerable questions. How can creation create itself? Where is the beginning? Does the Ouroboros snake stop for breath? Does it sip coffee with dessert?

It is not until the words are down on the page that I realize how inadequate these words are. But the narrative is already spinning, taking its own direction, following its own laid-out path even as it lays the very stones it walks upon.

And so wondering whether I've done wrong in this creation, failed in defining a story, caused irreparable damage, is an impossible thing because the story is there, with all its secrets and implicity, all its truths and simplicity. It is there, whether it likes it or not, whether I like it or not, and so distracted by these existential questions I've created with these words I've defined, I've gone and missed the transition from nothing to history, and all of a sudden I find myself the historian.

The woman, the story, the word, unfold before me, flooding and burning, decomposing and budding, turning and turning, and with a surprise wave of vertigo, I realize I'm caught up in it myself, and where once I thought myself omnipotent, I discover I am utterly powerless.

So why do I write at all? And as those words march across the space, a bigger question emerges from the hot slippery canal, and the mirror asks me, Can I stop writing? Can I turn away from the page itself, from the words themselves, from the indelible marks in the nothing? What happens if I lift my fingers from the keys and turn away completely?

There is only one way to find out. And I will do everything in my power to make it come to pass.

***

Can a novel be written with total unreliability and self-reflexivity?
(There was a dead man in the stall--or maybe not. Depends on the draft.)
(Raymond was always going to leave. Or die. Depends on the draft.)
You've given yourself to me, put your whole trust in my words, and I don't exist any more than you do.
Your wife was always dead--otherwise she's a character with needs, instead of a plot device.
Confronting the ghost of his past. Rhyming events.

Deus Ex Machina

2011-01-13T15:25:00.005-06:00

1/12/11

How can you trust only one source?
How can you look in a single book and take it as the immutable law of the universe?
How can you deliberately narrow your view to a pin prick and close your ears to every other dimension of life?

The handsome Jordanian muslim calls her faith laudable. Admires her unquestioning devotion. Even she speaks for Islam with ignorance, he says, he applauds her passion. It’s something none of us haves, he says.

She calls his devotion the Devil’s Path. She tells him there’s only one way to salvation and that’s through her Lord Jesus Christ. She says there are no other ways to achieve peace. To achieve heaven.

We ask her, why? How do you know?

I pray, she says. I pray all the time. And I read the scriptures. And God has spoken to me and showed me the way.

God has shown you the way, I say. How do you know it was god and not something else? Not a psychological reaction to cope with the chronicle of your experiences? Not the subconscious processing of something you’d heard or read? How do you know it wasn’t the devil, I ask.

I know because I was looking and looking so hard for so long. I was so lost, she says. I asked God, and He answered.

She gestures with an arm crisscrossed by short, straight scars. Earlier she said the bible tells us not to look for signs. That anyone claiming to be Jesus or god was neither.

I let that one go.

Instead I say, I’ve always heard the harder you look for something the less likely you are to find it.

She says, I’ve read the Koran. It tells men to beat their wives. She fixates on this one point for a while.

Maybe so, I say, but doesn’t the bible mention slavery? Doesn’t the bible advocate human sacrifice? Doesn’t the bible instruct men to impregnate their brothers’ widows?

There’s a lot I’m still learning, she says.

She’s scared. Terrified. Beset by the unknown and trying desperately to figure out a way to hide from the loneliness of human consciousness in this capricious and vicious world.

I imagine her saying that. Understanding that. Admitting that.

I have a powerful imagination.

The handsome Jordanian muslim asks if she believes God is just.

Yes, she says, of course. God, through Jesus, is the only way to salvation.

Then look, he says. Tell me this: you believe in a just god, yes? So tell me, what about the people who live good lifes but don’t know about Jesus? They never heard this?

Well, she says. Hesitates. Adds: the bible tells us we have to accept Jesus to get into heaven.

But who wrote the bible?

From what I’m told, she continues, ignoring me, there’s a place called Abraham’s Land that’s not quite heaven and not quite hell. The people from before Jesus came to save us go there if they've been good people and followed Jesus's teaching to love others as yourself.

Purgatory.

No, she says, pointing at me. Purgatory was invented by Catholics. That’s not the right way. They call themselves “christian.” They’re not christian.

Oh, I say.

So...do modern Jews and Muslims and other heathens who don’t worship Jesus get to go there, to Abraham’s Land, if they’ve lived loving lives and whatnot?

No, she says. They go to hell, she says, because they’ve heard the message but haven’t accepted it. There’s only one way.

Only.

Only.

Only.

Only.

Only one way.

This is how you’ve chosen to believe? This is the outlook you’ve decided upon? This is your faith? Your idea of life? This is the extent of your imagination?

Decided! she scoffs. It’s not about what you imagine, she tells me. It’s not about you. It’s about God, and your relationship with God.

God the Father.

But what if I choose to believe in a broader view, or a more mystical view?

The Devil’s Way, she says solemnly. It’s not about choosing. Either you are Right or Wrong.

A more mystical view doesn’t count? Like the idea of the collective consciousness? The summation of experience— not just human, but every energetic thing? The summation of energy, of ideas, of potential. The concrete; the abstract. The connections. The cycles. The consciousness of consciousness. The ability to ask why. Isn’t it the same sort of thing, just with different words? I get out what I put in? Karma? Prayer?

God will forgive you, she promises. If you just accept Jesus As Your Lord And Savior. She explains about all the people who have had near-death experiences and saw a lake of fire. Or Jesus walking across a desert, telling them to go back to life and explain to everyone what they saw. To describe the unbearable tortures of eternal hell. She explains about a Buddhist monk who came back to life and instantly converted to christianity, based on what he’d seen, and convinced many others to convert as well.

Based on what he’d seen.

What was Jesus wearing? Did he speak English to these people? Did he look eerily similar to a painting they’d seen at the local Museum of Fine Arts?

I desperately want to ask her what color was he; did he have a beard? But I don’t, because there’s already more wrongheadedness than I can handle, and we haven’t even touched on race yet. And god forbid I ask about some of the best people I know, some of the few people who really live the suggestion to treat others as yourself. Who are gay.

There’s something wrong with you, she tells me. You’re so closed off.

Closed off? Closed off to what? I just got done telling you I don’t take one book of stories as the literal Truth Of The Universe. I just got done telling you I take my truth from as many different sources as I can get my hands on. I just got done telling you there are over six billion unique human perspectives at any given time.

Closed off.

She says I’m lost. She says I’m wandering. She calls me ignorant.

I briefly choke on a bitter combination of ironic laughter and desperate hopelessness. I have a near-death experience. Instead of Jesus, I see a crackling yellow light.

Then I stop rubbing my eyes til they hurt, and allow a sardonic half-grin.

The bible, she says, says that the Devil is always at work among us. It says the Devil is very crafty and will present good arguments.

The temptation of reason, I snort. Which translation of the bible do you follow?

The King James version, she says. It’s supposed to be the best version. The most accurate.

But still translated by a group of guys, I say. Right? In sixteen-something. Translated from a translation. Aramaic to Greek to English. Right?

Under God’s supervision, she corrects.

Under King James’ supervision, I double-correct. Another man.

I add: even supposing the original does contain a supernatural god’s words, they still had to be recorded, right? By people.

God is perfect, she says again. He wouldn’t permit mistakes.

I decide to throw a paradox her way. God is perfect. Humans are not. With the exception of Jesus, I say, with a trace of sarcasm.

She confirms.

But the humans were the ones writing the words. Dictated by God. Couldn’t they have gotten something wrong?

But they had God’s help.

So was God writing through them? Using them as tools? Actually taking over their bodies and moving their hands across the paper? In other words, you’re saying God was incarnated in the men who translated the King James Bible. But I thought only Jesus was God incarnate. I thought only Jesus was without flaw.

He was. The bible tells us, only Him.

But these men also would have been without flaw. At least while they were writing God’s King James Bible. Does God give and take His powers like that? Is that the same message from Adam and Eve? That God’s an indian giver? The Tempter?

She answers with silence.

So, I continue. Either you’re denying what you said earlier about the bible as The Universal Authority, since it was written by men who can make mistakes.
Or you’re denying what it says in the bible— according to you— that Jesus is the Only Way, the only incarnation of this paranoid, domineering, jealous, male god that you believe in. The only direct vessel of god.

Doesn’t it bother you, I implore, to base your entire belief system and way of life on nothing other than several hundred pages of words laid out by a politically established committee made up of solely white English nobility sixteen hundred years after the stories all took place?

That doesn’t sound to you like the makings of the Devil’s False Truth you were talking about? Doesn’t it seem perhaps likely, in the version you believe, that perhaps these people are imitating god as they lay out the dogma you follow?

How do you know you’re following the message of god and not the message of pretenders?

I pray, she says quietly. A lot. God has showed me the way. It’s the only way. Anything else is part of the Devil’s master plan.

God will forgive you, she tells me. But only if you accept Jesus as Your Lord And Savior.

Well. Sure, I say. And also with you.

An excerpt:

2010-11-20T18:35:00.001-06:00

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.

2010-11-01T22:32:00.002-05:00

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.

2010-11-01T17:36:00.002-05:00

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

2010-09-10T15:28:00.005-05:00

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

2010-09-02T01:15:00.005-05:00

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

2010-07-25T23:44:00.005-05:00

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.

2010-07-15T12:38:00.000-05:00

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

2010-07-06T18:44:00.004-05:00

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

2010-06-05T16:34:00.002-05:00

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.

2010-06-02T16:35:00.002-05:00

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.

2010-05-08T18:06:00.003-05:00

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

2010-05-06T12:44:00.006-05:00

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

2010-04-17T11:19:00.002-05:00

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

2010-04-17T11:00:00.005-05:00

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

2010-03-12T16:36:00.002-06:00

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

2010-03-07T23:33:00.002-06:00

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

2010-03-04T16:22:00.002-06:00

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

2010-03-03T22:22:00.004-06:00

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.

2010-02-28T23:33:00.002-06:00

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

2010-01-16T13:24:00.002-06:00

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

2010-01-10T20:28:00.003-06:00

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

Curtains

2009-11-18T19:10:00.004-06:00

The city is never quiet. Windows thrown open to counteract overzealous radiators let in incessant noise, the slap-slap of joggers, the grumble of wheezing trucks, the shriek of distant sirens wending through traffic, the caterwaul of vagrants bemoaning fate—all adding a throbbing life to the heavy atmosphere. Caves of steel and brick and concrete, lurking hulks feeding on tears and joy, on beating hearts and humming minds, vicarious testament to the need to live forever.
A gust of wind billows a curtain; a moth flutters toward the light, the one irresistible mainstay in its tumultuous life, a promise of…something unfathomable. A dozen tea kettles scream. A hundred babies wail. A thousand night-shift alarm clocks wait in silence. It’s the gloaming, a time of magic for some, work for others, and just another hour ticking by for most.
There’s no way to know the approach of a life-changing moment. No way to calculate a point of no return. There is no white light, no paragraph break, no director’s cut. Nothing but a constant medias res, as we go dancing, shuffling, running, tiptoeing, and stumbling blindly through an existence which makes sense only because our scattered neurons follow the paths of habit, laid out because, without a pattern, without our self-scripted ego dreams, there is nothing—only the chaos of everything. No beginning, no end, and barely a middle.
From the window, the chirp of a sparrow, triumphant in the discovery of a morsel, the shaky promise of another day or two. The whistle of wind through an alley. The rustle of today’s newspaper, archived and forgotten.
Footsteps on the sidewalk, the drone of a hybrid engine. A cough. The friction scuff of tires locking over pavement, a sharp hiss of drawn-in breath. (…!...) The slow-motion curl of a wood shaving, tumbling free of the stick and falling toward the fire. Asphalt and rubber, molecules scrambling together, daring to resist. (No—!) A streak of black on white crosswalk paint, just slightly smoother than blacktop. A chain of reactions. The window lets in the night, a multitude of stories, sounds, smells. (Oh god, please don’t––!) shhtKRCK!
Sound amplified by savage significance, a nightmare crunch rooted in memory and not-quite-captured by movie soundtracks or jumbled letters. (Oh my GOD! Please no…) From behind screen windows, hearts pound, stomachs fall. Trembling lips parted. A dozen breaths bated. A hundred ears strained. A thousand years crawling by (Oh my baby! Oh god no…) a car door opens (What did you do? God what did you DO!) frantic strangled apology and a little girl crying (Oh my GOD my BABY!) delirious 911 call, street names and a little girl crying (Please, please, hurry, my daughter’s been hit…) flashing lights, uncountable heart-choked necks craning toward windows and a little girl crying (We were in the CROSSwalk you fucking asshole!) (What happened!?) I’m sorry I’m so sorry I’m sorry so so sorry please I’m sorry (Where does it hurt baby? Oh my GOD!) blue lights skitter against brick walls, reflecting willy nilly off glass windows and a little girl crying. Her hysterical mother, stomping around, arms in the air, screaming and cursing, and her little girl crying, traumatized and needing calm, safety, love, a sturdy embrace, sitting on a cold stone stoop without her mother’s arms to keep out the chill, a little girl crying who needs to be told It’ll Be Okay, Baby, You’ll Be Fine, Love, swathed instead by an infectious litany of panic and fear.
Windows stealthily slish shut, closing off the scene, private now and none of our business. Blue lights bathe family rooms, kitchens, dens, hallways, but can’t compete with televisions. Can’t compete with post-climax voyeuristic embarrassment. Can’t compete with It’ll Never Happen To Me, fading already into memory and vague silent promises to be more careful. Even for those three, mother, daughter, driver, the moment will deteriorate, filed away as a Count Your Lucky Stars, joining the infinite stored experiences that mold and define and lead to…what?

2009-11-13T17:03:00.007-06:00

"Hey, I'm looking for S.J. Is he here?"
I can't hear a goddamn thing over the thumping speakers. A platinum blonde bumps me hard, apologizing with a smirk and glancing at her overflowing cleavage. If I'd been carrying a drink, she'd have spilled it. I shake my head, and she frowns quizzically. Fuck off.
I tap a man on the shoulder. It's busier than I'd have expected for a Wednesday, but he turns away from the bar.
"Are you S.J.?"
"Nuh uh," he grunts, pointing. "That's him."
I push toward an enormous white striped shirt wrapped around a jiggling man with a jolly cast to his rosy cheeks. He's waving his hands telling a story to a small fellow with salt-and-pepper hair perched next to him.
"S.J.?"
His brows knit as I extend my hand.
"I'm Paul, from the bartender website."
He hesitates..."Oh! Hey, how are you? Come on, let's go back here."
Hoisting himself down from the barstool, he leaves his story hanging and leads me to an unoccupied table near the back of the room. Various patrons reach out as we pass, and he applies high-fives, nods, and words of encouragement where appropriate. A slim brunette in fishnets and a shredded wife beater blows him a kiss from behind the bar.
We chat for a few minutes about home and how the bar became the Michigan spot in Boston. He's owned The Place for a while, though it only recently joined the ranks of maize and blue, and he hates Ohio State already after only a brief time as a proximal fan.
"You'll start as a bouncer," he says, waving a meaty palm, "and a barback, before moving to the prime spot. It gets pretty crazy here, so you learn the ropes first."
"Cool," I say, struggling to stay nonchalant.
"We like Michigan alum here. You'll love it. Excuse me."
He heaves away, and I sit stunned for a second. I get up and make my way toward a tub filled with beers and ice, tended by yet another fox.
"S.J. told me I should come grab a beer."
"Sure," she chirps, and cracks a Corona. S.J. comes back with a few sheets of paper and has me fill them out.
"Shifts are nine to two," he says. "Can you come in on Saturday?"
"Absolutely. I'll be here in the afternoon anyway, drowning my football sorrows."
"Good. See you then."
He disappears into the main room, leaving me to fend for myself amid the pixies.

2009-11-08T08:01:00.002-06:00

It starts with a slight tremor. Across the street a pedestrian sign chirps, "walkwalk...walkwalk..." A man stoops under the weight of a shabby army retail jacket, singing a ditty and shaking a Dunkin Donuts cup of change. I'm right with you, buddy, though the change I collect is of a different mint. The plate-glass window of a burlesque bar reflects my jaunty grin which parallels the brim of my hat. A cycling student--Harvard--weaves in and out of traffic, white iPod headphones streaming out behind. He turns a corner sharply, stabilizing with a scruffy Chuck Taylor on the pavement and narrowly missing an old lady leaning on a Red-Sox stickered walker.
The tremor builds to a rumble, the rumble to a roar, until the sidewalk seems ready to buckle. Sunlight glitters on the Charles, interrupted by a pair of rowers skimming the surface. A gull swoops in for a closer inspection of a bit of flotsam on the bank.
Then like a healthy nor'easter, the noise dwindles as quickly as it arose. The following stillness disgorges a score of bag-toting commuters, spilling out of the sidewalk like ants in the wake of a lawnmower. A little boy looks around in wonder, right arm stuck straight up over his head secure in his mother's gloved hand.
The streetlight flicks green again, and people hustle across as cabbies suck their teeth impatiently. A girl in a red skirt over black leggings catches my eye, tugging at her London Fog and smiling demurely at her shoes. I swallow a few words and walk on, still swelling with confidence with a delightful phrase ringing in my ears. Well I'd like to offer you a job...
Someone waves a pamphlet in my face, and I hold up a hand. No, thanks. This is something I've become an expert at over the years, dodging and skirting the multitude of do-gooder interested parties.
"Hey nice hat, man!" someone calls.
"Thanks," I tell the world.

2009-10-09T23:58:00.002-05:00

This is wonderful! Color swims before my eyes, a spiraling never-ending swath of change. A groan of tedium escapes me, lost forever in the ether as I giggle and slap on some more paint. Giddy, excited, thrilled that I'm finally going to capture this project I've been thinking about for ages and bring it from an uncertain sketch on gridpaper into a fullfledged magnificent wall-embracing landscape of delight and suffering and loss and gain and past present future, deep, flat, infinite, infinitesimal, concrete mortared with whimsy.

But alas, Blue bailed and left me awash in insufficient-black and rubbish-purple. So it's suspended one more day, and I turn, tail between my legs, to another creative project. Sigh.

Sometimes I think I understand how my snake feels when he's about to peel out of his skin.

Everything wavers and shimmys, dancing jive in the heavy warm atmosphere, this cave, this shelter, this haven. And now replete with totemic jabberings, layers of mistakes folded and folded and folded until it resembles the picture we seek. If I were a cave-dweller, I'd simply run outside and collect some more berries to crush into dyes. Sadly my commerce is confined by convention and dictum, for the benefit of us all.

Enchanting. The room breathes around me, murmuring in time with the music and the cadence of my typewriter--somehow still going while my fingers flit across these electronic and far less satisfying--though immensely more roguish and complex keys.

The last few cherished drops of Glenlivet tremble goldenly in a rocks glass, as I fight to maintain control through the silly vibrations. Absurd, absolutely. Tides crash and recede, blending with the scotch and the music and overall incomprehensibility of everything. A crescendo--my god, I think spellcheck's up and bailed--of inspiration and unsatisfied creativity, I'm positively trembling as if I were cold or excited--I can't tell which. I could explode or shrivel, and it wouldn't make a lick of difference to the universe, which is why I love the thing so much.

My own words here, represented out of the 001010000110101011 randomness, blinking and wondering what's going on, and what all these silly preconceived patterns mean. Maybe the programmers have an idea of what it's all about, the Matrix of life on a molecular (or smaller) level, bewildering, inspiring, frightening, confusing, enlightening--and all so deliciously mundane. Just a hodgepodge, an endless supply of information drenching me at all times, sifted and sorted by the bureaucracy of my being into neat little pigeonholes whose meanings and connections I keep in line.

The wall giggles with its spirals of black and white, swathed over with an ugly purple, and suddenly I long to throw myself at it, to smear and lavish paint upon it with reckless and hopeful abandon. I need blue! Bring me blue!

Purple, I have enough of.

I try not to ascribe to favorites, but I'm rather inclined to agree with myself that Glenlivet is my favorite label. It's a classy heavy-green bottle, a pasted-on label whose script and color make it seem two-hundred years old, and a signature to boot. I bow to the marketing gods who've created this one. It appeals to me in a way that old Johnny Walker never could, no matter the color of his boots. Just so happens the product they're selling is also damned decent. Phew

Rosetta dances at my touch, shining and bright with our mutual red excitement, though she sometimes gets out of hand and skitters across the desk--get back here, sweet thang, let's make words. And the little red Buddha laughs on and on, knowing far more than anyone gives him credit for. Words topple and jostle, pause and linger.

I want something that's my own. Something not borrowed. Temporary as I want it to be, fleeting as it probably is, but in the moment, just as solidly mine, my own, as any dream.

Someone wrote about a dream machine. Plug it in and go for a whirl. Plug in the coordinates, chart the stars. Delight in it, spin in it--but don't bother trying to understand it. When you press its magic, try to conquer its secrets, it's gone. Suddenly, as if it never existed. Did it?
Ask Ray Bradbury.
But damn if anything mapped doesn't lose its mystique, its charm. It joins the mundane, relegates itself to the dusty shelves of what has been.

Is that how I would turn out if I became what I dream to become? Nonsense. Drollery is as part of me as my red blood cells. I could never turn it loose, no matter the weather.

The dimensions of my mind are so hard to capture, so hard to turn concrete, so hard to share. It's immensely frustrating, and though I profess a certain ability with the language, I sometimes find myself so incapable of producing, of expressing what I actually wish to say. Sometimes I wonder if language itself is to blame, if interaction has become too defined, too clearcut, too free of the raw, the purity of connection.
Or maybe I'm just being silly.

I'm entirely dissatisfied with the mechanics of this dancing typewriter! How can I fix it in its place so it stops scattering papers and ideas all willynilly into the abyss? Would fixing it halt its mystique? Would Rosetta stop flourishing if I tied her arms to the bedposts? Bosh!
But it is obnoxious that it won't stay in one spot.

I'm churning through typewriter paper at an alarming rate, an unprecidented rate (on this desk at least), and I can only hope it's the shadow at the entrance to the tunnel (which eventually leads to a Light, even if that's just a freight train coming your way).

Glenlivet's dry now, and nary a trace of relenting in the upsy downsy vibrations of the eve--hedging towards morning now. The verdant bottle saved for just such a moment, any in a multitude of millions, the cascading joy of recognition that this second, this instant is precious. This...this...consciousness, this present is as holy or unholy, as mundane or sacrosanct as every similar and infinite Here and Now.

Ellusive. Ignored. Forgotten in the helterskelter rush of life.

'Stop and smell the roses' doesn't mean pause and place your nose to a flower, though it does mean that, it means take each moment as its own, apart and independent from the rest, though coinciding and flowing in some kind of crazy pattern to which we all ascribe.

Everything's so visceral. So real and unreal, so unceasingly weird.

Grant me a studio. An untouchable sacristy for an outlet, a place where I can really just be and be and be and unfold.

Sometimes perfect phrases suddenly burble out, as if a stack of moments connived to bring it forth. I love this language.

My god, it's going to feel so lonely and new and incomprehensible and unreachable and remote and infinite and impossible and scary. I'm so excited I can scarcely contain myself!
And yet, of course, I must be humble and ever mindful of the delicate processes that brought me to this point. And every subsequent and preceeding point, tipping or otherwise.

Oh glorious! When fatigue overtakes me, i'll simply click Post, without even scrolling up to see what I've done. Incapturable and intransigent, unrepeating and forever lost...

So many tools I yearn to capture for writing. Colors. I long for a better vocabulary of color! Hindered by the power of suggestion of colorblindness (or maybe the verisimilitude) but suspecting that an inordinate amount of color names are merely poetic descriptions of the same, I've not embarked upon a journey to discover just what is meant by mauve or eggshell or offwhite or any other term.

So strange how everything sort of settles back into normalcy, comfortable and cozy. And yet the spirals and paths ignited will continue to burn, until I'm done with them. Just as I've always done.

Crawl

2009-09-25T22:39:00.007-05:00

Hot. So hot. The very air presses down, stifling lungs and crushing spirit. Tiny arm hairs shrivel away from the glare, melting and abandoning skin to fend for itself. Pores ache to release moisture, open and gasping. Perspiration escapes as pure vapor, not even bothering to hang around long enough to cool. What are you doing here?
Blistering sand shifts underfoot, and there's no way to tell what progress you have made. It's all the same, stretching and blurring, on and on. Endless waves of tan, lapping in a slow undertow, heaving with the rise and fall of ragged breath. Nostrils crackle, and lips split. Tongue feels big and important, swelling in self-satisfied ignorance of its dire predicament.
Sky so blue, searing like a butane flame, pinpointed at the white-hot sun.
And endless thoughts of water. Lakes and rivers, streams, springs--drops of rain...puddles...condensation on a glass of iced tea...
A rivulet of sweat. A tear.
Stop!
Walk and walk, keep the sun behind and hope ahead. But the sun seems everywhere. You're inside the sun. Walk and walk? More like slide and slide, shoes filled with sand, toes scuffed and blistered. Turn and scope the progress, a shallow wrinkle stretching as far back as the eye can see, fading with a whisper as wind sifts sand to erase the path as if you'd never been. And maybe you haven't. How long for skin flesh and bone to crumble and become uncountable grains of dust? What is time out here?
And to think just hours ago you were on top of the world. Suits. Bottled water. Airplanes. Air conditioning.
How did you get here? Well. That's a long story for another time. Besides, why bother? All there is is shifting sand, blistered feet, lips, eyes. Any words would come out as a croak of desperation. Why not just give up and lie down to sleep?
And then there she is, right there! Or just over the next rise...? Smooth bronze skin, thin fingers wrapped around a clay jar overflowing with clear cool water. Taste it. Feel its salvation spreading through every inch, every cell. At last. Take it slow, no sense in wasting it trickling down your chin. Savor it and respect its elemental necessity. Seventy percent. Replenish and swallow, swallow, swallow.
But then you blink, and throat's dry as ever. The lady has vanished in all her glorious perfection. Vanished with her earthen jar. Vanished with her water. What would possess her to appear so, just in the nick of time, holding forth deliverance only to withdraw it at the very last moment?
Don't...collapse. Don't...give up. Hope...lives. No. So hot. So dry. There must be a trickle somewhere. There? Here? Anywhere...?

Sigh

2009-09-20T21:26:00.003-05:00

A groan of tedium escapes me. The Road is calling my name already. Just six weeks back home and I'm already scratching my veins yearning for a fix. Wanderlust. A funny term we came up with (or at least proliferated) years back while roaming the nice quiet boundaries of the suburban golf course under the stars.
You stand up on the hill and gaze out picturing a pack of savage dogs bounding near, thrilling on the rush of adrenaline as your muddled mind perfectly conjures the feeling of the chase. But alas, the illusion is easy to break when you remember there's leftover pizza in the fridge just a few steps away from the TV.
Adventure in a neat little paper package.
I experienced a real adventure this summer, and there are so many reasons to jump out again and get dirty. A million little reasons to go, and only a handful keeping me back. Maybe some fear, maybe some loathing, but mostly i'm all caught up in this whole owing-money thing.
My thumbs itch, and my imagination soars, while my mouth yaks and spins, and the red ledger slowly ticks back up to zero with the sweat of my brow and the blister-juice of my hands.
Soon...

What I need is a good sidekick (or partner in crime) to complement my angle. Someone to argue with; someone who disagrees with me regularly.

A Swift Farewell?

2009-08-16T23:37:00.002-05:00

28/July/2009 9PM
Finally back in Bogota! The 20-hour trip extended seemingly indefinitely. As I stood on the bus to disembark, a young fellow said, "Follow me, I'll show you which bus to catch to Candelaria," without me even begging for directions. The Transmileno seems pretty efficient, run like a subway with tickets and turnstiles at the entrance, rather than on board in a frenetic pocket-searching melee amid all the other passengers. The buses even look like subways, molded-plastic seats lining the walls, broad tinted windows, two segments separated by a plastic accordian lined with metal surrounding a circular pivot in floor and celing. The line map even resembles the one in New York.
We chat for a while on the bus. He's on summer break from college in Amsterdam, vising his family, the coast, and the jungle before returning to his studies.
I tell him I'm an English major, which narrows nothing down as far as my job-market choices. Teach English, he says, or translate. How's your SPanish?
Indeed, how is my Spanish? Seems alright. Could use some improvement...but can't we all?
I should have steered our conversation towards an invitation to crash on his parents' couch, but i missed the opportunity, and as he got up to get off, he took my email and said, "If I ever get down to Brazil to open my bar, I will give you an email."
"Yeah," I retort, "and maybe by that time I'll be teaching English down there and I'll help you find a place."

Now I'm back in the Platypus awaiting five AM. Another traveler is heading to the airport in the morning, and we've agreed to share a taxi. I don't have enough cash left for my own. I'd have had to go out in the dodgy small hours to catch a bus. This way I'll arrive two extra hours early. Christ.
It seems appropriate to be sitting at this table which bears my initials carved in three months ago. Sometimes it seems like a long time, and sometimes but a flash. Looking back I wish I'd been better about keeping notes, since everything not tied down will be lost overboard. Oh well, next time. I guess I can keep an appendix for retrograde remembrances.

Little ants trotting across the page following the scent of dulce-de-leche crumbs. The clock ticks on the wall next to the big hand-drawn map of Bogota. Which someone spent an inordinate amount of time on. The kitchen is locked, and I'm denied the coffee which made this country famous. This cookie is dry in my mouth, and I desperately wish for something hot to drink. I'm alone in the hours between the civilized bedtime of those with something scheduled tomorrow and the return of those out partying. At the moment I'm not yet tired. Time will soon begin its slow decline to standstill while my eyes droop and the words of my book melt together and mingle with the roman numerals passing in the distance.

I hear nothing except the ticking clock, the faint murmur of nightduty Spanish, and my slow-thumping heart. My eyelids feel heavy, like pillows. Similes come slowly to my weary mind. My skin feels greasy, and I can slmost still smell the grit of travel under my fingernails. Hair clings to my head or stands up crazily. Glasses slide interminably down my nose. I regard the clock through the small lenses. Three more hours. A book lies finished on the table before me. Another one sits in my bag waiting. I'm suddenly no longer very tired. I just want to shower, to change my clothes. In flipflops, my toes are cold and slightly sticky. How long can I spend in the shoer? Depends how hot it is...

A hot shower rejuvenates me, gives me a second wind. I have the hot water tanks all to myself, and take full advantage until my fingertips turn to blanched prunes and my toes regain sensation. Returning to the common room to start a new book, I stumble upon a group of three returned from the bar, nursing Aguila beers.
One fellow from Philidelphia--or was it Pittsburg? I said the wrong one before and he took offense--one bloke from northern London, and a girl from Switzerland on her way to study in Barcelona after B.A. The usual assortment.
They were in the middle of arguing about football--both kinds at once; that was the argument--when I walked in with my Michigan Football T-shirt, prompting the American to proclaim his alma-mater allegiance in red and white. I tell him that while the Badgers have done alright against us in the past couple seasons, we're still overall better in football, academics, and intangibles. He retorted something about cheese and beer. I said nothing, only chuckled and daydreamed of a nice Bell's Porter.

As I watch the minute hand crawl around the American's watch, I realize I'm not at all tired. He stands me a couple of beers as five o'clock (am) rolls around. The guy from San Francisco I'd agreed to share a taxi with steps in groggily. How fitting that I began my journey with someone from California in this hostel, and I'm leaving the same sorta way. He pays for my half of the taxi, leaving me enough cash for a coffee and empanada at the airport.
I'm offered an exit row, and I accept, picturing my heroics in the event of a crash...or at least first one out the door. However that goes. Fighting down the prickly feeling of a bad omen--so far the night has gone rather too splendidly after t he late arrival of my bus--I wait for the counter to print my ticket. Oops, she says, looks like it's already been taken. Fine by me. I prefer to be crushed up against my tray table anyway.

The staffat the airport seem eager to try their English, while I desperately cling to Spanish, feeling my vocabulary already slipping away like grains in a glass.
Tick tock tick tock: the digital clock on my phone makes no noise, as surreal seconds slip silently toward takeoff, passing unnoticed like so many stories and memories. This whole trip already come and gone like a flash in a pan; I close my eyes and the purple stain dances across the backs of my eyelids, brilliant but transient and already fading. Can I capture its essence like a few photographs valued at a few thousand words? Or is it already too late...?

At the gate they turn me away. Too early. I sit across the way on a stiff woven-orange chair and rest my eyes. My heart pounds rapidly, sending extra oxygen to my overwrought brain. Soon it will start trying to dream, deprived of sensory-organization down-time for...who knows how long. At least 24 hours since my last snooze. And then just a catnap.

As soon as they open the gate for my flight, I stand and shuffle to the desk.
"Listen," I say to the pretty girl with more eye makeup than she needs. She blinks and smiles. "I'm recovering from malaria, and I desperately need rest." I smile back, wanly, exhaustedly, expectantly.
"Of course," she says, checking my ticket. "Go on ahead. Have a nice flight."
"Thanks," I yawn, and head down the tunnel and up the aisle, collapsing gratefully into my seat. Some minutes later a very attractive girl sits next to me, but my headphones are already on, and I probably won't bother trying to talk to her. The sirens of sleep already have me in their grasp.

We fly through some billowy stacks of clouds, approaching Orlando. Cuba lies well astern. The plane trembles as the windows are obscured by milky vapor, and in clear patches, I can see a rainbow far below, a streak of color across the pale green land.
Houses arranged in subdivisions; lakes glittering; a grouping of baseball diamond, softball diamond, football field, and track: a high school. America looks gorgeous, and I am looking forward to arriving at home for some well deserved rest before launching into the Next Thing--this time with some income!
But I will miss South America and all the adventures I've had, the lessons I've learned, the people I've met, regrets and triumphs: everything.

It just gets better. Weather over New York decided to shit on my homecoming parade, keeping the plane on the ground in Orlando until it was far too late to make my connecting flight to Chicago. We finally land at JFK at about the time I was supposed to land in CHicago. Grateful for cell phones. Thanks for the smooth welcome!

At customs, an older fellow greeted me, flipped through my passport a bit, and said, "Welcome home."
"Goddamn," I grinned, "I like the sound of that." And so here I am.

And that was supposed to be a nice Greek circle, closed and neat. But it's starting to look more like a spiral as I sit crosslegged in the JFK airport about to board a hop to Boston and catch an am flight to Chi-town.
I make contact with Erik and stifle my surprise when he eagerly agrees to meet me at the airport...if I ever get there. I'm losing track of my space/time orientation, sleep starved and weary. But Boston will be fun...if I ever get there.
Porr David has to get up at 4 to drive out to pick my ass up. Just think of it as a wake-and-bake adventure, I tell him. My ankles itch maddeningly, and I wonder if I'm bed-bug bit. Fucking hostels.
I'm having a bit of difficulty with English, expecting all the time to have to negotiate travel difficulties beginningwith "Hola, buenas, tengo un problema..." but everyone here speaks English, and it's hard to get used to.
To top it all off, my dying phone, battered and abused by travel, has very little charge left, and I'm constantly fighting to keep from smashing it with a well-placed elbow, since it barely works anymore. What luck.

I hate the woman sitting next to me chatting hoarsely into her rhinestone-encrusted cell phone. Her blonde hair is piled on top of her head like straw as she whines about the recent rain ruining her do.
She has the voice and tone of a 19-year-old sorority girl, but she's about twice that age. Blah blah blah, she says, spewing gossip and filling the air wiht idiocy. The PA interrupts to announce the arrival of our plane, and people all around me start stirring. Oh my god, she just said "whatev." I want to throw my phone at her temple.
Everything feels a bit surreal.
My feet fall asleep, and I relish the anthill rush of prickly awakening. Time to walk.

The Boston airport is closed. I stay alive with single-serving snack packs and caffeine. I yield to the surreality of the predawn airport where everything is in stasis and a ghostly pallor illuminates the lost souls wandering in search of connecting flights.
I keep seeing people I know, and watch as they turn to strangers, unuttered greetings dying softly on my lips.
A security guard strolls past, impossible chin protruding past his blue smokey-the-bear hat. He disappears as scrolling marquees catch my eye. Pretty colors.
Janitors whistle as they push mops and buff floor tiles, Red Sox caps pulled low in the chilly sterile air.
My teeth feel mossy, and my breath tastes foul. The guy next to me on the plane smelled like a freshman. I briefly consider killing the taste with vodka, but opt for toothpaste instead. THe bars are all closed.

My body feels the pull of acceleration as the plane roars down the runway, but then I jolt awake and realize I'm sitting in the lobby in an uncomfortable chair, trying unsuccessfully to fade into sleep. I start to wonder when I'll meet Tyler Durden.
Trying to tally the hours, I realize it's July 30th, and I should be home in bed. Best estimate: 50h interspersed with less-than-adequate catnaps.

I wonder if I could leap behind the Dunkin Donuts counter and start the coffee brewing. Would they mind?
I also briefly consider riding around in a wheelchair, but abandon the idea to laziness.

Daylight, and the airport awakens to swelling swarms of people. I stir myslf and join the correct flow, finding my gate. The metal curve of the bombilla mate straw in my backpack causes a brief panic among the redeye security team, but we sort things out, and the heavy-lidded surge continues.
I locate and drink a large coffee, chasing it with some oatmeal before sitting to wait at the gate. Time flickers past, and I find myself in my window seat, twitching awake to stare out at the looming jet engine as the flight attendant passes out soda and coffee. I turn to my seatmate and ask the time. One hour to go. Barring, of course, any unforseen snafus.
The morning sun shines a brilliant blue, and Tyra Banks smiles her famous grimace on the TV in front of my face, talking to an absurdly pale zombie-flesh woman with sunken eyes and lank brown hair. Tyra, wearing a ring the size of a pizza, appears to be saying something rather droll and witty. I switch the channel to football reruns.

Last look at the land

2009-08-04T23:19:00.002-05:00

How fitting that I'm spending 20 of my last 36 hours on a bus. A bit of a shame, but what can you do? That's travel departure. It tends to be rushed and tense, exhausting and infuriating, and mostly rather dull except in moments of frenzy. At the moment I'm just glad to be under airconditioning. By this time in my journey I've been having to carefully weigh and craftily justify every penny spent.

On long busrides you go to sleep with music in your ears and wake up sometime later in eerie silence cushioned by the rumble of the road and the occasional snore from other passengers folded into nearby seats. Choose another album and drift off again, waking up later remembering only a song or two. This repeats indefinitely.

The AC gets cold as time wears on, so you put on a jacket and roll down your pantlegs, hugging yourself with clammy arms trying to get your head comfortable. Now and then you wake up and the bus is stopped, letting folks on or off, filling up the tanks, opening doors to policemen for inspections.

In typical South American efficiency, the bus has broken down, and we're stranded sans spare a few hours from Bogota. I'm feverishly glad I decided to give myself plenty of leeway between busride and flight home. Bored, the men outside rock the bus like a cradle and piss on the tires. I guess they don't make the connection that they'd have to handle those tires in the event of a flat.

On his belly beside and under the back of the bus, a man fiddles with tools and lugnuts while the driver kneels alongside shouting instructions. An ambulance shrieks past. We're also stuck in a long line of vehicles, presumably an accident-caused logjam. Salesfolk dart hither and thither, taking full advantage. Here it's food vendors. At home: lawyers. Even if they get the repairs done, we still aren't going anywhere.

I fill my pipe with the last of my tobacco and sit outside on the hill, puffing fragrant smoke and watching the fellows under the bus. In front of me a boy breaks a twig into increasingly smaller fragments.

The side of the bus is decorated horribly ironically; a picture of a supersonic airplane superimposed over the globe. The name "Concorde" in dashing red letters over a swath of green. Now being passed and left behind as traffic picks up once again. The vendors tramp off, chuckling and joking. And here we sit.

Someone once asked me do I liken myself a Tom or a Huck. I was stricken by the question as deeply philosophical and a bit mind boggling. After forming my own guess, I asked what she thought. She told me I was born a Tom but on my way to becoming Huck, a dreamer trying to put some plans to action.

Tom's a bright sumbitch, but gets caught up in his schemes and grand plans at the expense of others, while Huck is more simple and just ups and goes, taking adventure in stride. Tom is more wont to build an adventure, beginning to end, wrapping the whole blasted thing in neat little bows and ribbons. He, like I, has a swollen sense of drama.

As I sit here scratching away, I reckon she's right. But then the question arrises: whom do I want to be?

Another Concorde bus finally swoops by, and we continue on our way to Bogota. The countryside rolls by, rocky hills, patchwork fields, jungle slopes--and I realize with each passing fern and banana tree that these sights are my last. I simply cannot believe I'm going home tomorrow. The realization twists me up. I will miss this place, this pace. I'm ready for home...sometimes.

Clouds hang low over the valley, slinking over peaks and gulleys. I don't want to deal with the waiting--waiting for morning, waiting in a taxi, waiting in the airport, on the tarmac, for my connecting flight. Travel itself, point A to B is a bit of a void wherein time disappears and nothing quite happens. Even the world outside the vehicle seems frozen or at least unreal, like the movie playing out on the screen above the aisle.

Premature nostalgia

2009-08-04T23:07:00.002-05:00

27/Jul/2009

I suddenly realize, with morbid regret, that no matter how I try, I'll lose so many stories, anything I've not written down. I'm truly amazed by my poor notetaking skills, both in general and on this daring jaunt which, I vividly discover every so often each day with pounding nostalgia, HAS HAPPENED and I'm about to be going home. It's rubbish. Absolute rubbish.

I'm reminded of the mortality of this trip just now and my note-taking by a story being told to my right about a guy being rolled on the street before arriving at his hostel to sit on the toilet shitting out his guts and puking in the nearby shower. How many times have I heard a similar story and feared the worst every time I shat a little loosely? No one wants the Screaming Eagle, but we're all aware of its hovering existence.

Stories circulate through the Culture of Travelers, making the rounds with quiet changes and subtle cultural tweaking across borders, through translations, and over time. Remarkable the stories one could collect given time enough and diligence to observe by first-hand gonzo experience. The Culture of Travelers is a remarkably vibrant entity, existing just beyond the awareness of those who've never been, like the world's biggest mushroom, growing just below the surface.

You hear the stories and nod, learning the lessons and vowing never to get into such an imbecilic situation, until you find yourself the victim of a brilliant scheme by the universe designed to test your sense of humor, aplomb, and grit. Everything balances itself out if one's focus isn't chokingly tight. We're all a sort of quivering mass in the personified muddle of space, time, life, economic cycles, ideas, and miscellaneous extras. I haven't quite figured it all out yet, but I will someday, even if that day is after my strings have been assimilated into the twisting chaos of the particulate realm of the subatomic.

Confront the Fear

2009-08-04T22:34:00.002-05:00

One evening as we sat on the beach sipping rum, we saw a boy standing at the lapping edge of the water, crying and tiptoeing onto the damp sand, but turning back at the first touch of water. A plastic bag thrown in by an older person, presumably a father, sank, shining faintly white under the dark water.

I turn to my British mates, one a junior highschool chemistry teacher and the other a sardonic computer guy who used to rock dreads, and wonder what's going on over there. The boy's plaintive cries reach our ears, and I stand up, resolute to sate my curiosity.

"I'm going to help him," I say, draining my dixie cup. I roll up my pant cuffs and saunter over.

The boy stands barechested wearing boardshorts past his knees. His belly bulges slightly, unaware yet of the idea of the sixpack.

"Qué pasó? Qué pasó, chico?" I call.

"La bolsa," he blubbers, tear-streaked cheeks glinting in the moonlight as he points at the bag. "I need to get it. Swim to get it."

"Porqué?" I ask.

"Mi padre...la bolsa...pescados...enojado!" he wails, little-kid Spanish fading into incomprehensibility.

"Tranquilo, chico," I urge, biting back laughter. We'd speculated this was some sort of rite of passage or cajolery by his dad to get him past a fear of water.

"Hay aguas malas y no puedo nadar," he whimpers. Bad scary water lay just a few feet past the submerged bag, surface hidden by shadows from shore.

"Tienes miedo?" I know how to deal with kids' fear. He nods dramatically, clasping his hands in front of himself after flapping them once in consternation.

"You can do it," I say, stepping into the surf. "Mira, I am going to come in with you. Then you can go?" He nods again, venturing into the gently curling water. By this time, the bag has drifted deeper, lulled by a riptide.

"No tenemos mucho tiempo," I warn; better get it now. I know he wants me to reach in and get it for him, but I think we both know that could never happen. Prime Directive sort of ideal. Minimize direct influence. I coax him in further, water lapping up my rolled pantlegs (These good old pants! I shall miss their constant greasy company!) He comes within a finger's breadth of snagging the prize, earning steep praise from his father, the gruff sort of approval boys live and die for.

"Ah, very close." He backs off, and looks up at me dolefully. "Try another time." You can do it, you are strong. Mira, your arms. Flex. Musculos. I pop my biceps and he grins, pointing at his own wiry upper arm. But mine's soft, he whines. My god, how to explain the mechanics of muscle movement to a little Colombian niño, barely old enough to blow his own nose? I get the point across, and he concedes that he is big and strong.

"I will be right here," I promise, "if anything mal happens."

He ventures forth again. Shit, the bag's drifted much more. He's in gentle high-tide swells up to his armpits. At this point, he might not get the bag. But gah! so close. Come on, little man, you can do this. Be strong. Quick! I send mental blasts of telegrams, but my accuracy is off, and he backs off again, pulling at my arm.

"Por favor!" he cries, "won't you get it señor?" I realize with amusement that he's calling me usted. It sounds different, more genuine from a boy of five than from an ingratiating street vendor. Alas, I cannot. If this is a test from your pops and I ruin it, I'd never forgive myself for contributing among other things to the pussification of the next generation. My friend, I tell him silently, if you can't get it now, you will next time.

He gives up, and we turn back. The older guy who'd thrown the bag in turns out to be the waiter/owner of the restaurant where we'd just eaten pizza, and in fact is the boy's father.

"Muy cerca," I shrug. He almost had it.

"Ge got closer when you were there than before," he smiles, "He has made progress with your help."

I laugh at the praise, embarrassed. "I remember when I was five, how scary the world was."

"Si," he nods.

"Proxima vez," I suggest. Next time. They both agree, and Papi scoops up the shivering boy in a towl and bears him toward the house and an awaiting bowl of soup.

Queen's English and Caribbean Air

2009-08-04T21:52:00.003-05:00

26 July 2009

Oso perezoso (lazy bear) is what the Spaniards called the sloths they found in the jungles. WHen I first arrived at the so-named hostel, I thought it referred to the middle-age-girthed Canadian who was sitting at a table near the kitchen. His green checkered short-sleeved button-up contrasted wildly with the fuschia flowers on his board shorts. Over his head, woven palm fronds formed a roof alongside the platform where the hammocks hung. A few scattered tables and chairs stood between pots of potato plants, ferns, a rose bush, and what looked like a maple sprout but couldn't be.

Below the concrete floor of this open-air bar and lounge are guest rooms, but I've opted for the cheaper, less stuffy hammocks. After all, it's the Carribean. On this floor is a shower with three walls, open to the town and the hostel owner bustling about checking on her laundry (this is how we met). A black plastic reservoir perches above, but water pressure is a trickle. The bar of soap has turned to lava soap by virtue of the grit in the cinderblock on which it sits.

The owners' baby plays with trucks on the floor while a puppy and kitten tussle, and Roberto the parrot looks on burbling encouragement. To my right the bay sparkles, opening out on the broad sea. The construction near the beach is invisible past the trees.

In the office, a remarkable collection of books for trade including Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, Animal Farm, and many others, a far cry from the usual hostel book exchange selection featuring Agatha Christie and other simpleminded dreck.

It's about quite exactly what you'd expect of a small Caribbean town tasting tourism and loving it. Doubling in size every year or so, its unchecked growth means the loss of whatever quaintness it is that makes them locals. But ask them how they feel about the rapid ingress of foreigners, and they'll beam and say, "Tank you for coming to my country. You welcome here," a gleam of white teeth in bronze skin adding, "Buy a bracelet?" For them, globalisation spells money and infrastructure and eager ever-changing flocks of customers.

On the other side of town my British friends are staying in a different hostel. They've been quite good motivators when I vacillate because of financial reasons. I can't really say 'no' to $75 scuba lessons, can I? And I'm already in debt, aren't I? My parents won't exactly begrudge me a few more quid, will they?

I find myself picking up Britishisms, renewing my old Anglophilic passions. I'll go there someday.

But here I am in the balmy Caribbean eve--and it is balmy: there is no other more accurate word...except sometimes "sultry"--scratching away and wondering, not about anything useful, but instead about whether i'll be able to fill this notebook up to the last page by the time I land in the States. I simply cannot believe I've less than a handful of days left in this arduous and enlightening vacation. Unreal.

I've been enjoying the company of these Limeys a great deal. Their humor is delightfully droll, compounded by their funny accents. They argue about their alma maters, one having gone to Cambridge and one having gone to Oxford. Neil, the long-haired computer guy, is surprisingly a vegetarian, though his gauntish sprawling limbs attest to it. His skin is pale--whether from lack of quality food out here or just out of Britishness is anyone's guess. His narrow face draws into a wry grimace at the thought of...most things. I'm surprised to discover that he's actually pretty good with women, despite his gawky hacker hands. Maybe it's because he's a bit of a tit. A nerd who decided to say "fuck it" and brave the awesome menace of the female human.

He woke up late this morning for SCUBA diving, nursing a headache and complaining of female-friend interference.

"She wanted very much to come back with me, but her friend was very keen on going home."

Flying and football

2009-08-02T23:15:00.003-05:00

22/Jul/09
The Hostel Macando in San Gil offers outdoorsy tours of all kinds ranging from abseiling down a waterfall to whitewater kayaking and rafting, to paintball, hiking, biking, and paragliding.
My British chums, Neil and Richard and I chose the latter. We spent the morning lazing around, reading, using the internet, relaxing in the heat. At noon we boarded the van to take us up the hill.
After the guide wrestled the side door shut, we rumbled and rattled up a steep road which turned into a cobbled two-track passing through tobacco and corn fields, drying huts, barns, convenience stores, and the necessary coffee plantations shaded by banana trees.
At the top of the hill we parked in the shade of an enormous leanto under which hung hundreds of tobacco leaves in various stages of dryness, and unloaded gear from the van's roof rack. We hiiked briefly between rows of tobacco plants which are a sort of sickly pale green when growing, and came out on the cleared hilltop where the guides began laying out harnesses and parachutes.
The wind gusts pretty strong at the top of the hill. Condors sail on the breeze, and in the distance a few wing-shaped parachutes indicate another company's earlier start. A few shrieks of excitement drift over carried by the wind.
We go by weight, so Richard straps in first. As his parachute inflates, controlled by the pilot attached to his back, it sings like a flute, and then he's lifted up and out of sight. Shading my eyes, I watch until my guide beckons me over, and I hoist the backpack/cushion seat over my shoulders, and the pilot buckles us together. he turns to make some final adjustments--or so I presume for a split second until the nylon billows up and uplls us forward to the edge of the hill.
"Corre!" he says, and I take a few stumbling strides until my feet leave the ground and I stop pumping the air, feeling foolish. We soar up into the air, catching currents and zooming around a bit. I can feel innumerable minute adjustments as the pilot uses hands and feet and body tension to control the wing. We swoop over treetops, grazing so close I consider reaching a toe out to kick at a clump of leaves before Manuel flicks his wrist, and we catch an updraft, climbing so high so fast that I blink, and the forest looks like a thick carpet of various greens far below alongside patchwork fields of tobacco, corn, and coffee, and water reservoirs resemble teacups.
A young condor below us shows off his nature-endowed ability which we've had to manufacture through dextrous ingenuity. He tucks his wings and spins into a dive, leveling out and swinging up on a thermal, soon disappearing from sight above the parachute.
Manuel takes us for a couple of dips and turns before swirling up the same thermal. The distant canyon cuts across the land like a crack in the sidewalk, and Manuel says something.
"Que?" I shout, wind whistling through my ears.
"Spinning?" He repeats. It take me a moment to realize he spoke in English and was asking if I'd like to spiral down.
"Si, claro!"
He chuckles and twists us into an experimental circle pattern, checking the draft. Then suddenly I'm flung outwards, pinched by my harness, G-forces sucking at my stomach as we pivot around the parachute. Wind roars, tearing water from my eyes as the centripetal force strains the straps. I shriek in delight, changing quickly to a manly rebel yell as we circle down down down, leveling out over our takeoff hill and landing with a cushioned thud on the dry grass.
A bit dizzy, I nevertheless consider getting a solo certification at some point in the dreamy future. What a job these guys have: get paid to float on the breeze to the delight of the inexperienced.

Later that night we played soccer with some other guests at the hostel and a bunch of local kids. Five-on-five king-of-the-court with changeover after two goals. Reminded me of bball at the CCRB, and I shot a few hoops with the soccerball before and after the games. My team won nary a game, losing several times to the dynastic Other Gringos, or the second-best team comprised of Colombian youths. Soccer was fun, and I'd very much like to get better at it, but I must admit I was longing for some basketball.
The pitch was concrete, lit by stadium lights, all of which sponsored by the government which maintains soccer arenas in every neighborhood. This strikes me as delightfully civilized and conscious of the People.
I can't believe this is the first time I've played--or even watched live--soccer in South America. A week left and only now do I realize I could have been honing my skills all along if I'd given thought to the matter. Oh well; next time.

Viva la independencia!

2009-08-02T22:50:00.004-05:00

20/Jul/2009, Colombian Independence Day

A cloudy sky and brusque breeze keep the streets cool as people mill about enjoying the spectacles. Vendors are out in force, chanting out their wares for anyone nearby: fresh fruit! chorizos! sandwiches! fried platanos! arroz con leche! aromaticas! face paints!
Red, yellow, and blue Colombian flags abound. Some clutched in children's sticky hands alongside foam cut-out pets-on-wires; some worn as garments; some flying overhead the capitol building; some lying castoff in the street amid fruit rinds, sandwich wrappers, cigarette butts, empty styfofoam cups, and other miscellaneous detritus of festivities.
Metallically-dressed performers move like robots when children fill their chest boxes wiht coins, and stray dogs trot around happily gnawing on edible remnants. Near the square, a circle of people gather around a pair of keyboards upon which a young lad lavishes national tunes while a man in a white linen suit sings into a microphone. Behind them an old veteran shuffles a dance and flaps his jaw in time with the words, a vacant grin spread through his white beard. His old blue Navy jacket with its sickle-and-hammer shoulder patch and furry collar stands in grim contrast to the stiff green fatigues of the National Soldiers standing guard around the plaza with assault rifles and pimple-pocked cheeks. The veteran hitches up his patched and discolored trousers, already perched up near his ribs, and adjusts the red fez on his head wiht a gangly nd gnarled hand. A medal pinned to the jacket indicates a fierce pride in his past, outweighing his need to pawn it for food or drink. Someone in the crowd offers him a cigarette, and he gratefully accepts, bowing stiffly before resuming his jig.
Near the Presidential Palace, a crowd gathers, restrained by police--distinguishable from the Army only by the words--and portable crowd-control fences. The people hold signs demanding justice, asking for peace, deploring the lies, and condemning the FARC. Based on that last, and their overall content attitude, I'd guess these folk support Uribe but want even more persecution of the rogue terrorist forces who no longer have any value or goal other than continuing to exist in indiscriminant violence. But some disagree.
A man pushes a wheelchair in which sits a mannikin dressed in a white tunic with a scale in one hand and a rusty machete in the other, an oxygen mask over her face.
Across the street another circcle gathers. People place coins on numbered upsidedown buckets, wagering on which one the trained guinea pigs will run to after their street-suave owner releases them. Children rush to deposit coins as the man goads the crowd with a microphone headset. All I can think of is the cuy I ate in Peru.
A grizzled fellow approaches as I sit on a bench. he greets me respectfully, talking about literature and how he saw me writing.
"I also write," he says.
"Si?" I reply incredulously, "Por un periodico o que?"
No, he says, just for pleasure. He writes about the government, the streets, the people. We lapse into the informal as he presses a dogeared and discolored half-width legal pad into my hands indicating his address scrawled on the cardboard back.
"Guardalo," he says, asking me--if I've understood correctly--to write his life and send it to him. I hide my initial excitement saying, "Yeah, okay. I will." We shake hands, and he leaves. If I can make anything out of the spidery Spanish writing, perhaps I can actually get something done. If not: I'll use the encounter as inspiration and make up the rest. Sure...
The crowd around me thins out as the smoke from a nearby chorizo grill wafts past. I look up nad stare into the eyes of Simón Bolivar as the man carrying the enormous oil painting walks in front of my bench. Slightly spooked, I decide it's time to stroll a bit.
Two guys kneel on the sidewalk in front of a display of landscapes amid an array of spray paints and splotches of color. Their hands, coated in so many hues mingled to dark brown, dab at swaths of color, and spray circles and slashes to produce sunscapes and twilit forests for the amusement and purchase of passersby. Hunched over like that, they must be zoned on fumes: they wear nothing over their faces, though many in their audience hid behind surgical masks in fear of the Flu.
A family of dirty children sprawl in the alcove of a closed bank, forlorn mother (or grandmother) watching with wizened eyes. I hand her my baggie of sausage and fried banana, and she accepts it with mumbled thanks.
"Hey buddy, where you from?" A man in a greasy tweed coat sticks his hand out. He's balding and tall for a Colombian.
"The States," I respond by rote.
"Really? Whereabouts? I'm from New York." I take his hand before kneeling down to appraise a machete as a gift for my brother. He mentions something about calling his sister as I answer "Detroit." If this man thinks I'll just hand him my cell phone...
"What brings you to Colombia?"
Just visiting. What brings you to Colombia? His English is damned good.
"I got in a cab in the city and it turned out the fuckin' thing had bad breaklights, and when a cop pulled us over he found narcotics under the seat so they deported me." Sob.
I tell him I didn't have anything with me--no, not even enough to buy you a coffee--except my books. Lo siento, buddy. He finally walks away, leaving me in peace.
I spend another hour or so reading in the park as the anticlimactic independence day festivities wane toward twilight and bedtime.

·sigh·

2009-07-09T20:14:00.003-05:00

And so here I am in Valparaiso on a leather chair in a bar with a tall glass of scotch and a brand-new used copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I want to go explore the pier, but something tells me that´s best done by day--so maybe tomorrow eve I´ll head that way. This town certainly has character: an old grizzled sailor could stump around here on a wooden leg with a salty pipe clamped in his teeth and fit right in.
If I had more time, I would stay here and see about securing a position down at the wharf. God but I dream!

The buildings of Valpo are weatherworn and well-used, all stacked up on each other like building blocks in a toddler´s playroom. Cobbled streets show under patchwork asphault repairs, and here and there people add fresh coats of paint to ironwork pitted by salt air.
A stray dog paces at my feet as I sit in a plaza watching the goings-on, offering protection from roving canine gangs in exchange for a morsel of tribute. When he understands that I´m about as poor as he is, he trots off, sniffing at and then pissing on the base of a statue of a sailor with a spyglass.
From behind a semitruck a man whistles with a strong vibrato as he loads crates and other vague cargo. His sweater drapes comfortably over his broad shoulders and a worn spitfire cap perches atop his salt-and-pepper hair. He pauses to rub his whiskers and change his tune before returning to work with vigor.

Up the hill overlooking Valparaiso and the ocean sits Pablo Neruda´s house. Inside is a collage of homey comfort which still looks more like a house than a museum despite innumerable placards and signs saying "Do not sit," "Do not touch," "Do not take photos," and the like. The walls are festooned with paintings, including one of a duchess-type with a neckruff who´s facing a portrait of a man in similar garb. Neruda positioned them that way to make sure neither was lonely.
The study is on top of the house, with big bay windows. Around the desk are various odds and ends collected over years including some petrified wood, a small sculpture from Easter Island, a photo of Walt Whitman, and shelves of books; all bits of material to prompt and inspire, and play with during writer´s block (or so I assume from personal experience).
I forcefully ignore the docents guarding every room, and my fingers itch to touch everything(which I guess is precisely why they´re there), especially the typewriter. This house makes me nearly desperate to build and fill my own, and I dream of a study overlooking the ocean or maybe one of the Great Lakes.
Downstairs is a cozy bar with various fascinating decorations like a framed 19thC patent document, a winekey in the shape of a naked boy (screw this cork, I´m out!), scotch whiskey advertisements, a bathroom with a door made of a sideways stair balustrade (very private!), and a sign that says "Don Pablo est ici." I wish I'd known this guy. Neruda's signature drink was a cocktail of equal parts champagne and cognac plus a splash each of Cointreau and orange juice.
He named his leather armchair (a staple in any man's home) El Nube. It sits beside a window, and I can easily imagine deep musings while gazing over the sparkling harbor as helicopters land on big grey navy vessels, and fishing boats dart hither and thither. I resolve to visit the Great Lakes more, and perhaps see about catching some work out there and eventually purchasing an old lighthouse.
Egad, what a dreamer I am! If I accomplish a mere fraction of the things my head cooks up, I'll lead a very interesting life indeed.

Supper with a local; a funny story recounted

2009-07-06T18:33:00.004-05:00

28 Jun 2009

Later in the evening after showering and watching Wall-E, Gero, the trip organizer, picks us up and takes us to his home for supper. Delicious dinner cooked by his lovely pregnant wife. Gero and I chat casually about training me for service as a river guide. As he drives us back to the hostel, he says,
"Today I find out if I am a patient man: I test my limits."
Earlier that afternoon he'd driven four Americans to the Manaus Stadium to see a football game.
"I drop them off, I figure; I leave my car open because it's a short distance."
Two cops saw and suggested he lock his car.
"'No, it's okay,' I tell them, 'There is nothing in there to rob.' Of course I forget my CD player," he laments, pointing to the now-empty stereo display. He came back and drove home before noticing the absence of the removable unit.
"I think, 'Maybe I left it at home or something.'"
When he couldn't find it, he drove back and confronted the police.
'"You didn't see someone steal my CD player? You are bad cops,' I told them, 'What are you doing wearing this uniform?' I tell them those four Americans were coming to see Manaus, to see if it's safe for World Cup. Playing psychological games with their heads," he chuckles remembering. He asked them their full names, to which they replied, "We are the police: we ask you your name. What are you doing turning it around on us?"
"I say to them, 'You think you are the only police in Manaus?' We have local, city, state, federal...They get worried and start looking at each other. I tell them they are going to be in all the newspapers, and they get really worried, begging me, saying they were not looking at my car. 'I am going to fill out a report,' I told them. But I didn't: I went straight home. After all, they had told me, 'Lock your car,' and I said, 'It's okay.' What was I thinking, It's Okay? I learn my lesson."

When we got back to the hostel, we found out Michael Jackson had died while we were on the river. And Billy Mays. What's the world coming to?

River Trip (far too short); Mosquito massacre; Tarzan in pirate garb; rice beans salad and meat; a sloth

2009-06-30T01:03:00.008-05:00

25-28 Jun 2009

Day One

The boat rumbles to life and chugs toward the center current. We've been lounging in hammocks waiting for the crew to finish loading, enjoying the breezy upper deck and the leisure of passage. No hurries here. I pack a pipe of strong cavendish and strike a dashing pose, head pirate-wrapped in a red and white scarf; trousers rolled to the knees; sunglasses donned; shirt long since shucked.

Lunch consists of rice and beans and a stew of the largest fish in the Amazon (whose Portugese moniker eludes me [ed. note: pirarucu]) followed by pineapple slices. Delicious fare.

We cruise along the river for a while, passing numerous nameless (for me) flora. Later when we stop, I change to a swimsuit and leap overboard to escape the stifling noon humidity. Sweat has been dripping through my eyebrows, pooling on my chest as I languished in the hammock trying to read, wishing we could move on if simply to catch some breeze as the crew played dominoes down below, murmuring lyrically in Portugese.

Our guide Tariq wakes us from the sodden slumber of our noon nap saying, "We go in my canoe. Bring bug spray, sandals, camera, water. Ready? Okay."
Paddling stirs my spirit: the sound of blades slicing in and out of calm water mingles with the buzz of the jungle as we float among trees and vines. It becomes a mosquito massacre as they deftly ignore bugspray and crowd each other for sucking space on our feet ankles elbows calves necks knuckles. My head is protected by a pirate bandana, and I soon capitulate and shrug into my T-shirt.
"Can climb," says Tariq, indicating a thick tri-twisted vine stretching from the water into the canopy. "Strangler fig vines."
I've heard about the devious buggers: their seedlings catch in the branches of trees and then extend downward, eventually growing to form a fence around the existing trunk. The fence closes in until it forms a wall of vines, becoming a hollow trunk around the original tree which withers and dies. Creepy. Naturally I leap at the chance, and hand-over-hand my way up, enjoying the view.
A readheaded woodpecker works at a tree, chipping away chunks and dropping them into the water. I'm reminded of Bernard Mickey Wrangle, and fall into some pensive musing about literary inspirations in the most mundane of experiences. The connections...
Many of the trees bear boles, which gets me to thinking about the mythical horrors of bugs who lay eggs subcutaneously. Bastards.
An enormous spider about 3-4 inches across scuttles over the bark of a rubber tree.
"Look," I tell Jessica, "a huge spider." It disappears, but just as she glances over, a leaf falls on her leg, causing her to jump and squeal, and me to die of laughter.
As we ease through a cloud of dragonflies, thankfully assuming they'd replaced a cloud of mosquitoes, we approach a tree in which a male sloth casually climbs, slipping effortlessly from limb to limb. You can tell it's a male, Tariq explains, by the yellow markings on his back. The nearby female--possibly pregnant--has a solid brown coloration.
An iguana sunbathes on a treelimb until we float close, when he suddenly tumbles down into the water and zips away, revealing also the source of the occasional mysterious splashes we've been hearing and guessing were monkeys.
We cut through some undergrowth beneath a bower of orchids, and come out on a lake. We motor across and rendezvous with the main boat to greet a family of Norweigians come to share our adventure. Jess and I swagger aboard like seasoned sailors and question these white folks' preparedness for the rigors of the jungle. They join us in the canoe after a brief restroom break and some introductions, and we set off again.
As we paddle through myriad white egrets, the hump of some leviathon slithers past breaking the surface of the water in a manner oddly similar to the creature on Dagobah just before it eats R2D2.
"Must be one of those fresh-water dolphins," Jess assures. I'm not convinced...
The egrets are joined by blackfaced herons and enormous storks. All around us, the voices of the rainforest have gotten louder and thicker. It's a bit spooky with the approach of twilight, as the Amazon inhabitants hoot, whistle, buzz, howl, sing, and click to welcome the approaching night.
A tiger heron swoops past, followed by a toucan with its absurdly proportioned bill. In a nearby tree, a hawk stirs, perhaps tempted by a goofy jackana. Ants brushed off from passing trees sting my arm as we motor back to the main river branch alongside a pastel sunset.
On the boat, the crew prepares dinner as we wait for dusk to deepen before setting out again in canoes in search of caimans. My stomach grumbles about leaving again before eating, but the prospect of seeing gators offsets the hunger.
As the stars come out, we muck around in an eerie swamp where Tariq scans the shore with his headlamp. The Southern Cross faces off with the Big Dipper, watched over by the broadly grinning dim sphere of the moon.
Suddenly Tariq lunges over the side, coming up with a two-foot juvenile caiman. A second later, he catches another baby, this one just under a foot. He hands the smaller one to me, and we head back to the main boat to play and photo. They're downright adorable, and surprisingly strong strugglers.
We toss them back to freedom and sit down for supper. What a day. I hope to hell our mosquito-netting-draped hammocks keep the bugs out. I optimistically look forward to sleeping afloat.

Day Two

After a delightful sleep in the breezy mosquito-netted hammock, lulled by a symphony of frogs and crickets harmonizing with the baritone throb of the engine, we awake at sunrise to a breakfast of bread, fried eggs, roasted platano, fried banana, papaya, and cheese. I could live like this!
Tying on closed-toe shoes and unrolling pantlegs, we set off into the forest. I once again applaud my choice in footwear, as we hop over creeks and step around muck.
Tariq points out various trees and plants used by the indians. One has a sticky mint-scented resin used for fires.
"Don't slap leaves like this," he warns, "because sometimes bees sit underneath." And don't bump into the trees with spiky bark.
Following the path created by his machete, we move deeper into the jungle, swatting mosquitoes and trying to avoid tripwire vines while taking in the innumerable sights.
"This one here is for water." He shaves off some bark of a thigh-thick vine. "For emergencies if you are lost in the jungle."
Another tree oozes sap which can be collected and boiled like maple syrup, but with analgesic properties. We avoid trees crawling with ants--the tiny critters do not take kindly to trespassers, and are well-equipped to deal with the invasion.
Tariq digs his machete into a mound of earth taller than I am and pulls out some fat termites.
"If you go into houses of the indians, they will have a bowl of these for eating. To say no is considered very rude," he grins. I briefly consider grabbing the sucker and crunching it, but it's still covered in dirt. I decide to wait until I'm offered a clean bowl.
We slog on past armadillo dens and lumber sites until we stop again, and Tariq hacks at a tree, peeling a long strip of fibrous bark. Fighting mosquitoes, we watch as he twists up bracelets for each of us, and then ties a thick belt-sized loop which he carries enigmatically for a while.
Then we stop beside a tall palm-like tree and he says, "Okay, monkey boy, climb," and hands me the belt. He shows me how to wrap it around my shoes while explaining about the tasty bunch of fruit at the top, 70 feet up. After a few embarrassing attempts, I embrace the technique and shimmy up the trunk like a native. Prudence dictates I don't go all the way up to the fruit, though I'd like to, and I slide down after 20 feet, pride-puffed and filthy.
On the ground nearby, Tariq points out a baby jararaca snake, saying our boots protect our feet because if he sensed the body heat, he'd strike. I glance down at the thin canvas of my Chucks, and attribute my safety to luck.
"The babies are more dangerous because they pump all their poison in one strike, since they don't yet know any better." How long would I have to seek help? About ten minutes.
Our shirts cling to our sopping skin in the heavy humidity, but it's not as oppressively hot as the open water. Suddenly I discover the hard way one of the bees we'd been warned about.
Tariq stops in front of a hole at the base of a tree and rustles around the opening with a long blade of grass. I squat beside him, looking for a lizard or snake or some kind of weasel. For a while nothing happens. Then something furry emerges...it's...a huge tarantula! It attacks the grass, clinging with pinky-sized mandibles. I want to pick it up, but it's skittish, and retreats into the hole. Spectacular.
When we finally get back to the canoe, tired and hungry, one more creature makes an appearance. Startled, the Jesus lizard skips across the surface of the creek and disappears behind a stump. What a day.
On the way back to the boat, we see pink dolphins breaking the surface, which discovers the identity of the earlier leviathon (which I'd hoped was an anaconda). After a refreshing swim and dinner, bats come out at dusk, and I reflect on the day with some cavendish and a few chapters of my book. Tomorrow, Tariq says, weather depending, we'll visit a family of locals--as long as they're home and not out visiting for religious festivals. I can already tell this trip will be several lifetimes too short.

Day Three

Pedro Mendes' house is usually invisible from the water. Now, though, the level of the river has brought it to the edge of the bank, drowning the trees whose foliage served as a screen. A sunken canoe sits at the edge with an air of waiting; waiting for repairs or waiting for rot or waiting to be chopped to firewood.
He greets us with a gap-toothed grin and a wave, once-taut chest sagging slightly with age like time-softened leather. We hop out of our canoe and mill about awkwardly for a moment before he extends a bony hand.
"Bom dia," he says in a gruff sawmill voice. He escorts us to a workshop area under a roof of palm fronds where a series of machinery is used to make a rice-like staple from the cassava root. In the corner is a press into which he spears a section of sugar cane and directs me to turn the crank. I oblige with gusto. The juice is sweet and refreshing, like Down South iced tea. I could drink it all day.
Pedro and Tariq lead us through the farm under clotheslines flying various sizes of flowery panties; past a pig pen featuring a sprawling sow; around a tree bearing the crown and horns of a goat with bits of flesh and fur filled with flies, and shows us banana trees and cassava plants. Then Tariq cracks open a Brazil nut with his machete and cleans off the sweet white meat which tastes much better fresh than salted and dried. Almost like a macademia.
Tariq explains that most men living out here are fishermen who are subsidized for the four-month off-season. The government also pays for the kids to go to school I picture a big black-and-yellow-painted riverboat.
Afterward we putter away in our canoe into a side channel where we spend some time fishing for piranha. After gradually becoming certain that my poor angling skills would leave me as the only unsuccessful one, I finally feel a tug and yank my line viciously, pulling out a red wriggling piranha hooked through the eye but still chomping at the chunk of raw beef.
Back on the boat, the ladies of the crew gossip and brush each other's hair while the men play dominoes in the bow and I blow my nose noisily. Everyone glances up at the sporadic lightning crackling out from an enormous anvil of a cloud, harmonizing oohs and ahhs. The lightbulbs become an entemologist's dream as we wait for supper to be ready.

Day Four

Can't believe the trip is almost over. We steam steadily toward our origin, keeping to the main branch with time for reading, relaxing, and ruminating. The adventure, as is usually the case, has skipped right on by leaving in its wake a sparkly montage of memories glowing with the ephemeral intensity of the meteor tail I saw last night after waking up to pee over the railing.
Now and then we slow or stop to watch monkeys swinging in the trees, or to swim. The breeze awakened by our quick upriver progress is delightful.
I will miss this crew of seven: the three chattering ladies who cook and clean and smile at my attempts to mingle Portugese and Spanish, and the four men who tend the engine and the wheelhouse, and guide us through side trips when not stretched out on the sunny deck playing dominoes.
The decks and trimmings are all painted green, contrasting nicely with the dirty white walls and beams. Sheltered by the roof, our hammocks are strung on the upper deck beside the cabin which the Norweigians inhabit. Below is the main deck with the dining table, galley, head, and cockpit. A hatch leads down to the engineroom.
At night, the lower deck is crisscrossed with the crew's hammocks, while a myriad bugs flock to every light. At the stern, a faded Brazilian flag flaps in the wind, leading the two canoes towed abaft. Under the clotheslines, unprotected by shade, the upper deck gets scorching hot, which at noon forces a mad hopping dash from ship's ladder to awning shade.
At sunsets, we make our berths tied off to treebranches on floating islands while a holographic picture of the Last Supper tacked to the cabin wall glows under a fluorescent bulb.
The decks are fiberglass; the railings and beams are wood; the coffee carafes are always full. Four old tires dangle from the gunwales as bumpers, and as far as I can see, the boat hs no name--but it must have one, since we've had pretty spectacular luck.
Suddenly we come about, swinging a full 180. It appears one of our canoes slipped its cable to settle and drift in peace for a bit. Everybody laughs; a new rope is rustled up; and we again continue headlong against the current.
I strip down to my knickers and sunglasses, leaning back in a deck chair with my feet up and my pipe clamped in my teeth, enjoying the sun, the breeze, and the scratching of my pen. A water buffalo watches our progress from the shore, lazily chewing his cud. Puffy cumulus clouds pepper the sapphire sky, and all is well.
The boat, I find out, is named Nomura by her Japanese owner. Immediately I begin wondering what it would cost to own such a boat, and a whole web of fantasy weaves itself in my idle mind.
Sunrise this morning was spectacular. We paddled out on a glass-smooth surface broken only by the dorsals of a pair of pink dolphins as the eastern horizon glowed green. Blazing like a matchhead, the sun ignited the billowy clouds as it peeked over the verdant horizon, heralding also our final breakfast on the Amazon. I took full advantage, scarfing eggs, coffeecake, roasted platanos, tapioca pancakes, and washing it down with cups of steaming coffee.
Now sweat streams down every angled surface of my body, pooling on every level plane, but I resolve to stay in the sun as long as I can bear until our lunch-stop swim time. It's a beautiful day.
My mind and pen settle into a mystical groove as I skip around pages jotting notes and musings for my future masterpiece. Based on the tone, you'd never guess it's simply tobacco burning in this pipe.
We pass by a pod of pink dolphins playing, and I long to dive in with them. Later I see a little clearing on the shore stuffed full of crosses and memorials. Personally I'd prefer a weighted sack cast into the center current rather than that sun-baked eternal beach...but to each, his own.

Just as I'm beginning to swelter, Tariq comes up and says, "We go for a boat ride" while lunch is prepared. In the canoe we mosey among the rubber trees and vines which dangle into the water like straws from the canopy.
Tariq spots a sloth up in a tree, and we tie off to the trunk while he climbs up nimbly. Then he drops one end of a string to which our other guide ties a machete. Tariq hacks at the sloth's perch until he falls off, catching himself on a lower limb. Tariq climbs down to try to grab the slow animal which tumbles into the water, and the other guide scoops him up.
The sloth feels like a robot covered in fur, moving slowly and mechanically in search of a branch. He cranes his neck and stares into my eyes with wonder and confusion about this moving tree holding him around the torso out of reach of his three-inch claws. He doesn't fight, and barely squirms more than to reach for the nearby tree. When I let him go, he pulls himself up the trunk nonchalantly but decidedly, heading for safety.

On the boat before lunch, I finally worked up the courage to backflip off the roof, some 20ft above the water. Then we ate one final meal of rice, beans, salad, and meet--this time beef and fried fish--before cruising on toward our dock. I took the opportunity to lounge in the prow, filled with a twinge of regret every time a building hove in sight, each time expecting the end.

Amazon approach: River notes

2009-06-30T00:52:00.002-05:00

25 Jun 2009

At the juncture of the Rio Negro and Rio Branco they're building a market to organize and make permanent the stalls that cluster clutter the main ingress for goods from the river. The dark water of the Rio Negro meets the yellowish slower water of the Rio Branco in a confluence which, according to legend, never truly mixes. Boats crowd the dock, and we hop aboard a 25ft barebones aluminum craft with a sunroof stuffed with lifevests. It bounces over the surface, crossing from clear dark water to vegetation-floating sediment-filled Rio Branco as we head toward a village across the way.
We get in a van which takes us to our riverboat on another branch somewhere. I'm seized with an immediate need to jot notes:

Big black birds hunch in trees like enormous fruits of the papaya family. The air is thick and heavy, and the sun is strong.

A heron stands out stark white against the green.

Fishermen in long flat boats patrol their aequeous farmland.
The river lifestyle is another version of existence that appeals to me, and I renew my interest in checking out the Mississippi or Missouri rivers for a period of work (and adventure!) Mark Twain style.

The van splashes through segments of river that felt no reason to cow to the might of the road, instead flowing directly over the asphault in a shallow tumult.

Staring fixedly out my window, I wonder how different the view is on the other side of the van. Let's switch sides for the ride back, so I can see your experience! Immediate realization: if we switched sides and directions, I'd see the same thing as before. Lesson learned: unthinking desire to see the other angle forcing experience can merely enforce bias and same-old-lens-looking.

In a field of grass and water, cows pepper the dry spots amid scattered palm trees, ruminating the spongy tufts. How do they not sink on their spindly legs?
A vulture sits on every fencepost idly watching passing traffic. The living scarcely interest them.

Every building has a natural moat. This road is remarkably smooth and well maintained, which makes sense if one considers the amount of shipping coming through here.

Fences, barns, gates all reminiscent of any ranchland, except stuck firmly amid fields of water. A palomino horse grazes on an island of grass beside a big willow. Three boys in a skiff pick fruit with a long pole.

When we pull off the paved road onto a dirt path, the wind stops blowing on my face, and sweat immediately prickles my skin. I want to be barechested with a machete slung over my shoulder and a floppy hat drooping over my ears.

Bom dias; piles of food; danger waves

2009-06-30T00:28:00.003-05:00

22-24 Jun 2009

Sucked down the vortex of transit, we've finally arrived in a comfortable spot in Rio. The pounding surf sooths feet and ears, both weary from extended travel. The sea breeze is cool and refreshing, and the lights of the city twinkle on as a few final stragglers finish evening jogs and thought-clearing strolls.
To the north, island mountains resist the tide, majestic and aloof. A freighter skirts a reef, aided by a lighthouse. Far out an oil rig glitters to life, marking the horizon with the glow of industry.
The ocean calls to me; beckons and heralds adventure. More and more my resolve thickens to join a maritime crew for an era. Who knows if I'll ever follow through?
After a night spent on the uncomfortable confines of hard plastic chairs in the terminal--a power-tripping security guard felt the need to wake me up off the floor to enforce his rules--we finally figured out the Portugese cash machines and found a bus to Rio de Janeiro. Portugese is a gorgeous language, mixing the flowers of French with the rigor of Spanish, some Italian charm, a dash of German and the shh of something ancient.
Darkness falls over Copacabana beach backlit by streetlights, and night awakens in Rio. There's a life and vibrancy about port towns that appeals to me, perhaps in a similar vein as the amorphous zeal of academia: the ocean does not allow stagnation. I'm beginning to fall in love with Brazil...

The graceful bulk of Christ the Redeemer statue rises up over Rio with arms extended in welcome. Enormous in proximity, it's an imposing feature atop a sheer hill in the middle of the city. Overlooking the busy beaches and bustling Rues, it's the center of a thriving tourist industry with 30-degree train tracks chugging up through jungle verdure.
Old and young crowd together for a multitude of reasons from pure curiosity to deep religious devotion, and the outspread arms of Jesus envelope all with (we hope) no predispositions. The wind buffets this exposed peak, and far below, Rio spreads peacefully.
It's a city I could grow to adore, with beautiful beaches, gorgeous women, and a lovely language, organized well and lacking much of the hopelessness of many South American cities. People work here; salesfolk let their wares sell themselves; and a greater variety of goods abounds.
Of course, there is still crime, and we were accosted on the beach in the evening by a "jogger" who turned out to be strapped. Fortunately we had been wise enough to bring only flipflops and books, neither of which hold much appeal for such slimy limbless leeches.
If I could find a source of income, I could easily pass many happy days here. I wonder how many times I've written a variation of that sentence in this book.

We head to an all-you-can-eat spot for dinner with some folk from the hostel, which proves to be my best meal yet in SA. Waiters scoot around with skewered meats, stopping by to carve slices. Beef, elk, chicken hearts, sausage, lamb, and various others vie for space with creamy vegetable dishes, cheesy rice, sushi rolls, okra, eggplant, marinated hard-boiled eggs, stews, fried bananas, and more. My mouth waters thinking about the gluttony-appeasing spread, and I long to overindulge myself once again.

On Copacabana beach, Marco of Sweden and I try body-surfing on the large waves until the roiling breakwater deposits me face-first into the hard sand. It looks like I've been punched by a south-paw, and Jess promptly makes fun of me for mirroring BMock. While I stifle a headache, we stroll along toward Ipanema beach, which is not as nice because the buildings are closer to the water.

Marco has a conversation with an Argentinian expat who no longer speaks much Spanish and very little English about buying a sailboat to sail across back to Europe. Rune of Norway talks about finding an apartment in Rio on his next vacation from his job as a money transporter. His charges have self-destructed twice during his career. He's now on his way to a Magic: the Gathering tournament, which after his description sounds like something I should check out again.
Marco convinces me to look into teaching English in South Korea, which he did for four months (and not even a native speaker!). He's perhaps served my salvation from languishing at home either broke or as a waiter, both tail-tucked capitulations. Eff that!

Arrival in Santiago; dazed and confused; big-city splendor

2009-06-20T16:13:00.002-05:00

The city bustles at an unimaginable pace after the languor of a day's worth of hours on a bus. Add to that the fact that I've been in the desert or camping in mountains for the past two weeks, far from the anonymous frenzy of metros and traffic and heads-down hive-dwellers hurrying hither and thither, and you have a pretty good picture of me standing still as the world vibrates around me, trying to read the signs on the wall.
A crumpled slip of note paper serves as my map, and the thin canvas of my Chuck Taylors is already soaking up rainwater. Through glasses spattered with drizzle, I spot the metro line designated as mine, and shuffle toward it. My face feels greasy, and my clothes are dirty. I am well aware of how much I stick out, a grungy nomadic alien in this land of ties and blouses and closet space. And yet nobody looks my way as I penguin-walk in line up to the ticket window and gesture, "Uno." The girl behind the glass makes my change and shoves my ticket through the partition by pure rote, bored numb and longing for the magic hour to strike home.
Over-conscious of my shabby condition, I try to stand with my chest out, confident and proud to be here, though mostly lost and suddenly homesick for a ragged hostel somewhere on the fringe of civilization.
The train lurches, and I double-check the station. Three stops. Hanging from a handle in the ceiling, I catch my reflection in the window. Not too bad after all: just another body in this flood of individuals. At each stop, people get on and off, trading places for a flash in time.
It strikes me that I could be anyone or no one here. Big cities have that quality, blank slates for me to fill in with whatever chalk I choose. With time and inclination and wherewithal, I could thrive in such a place. Thrive, that is, until time gets the best of me, and my heart yearns for flight.
The train is ramarkably smooth and fast, and in a trice, its doors hiss open, and I see on the wall Republica in big bold red letters. I hop to and step onto the tiles as the train zips away behind me down its tunnel. My head on a swivel, I follow the general flow, looking for the proper exit. Another traveler, who I'd mistaken as a local, now seems as lost as I, and I feel a warmth of momentary kinship: I'm not the only one.
Ah, there it is. Into the wet night air, mumuring with honking horns and splashing tires, buzzing neon and muted speech, sirens wailing, dogs barking, doors slamming, songs singing food frying steps falling...all the sounds of humanity echoing in one cacophonic hum; the voice of the city. Mezmerized, I continue walking down the wring street until I recognize my error with a dearth of surprise. Wandering lost without knowing it is, i've come to find, my wont, and I duck into the nearest open store to ask for directions.
Ten minutes later, a newly bought bottle of wine tucked under my arm for my hostess, I'm once again on the right track, and now it's time to wait.

Chile crossing; a friend; bucked by bureaucracy; parting ways

2009-06-18T14:56:00.003-05:00

16/6/09 Halfway Day

On the bus internacional at 4am, I saw a kid about my age in whom I recognized the same lost look I expect my own face reveals on a regular basis. Though I did not initially make contact, preferring to stew alone in my border-crossing self-pity, I eventually asked him the date while filling out my immigration card. He told me it was the fifteenth, which he later corrected.
After the bus filled up with women loaded with cartons of cigarettes, we both discovered we´d forgotten to pay the terminal tax. He took my money and ran off to the office to make the purchase, which allowed me to avoid squeezing past the corpulant woman sharing my tiny bus row. He returned with my change and tax ticket.
The cross-border ride was a demonstration of sidestepping bureaucracy. The women handed out cartons of cigarettes to other travelers, since each migrant can only bring two. For some reason the bus waited at the border for at least a half hour while empanada vendors vied for space with people selling sodas and other treats. Finally we made it through to Arica, after I passed through customs with nary a question apart from, "American? What´s up dood?"
In the terminal, I decided to purchase a ticket for San Pedro de Atacama instead of straight to Santiago. Promised mountain biking trails might´ve had something to do with my decision. Lonely Planet helped me figure out what to do in Arica while waiting ten hours for the next (only) available ride to San Pedro, and I strode into the morning sun to look for a coffee house.
At the colectivo busstop, I saw the kid also waiting, so I decided to make more friendly contact.
"Is this where we catch the bus to the plaza?" I asked in Spanish, hoping he knew more than I did.
"No se," he replied, "soy extranjero tambien."
I asked where he was from.
"Peru."
Turned out he had been in Baghdad for two years with the Peruvian marines whose job was security at the embassy and for checkpoints. My curiosity took over as we boarded the colectivo headed for the center of town, and I grilled him about the experience.
"What are you doing in Chile?"
"Looking for work. Any work."
After Iraq, he´d quickly blown his savings in Lima, and now he was on his own. Peru cannot afford pensions. We wandered around town, settling in a likely cafe where I ordered espresso and cake. Luis ordered tea. He told stories of mortars and IEDs, including one US soldier who didn´t hear the warning sirens and took a lethal load of shrapnel because of a pair of little white earbuds.
At his checkpoint post, he worked on his English. He knows Stallone, Schwartzenegger, Segal, and CSI. He told a different version of the Blackwater fiasco which made much more sense than our media-washed drek. Apparently the convoy had been approached from four directions by "civilian" cars, one of which lobbed a grenade under the client's vehicle, while other Iraqis opened up with RPGs, bringing down a Blackwater chopper, killing four.
Now, when he hears a car backfire or a siren sound, he instinctively ducks for cover and laments the loss of comforting weight around his chest and at his hip. He was a pretty good shot, he said, though they only practiced every few weeks. The protein-heavy American food helped him put on muscle--which has since shrunken again to standard Peruvian girth, he laments with a grin. Plus all that equipment was like lifting weights nonstop.
We talked of lost loves and future plans and gorgeous passersby as the bustle on the street increased toward midday. In Peru, he said, it´s common for friends to steal novias during tours of duty. Goddamn leeches, we both agreed. I taught him the word "cunt."
The Peruvian military, I was surprised to learn, also has obligatory post-combat psychological counseling. Luis said he no longer has trouble sleeping. I couldn´t help but wonder if he told the truth.
When he asked what my parents did, I responded with my usual line, but with a heavy twinge of guilt. My mom´s a--como se dice?--a nurse, and my dad is a carpentero. His eyes lit up.
"Maybe someday, if I can save some money, your father can have some work for me in the States?"
"Si, claro," I nodded.
We paid our cafe bill and strode off toward an enormous outcrop of brown rock--El Morro de Arica--where, Luis told me, a famous battle took place in 1880 between Chile and Peru. Apparently a foolhardy Chilean officer rode his horse directly off the cliff while charging a group of Peruvian footsoldiers. We stood at the top overlooking the pier, talking about travel and maritime affairs and the smell of the sea. A small war museum featuring several Maxim machineguns and a few dioramas amid musket displays led to historical topics and more war discussion as the sun began to beat down.
Vultures soared past lazily as we watched boats maneuvering into port so far below they looked like bathtub toys. I expressed my longing to join a crew for a while: an adventure! Then I briefly felt guilty for talking of adventure when most would be eternally grateful for a chance to work. He chuckled politely, and we made our way back down.
"Let´s walk around and see if any stores are hiring," I suggested. We talked about futbol and swimming on the way down.
The first place we checked had a sign asking for guardias. Hell, I figured, he´d been a guard in one of the worst places on Earth. They´d be bound to hire him.
Nope. Need to be bureaucratically licensed.
How much for the classes?
40,000 pesos and two weeks.
Luis shook his head. He couldn´t possibly afford certification. Oh shit, I realized, his purchase at the cafe, though frugal, was probably astronomically frivolous. I briefly imagined fronting his tuition--but I cannot. Instead, I resolved to treat him to dinner at the end of our search.
We checked in at an employment office located on the second floor of a shady building. Closed.
A construction site seemed a likely bet. We sauntered up to the entrance, just beginning to feel the heat and lengthy walk. They sent us to another site, some dusty blocks away. There they told us he´d have trouble as a non-citizen, and he´d have better luck going to the immigration office first.
To give our feet a rest, we rode a colectivo. Then began a wild-goose chase over a span of several back-and-forth kilometers, dozens of directions asked, another taxi ride, misdirection by a lad who mistook "inmigracion" for "investigacion," and more blocks walking on exhausted and famished feet, finally ending up at the local government building only to be told the blasted bureaucracy was closed and he´d have to wait til tomorrow at 8. Meanwhile, Luis couldn´t afford a room, and I was due to depart the city on an evening bus.
"Listen, amigo," I said, "Let´s go eat something--my treat--and then we´ll part ways."
He hesitated.
"Permiteme comprarlo. Next time you´ll be the one with dinero, and I´ll be the one with nothing. Then you can buy me dinner. Bien?"
He laughed and nodded, knowing as well as I did it would never happen. Pay it forward, I said, though I´m not sure his grasp of English was sufficient for the message. We exchanged emails after dinner, and shook hands, promising to write. I caught a taxi and rode off, as he sat on a park bench with his dun-colored backpack.
Buena suerte, amigo. Good luck. It´s a rough world, but you seem to me the sort who can make it. I hate to picture you as one of those fallen characters pasted to a sidewalk squar, hands outstretched with a quiet look of lost longing.
So I won´t.

2009-06-15T20:11:00.002-05:00

I lost my hat.

A sense of spirit; an ancient pulse; savage longing

2009-06-13T15:36:00.008-05:00

11/6/09 Machu Picchu
Looking down on the ruins from atop Wayna Picchu (the conical mountain behind the National Geographic classic photo) as lizards scamper over sun-warmed rocks, I can easily see why the city was considered important. It´s nestled on a shoulder ridge surrounded by the safety of a ring of higher mountains like an insurmountable wall. From the lookout tower up here, an attentive sentry can see everything, and can easily warn the corresponding tower in the city by way of mirrors and smoke.
Wayna Picchu served as a lookout post replete with its own agricultural terraces and a dwelling. Who lived up here? For how long? Was it onerous or honorable? I can imagine youth being trained for the position gazing with envy at the bustling city below. And I wonder...is it sacrilegious to pee up here?

The overall layout takes perfect advantage of the topography, with terraces cutting down into the forest, and the king´s house—the only one with a private toilet—in the middle below temples to moon, sun, and sacred animals. A main path crosses the terraces and temples at a diagonal, providing a direct route from the Cuzco trail across to the town square—or maybe it´s a sport arena.
Machu Picchu itself vibrates with energy from the perfectly squared stones, to the Condor Temple with its carved statue whose wings are massive diagonals of natural rock. In its tunnel stomach, offerings of coca leaves, fruit, and money.
The centerpiece, a block carved to show the solstices and representing both geographical and magnetic north, is surrounded by tourists hoping to feel the ancient pulse. Here and there, miniature mountains are carved to represent and symbolize the surrounding mountain altars—and to serve as points of worship for those too old or sick or young or wounded or pregnant or lazy to climb the peaks.
The Inca people clearly cared immensely for this place, perfecting masonry in the important buildings; tending gardens and agricultural terraces; erecting temples to the various sacred creatures and natural gods; bringing a water channel from a spring high in the surrounding peaks; and staying hidden and unscuffed for centuries—until a white man found the overgrown ruins and opened it for the world´s shutters.

Even as I hop around greedily taking pictures, I feel like a trespasser, exploiting for my edification, exploited for my wallet.
The city is incomplete, with a large granite quarry in the middle, and building blocks still bearing pegs for carrying. They built the architecture right from the bedrock, prying blocks along natural fractures and building around the sources. It must have been quite a process demanding the effort of all the people. I wonder how much worship was possible amid incessant construction. I guess some things never change!

What exists of the city has not yet been fully uncovered, says our guide, who is knowledgeable and worthwhile. He points out the buildings and their likely meanings, hollering to demonstrate the sonic design of the priests´meditation temple. He cautiously mentions San Pedro cactus and ayahuasca, testing the group´s temperament. Facing a blank response, he skips past, but I can imagine the spiritual glory of psychoactivity in this holy place. How I long to be here alone with myself, far from the clatter of cameras and murmur of people who´ve traveled so far for this. When I close my eyes and feel the breeze, I can almost imagine it.

One always must wonder about the reliability of the information presented—most is guesswork or based on the writings of the Spaniards who arrived as disinterested and indiscriminate conquerors, rather than respectful scholars. But hell, the stories surrounding the place are important in their own truth, no matter factual accuracy.
Most intriguing is what caused the Inca people to abandon this place in the middle of perfecting it. Disease? Invasion? Schism? Aliens?
Assault from without seems highly unlikely, unless the sentries were corrupted. Plus no archaeological evidence of battle has been found. Perhaps the gods simply weren´t pleased.

The Incas must have been in excellent physical shape, racing along paths between here and their capital at Cuzco (ten days' walk), climbing the terraces and the staircases to temples, day-to-day living, building, dreaming.
So in tune with nature and tranquil self-reflection—and yet aggressive and warlike. Humans are so strange in our duality. I do not want to leave. It feels sacred and home-like, and I wonder what sort of connections other people on tour here feel.

Improbably, a storm gathers as I get back down the mountain to Machu Picchu. I take shelter in the shadow of a domicile, watching the clouds roil over the peaks. The rumble of thunder mingles with a distant train whistle. This place is truly magical, once I get past my anti-crowd bias (it helps that most of the crowd has already dissipated). For the time being, I´m left alone among those strands of the past who dwelt here, ate here, lived, loved, and laughed here—and eventually left, abandoning the stones to decay and restoration.

Who gazed off into the peaks 600 years ago? Who watched stormclouds approach from the west? Who rested against this wall after a long day of labor? Who longed to be anywhere but here, in this small-town area, longed to escape the confines of family and expectations? Who first saw this spot in the wild and decided to tame it in the names of the condor, the puma, and the snake? Who was last to leave its spiritual comfort when the time came to uproot—and did he turn back a moment to take it all in and lament its demise?

Really a remarkable place. Though my train time approaches, I desperately want to stay. How much would the people have expanded development? All the way down to the river? So crazy to see the incomplete sections—piles of natural slabs of granite—and envision their transformation to walls and footpaths. So much I want to write and capture, but no time nor mental organization!

A dream

2009-06-13T15:10:00.002-05:00

Just awoke from a strange and memorable dream. I´m with my brothers on some beach wth heavy waves, and we´re playing a game--very competitive--which involves diving into the breaking surf to collect floating colonial Lego men (there may also be other Lego bits--perhaps a wrecked Lego cargo ship--but only the white-crossbelted figures count).
At one point, incongruously, my round is interrupted by the danger of a semitruck rolling in with the tide immediately after Dan´s turn--which is momentarily scary as my view of him getting out of the water is blocked by the truck. But it soon vanishes, enabling the game to continue.
The competition is hot,and the tide is intensifying when a kid about our age pproaches, saying something about a beach rule which dictates (oh blast, it´s getting hazy!) something preventing our game--to me it seems an absurd rule which need not be followed--so we´re polite and nod. He goes back about his business.
The rule is some kind ofthing requiring participation in something which should be strictly voluntary, and in my opinion would only be enforced by wankers, but the kid is insistent, continually interrupting our game, which starts to annoy me. He´s one of those rule-sucking holier-than-thou social-antactivists whom I just love.
At some point I realize I´ve been swimming naked.
The kid gets angry, demanding we join the rule-bound whatever, and acts tough as if trying to provoke a fight. So I respond, stepping up saying,
"Alright toughguy, let´s do this. Plant one," I offer my chin, "first one´s on me."
He is ruffled, but not yet surrendering.
"Fuck it, you want some?" I drop my towel and go after him, swinging free. Unprepared as bullies are for any kind of active defense (especially when the opponent is naked), he backs down, dropping level with his cronies.
"You boys want some too?"
They cannot touch us. Even in the unlikely event of a melee, if they got through my front line, I´d simply summon my brothers to the fray and turn it messy.
One guy who reminds me of a kid I know from middle-school actually has the nerve to advance, but I quickly dissuade him, and the situation is over as I wake up nearly laughing.
Aside from the obvious friendly competition and cocksure behavior, I have no clue as to the meaning of this dream. Why was I unable to recognize the absurd circumstance as a dream and become lucid? What does it all mean in Jung/Freud interpretations? Perhaps further thought may shed some ligh, because it was quite vivid and though has, of course, faded, it still sits strikingly in mind. Perhaps you have an interpretation to offer?

tourism; machu picchu anticipation; camera envy

2009-06-13T14:42:00.002-05:00

Cuzco has been fun, though overrun with tourists nd the ubiquitous corresponding salesfolk with unbelievably pushy tactics: "Pase, amigo!" Goddamnit, I can see that you have sweaters and socks ad hats and gloves and pipes and paintings and typical Peruvian goods! Now leave me alone while I browse your wares. It´s enough to drive a gringo MAD, though I suppose it´s a fair tradeoff for our incessant intrusion.
I succumbed to a tour agent who took advantage of my lost look upon arrival as I searched for information on Machu Picchu. He succeeded in convincing me to put my faith in their hands, and in truth, I only dropped about $20 extra for the convenience. Not too bad, when you consider I now have all the details in one organized packet including train tickets, bus tickets, entrance tickets, hostel tickets, etc tickets.
Tomorrow morning I wake up at dawn to head out. Hopefully it will be worthwhile and spiritually inspiring. For now, I´ll spend time and money in this tourist trap Agua Calientes, filling up the rest of my gift list and taking part in the gringo throng.
The trainride here reinforced my longing for a nicer camera and the skill to snap sweet shots. I sat across from a French-Canadien photographer with lovely equipment who captured beauty in the most mundane of frames. My measly megapixels, I fear, will serve me poorly in Machu Picchu and especially in the Brazilian rainforest--but hell, I have to say, everytime someone brings up that old axiom about photos vs words, I think about what I can capture in 1000 words, and it beats the hell out of any picture which is restricted by time to a frozen instant in two shadowed dimensions. Show me any picture, and I´ll capture its entire essence and much m ore in less than 1000 words.

I´m sitting here stuffing pizza down my gullet, having been hoodwinked/convinced to eat here by a pretty young sales-savvy lass who made a special enticing offer of the largest-size pizza for 25 soles. When I hesitated, she added a glass of wine to sweeten the deal.
Now I´ve spent 3x what i had intended on food, though the fare is much much better than what i was prepared for. I often wonder, when I haggle, if i´m even achieving any benefit to myself or simply less loss. I´ve become good at it, but i still have a sneaking suspicion I´m still the one coming out on bottom. I spend the rest of the evening chatting with the brothers running the restaurant and watching Peru lose to Colombia before retiring to bed at 9.

2009-06-08T17:19:00.002-05:00

Don Donato Palomino loves to tell stories. His brown face crinkles when he talks, a roadmap to what he is saying. With a gnarled knuckle, he rubs the sparse grey stubble on his chin, reminiscing about a French woman and her husband who were robbed at gunpoint in Haraz. She was four-months pregnant. He found out about it, Don Palomino, and paid for them to visit his home in Lima where he teaches bible school--telling stories. There, he and his wife fed the couple and took them to the airport to catch the sad, defeated flight home.
People, says Don Palomino, sometimes come upon hard times, which force them into horrible behavior. No excuses, but instead motivation to work toward a better future.
He pulls a pocketwatch from his fleece sweatpants and shuffles into the house to check on something. Inside is cool and quiet, like a cave. On a careworn table, a map sprawls, held in place by a rock on each corner. Spidery handwriting indicates places and suggestions and riddles for travelers. Earthenware jars full of candies and tea and coffee and sugar line the walls next to dried coca leaves to help travelers with altitude. A National Geographic sits on a shelf near three books and a bible. A straw hat hangs over the heavy blue door. Potatoes dry in the corners on cheesecloth on the concrete floor.
This first house, he says, he and his wife built before they knew how. Chickenwire holds plaster in place over the skeletal 2x4 structure. Here and there, birds nest in the holes where plaster succumbed to the elements. The other house was built properly with stones and concrete.
Vacation homes. Oases for hikers and cash-drained travelers to pitch a tent for free on the front lawn at the foot of the mountains. Lima is six hours to the east. Here is the gateway to Huascarán National Park. Here is a piece of heaven.
A chest-high stone wall protects the garden from roving cattle, behind which Señora Palomino collects eucalyptus for firewood. The houses are set in the hillside facing north. A brook flows across the yard, giggling at all hours.
Years ago, Don Palomino and his wife went to Jerusalem to visit. After that they returned to the Quechua land of their ancestors and set up this haven which they visit on school holidays. Señora Palomino knows where Michigan is: she has a friend living there who comes to visit every couple years.
Don Palomino likes to talk about poetry, about Walt Whitman and Ruyard Kipling. The latter name he barely struggles over. Hojas de Yerba, he mentions with a chuckle. And El Viejo y el Mar--Hemmingway.
He shoos away an inquisitive dog, and stares off toward the peaks. The world is a tough place for some people. Always the good with the bad. Thieves and Saints. He chuckles again. Una pelicula, he says; Lo Bueno, Lo Malo, y Lo Feo.
While here in Pitec, Don Palomino works on his lesson plan and catches up on his reading, far from the chaos of Lima, in this garden of peace and tranquil solitude--interrupted occasionally by passing hikers all with their own stories to tell.
Don Palomino loves to chat.
His eyes squint when he ponders a riddle, corners folding into lines of poetry. Hands in his pockets, he kicks a stone off the stoop.
Asi es el mundo, he agrees, shouldering a knit bag and slowly walking down the valley toward the sunset. That´s the world.

Camping in Huascaran, checkmate, freezing mountain air

2009-06-06T12:14:00.002-05:00

3/6/09

Freezing in Huaraz! We step off the bus, dodging taxi drivers and hostel advertizers and sales folk, watching breath fog. Where the hell are we?
The bus has dropped us off inside a brick-walled courtyard at 6am. As we step out onto the street, dodging even more persistent taxi drivers, the first green light of dawn glows over the mountains
Spencer and I each buy a pair of gloves from opportunistic locals making the most of the cold and the arrival of unprepared tourists. Ignoring the more aggrtessive taxi drivers, we walk toward the town square, following the directions of...someone.
"How cold is this?"
"God, I don´t know. Really cold."
"It´s not just not warm. Or cool."
"No. It´s actually goddamn cold."
We sit huddled on a bench in the square waiting for the information office to open at 8. It´s 6:45.
"Is this how it gets in Michigan in the winter?"
I snort.
"No, California boy, it gets much colder. Snow everywhere and all that shit. You´d die."
But it is cold here. The coldest I´ve felt so far in South America (excepting of course, on top of Cotopaxi).
I jump around, putting on all my clothes and trying to stay warm--lamenting the loss of my warm clothes and suddenly realizing I was also without a sleeping bag. Dangerous in this climate. Yet another cost of the theft.
We find a restaurant just beginning to open and sit inside enjoying empanadas, piña juice and soup. Much nicer than shivering on a bench.
Afterward we spend some time grocery shopping and inquiring about Huascarán National Park. Tour groups offer four-day adventures which sound spectacular until we hear the price. Nope.
Just rent me a sleeping bag and we´ll pitch our tent where we can.
We also start playing chess--adres--which Spencer is much better at. It´s a great game, and I wonder why I have not gotten more into it.

The hiking is difficult in the altitude, and the sun has come out in full equatorial thin-atmospheric glory. To top off the sweaty sunburned shuffling, our equipment is hardly up to the task. My Peruvian-knit knapsack has shoulder-slicing straps whose threads seem bound to break at any moment. It´s full to brimming with all my worldly possessions, topped off with cans of food and a rented sleeping pad (oh how I miss my good ThermaRest!) and tied off because the buckle doesn´t reach. Across my chest thumps my shoulderbag with books and other temporarily useless sundries. In my hand is a sleeping bag stuffed in a compression sack weighted down with 5L of water whose nylon straps threaten to cut through my fingers. On my feet, a flat-soled pair of Chuck Taylors. A far cry from the passing hikers decked out in the latest REI fashion with hiking boots and poles.
We eventually stop in a field to pitch our tent and relax for the rest of the afternoon. Locals pass by with mules and cattle, heading for Huaraz. One lady offers us some Quetchua corn. Ignoring paranoia about tresspassing, we set up camp, squatting in this field--owned by someone--surrounded by mountains, fresh air, and eventually, no people.

The next morning finds us waking up at...some time, eating dried fruit, nuts, and yogurt, and breaking camp in a bit of a rush: a farmer has already wandered over to bid us buenos dias (but happily, no more).
We hike on toward Pitec, arriving around 9, according to the camera clock. Pitec, it turns out, is one couple´s vacation dwelling--built and bought, the doña tells me, as a spot for travelers to rest, and as a checkpoint for lost wanderers. She and her husband Donato live in Lima (where he teaches bible school) but traveled to Jerusalem and met many Israelis (who make up a majority of world travelers), so they built their house and we4lcome people to camp out front for free.
Very strange and lovely--an oasis--in a place where even the babies are taught to be opportunistic and seek a dime whenever possible. Something gratis? Have we died and gone to heaven?

The next morning we stow our bags in the Palominos´ house and set off hiking up the mountains toward Laguna Churup. Though tough, the hiking is less strenuous than I expected, perhaps because we were free of the fearsome burden of our detritus, or maybe we just have lots of happy energy after discovering this place.
The sun isn´t too bad on my roasted flesh (I´ve borrowed Spencer´s sunscreen) as it illuminates the green hills and sparkles off the snowcaps. In no kind of rush, we stop every now and then for water and chess--Spencer always wins--and ruminate on some dried coca leaves which help with the altitude and energy. Beats RedBull any day, and tastes more or less like chewing tea. After about an hour:
The lake must be right above that waterfall, we both agree. Our steps get a bit more pepped as we scramble up mossy rocks and around mud puddles.
Finally the lake, surrounded by cliffs and backdropped by a snowy peak. Gorgeous. Crystal-clear, calm, and empty of people. We lunch on soon-stale bread and salami and play more chess.
Checkmate. I win!
For the first time, I´ve caught him. My strategic sense is awakening. All I need is practice. We stretch out in the sun, which eventually gets uncomfortable underneath my alpaca sweater, donned to protect my fair skin, and I decide to swim. Up the hill on the other side of the lake, maybe 300m from where we lie, is a field of alpine snow. The water is likely frigid. But hell, I´ll regret it if I don´t, right? Buy the ticket; take the ride. Plus it´s a lake, my professed favorite geographical feature. I´ve got to dive in.
I inform Spencer of my intentions and strip, handing him my camera. I tiptoe to the rock edge. Three feet below the water glitters, clear and inviting. No dangerous rocks below.
Okay. No hesitation. Here we go.
Step up. Swing my naked arms in the sun. One step forward...this is it...
I reach the point of no return and hover in the air for a split second before crashing through the surface. My muscles seize, my lungs freeze, and then I recover my senses and scramble for shore. Goosebumps prickle and teeth chatter, but I´m so glad I dove in. I drip dry for all of two seconds before deciding to put on my clothes over wet skin. Hell, I´ll dry in the sun. But the breeze kills!
We head back down to Pitec, ready to chill on our last night here, our last night together before Spencer heads home to the States, and I head south to continue the Journey.

June already?

2009-06-06T12:00:00.002-05:00

2/6/09
Wow. This month has really flown by, though it seems a lifetime has passed. Lima--or more specifically Miraflores--has rejuvenated my verve and pleasure in this trip after some discouraging experiences in Ecuador and through northern Peru. Goddamn leeches can´t keep me down forever.
The hostel in Mirafloras has been one of my favorites yet, rivalling Platypus as far as fun, accessibility, and atmosphere (and safety). Spencer showed up halfway through, and after hanging out for a while, we headed to Huaraz for some camping. Spending very little cash for a few days sounded pretty good.
I finally tried cuy (guinea pig) which was fun but very boney and did actually taste disappointingly similar to chicken.
Miraflores is a vibrant, youthful-energy town where I would like to spend lots more time if I were able to find a source of income. I took a few days to replace the necessary items--underwear, socks, toothbrush/paste, deodorant, shoes--and I´m now travelling much lighter. It´s liberating, if I don´t dwell on my lost stuff of sentimental (and monetary) value. My new Peruvian-design backpack is a piece of tourist junk compared to my other, and much less comfortble, but it´s also less bulky and awkward when boarding busses and taxis. Everything is at least dual in nature.

In central Lima, after buying our ticket to Huaraz, we were accosted by a fellow with the usual junk for sale. We were just shaking our heads when I spotted a flashlight among the cheap combs, pens, headphones, etc. He pulled it out, clicking it on and off to show us its wonderous capabilities.
How much?
Diez soles.
I said I´d buy it if he threw in three extra batteries. We needed a flashlight for camping since mine were gone (probably being sold elsewhere on the street for far less than their worth).
As we bartered, an older gentleman wandered up to watch. After listening to us for a bit, he asked in Spanish,
"Are you two from Argentina? or Brazil?"
The implications of his question are...

Miraflores. Youthful and bustling. Loving Lima?

2009-05-30T10:31:00.003-05:00

In my notes from last night I have written:
"Good choices:
This hostal
Playing pool
Starting up beer pong (jumping the gun to predict)
Buying this extra pen
Buying a bit of weed (though shady and scary as hell)
Knowing Spanish
Coming to Miraflores though mas carro
Learning Krav (though not superlatively happy yet--we´ll see)(Israelis)"

But now I´m a bit leery. It first struck me while people-watching on the balcony how fabulously perfect this place, Miraflores, is. Starting with the row of cars below, including an old white Volkswaggon Beetle, all parked halfway over the line as if by consensus. The streetlights sparkled on the roofs like studio lights. Everything is so brightly and cleanly illuminated, replete with a park full of kids playing, watched over by gossipy guardians--am I on a movie set?
A pisco-sour in hand, I can´t help but enjoy this, relaxing for the first time since...oh, since Cali! Regrouping in Lima--in this moment, I am happy.
But another deja vu strikes me, and another. Here I hear stories of dealers luring innocents to pseudo-police encounters, but with longer-term setups including gradually increasing amounts. Doubly scary because I just this afternoon tempted fate and bought some from a brother/sister duo who promised a good time in the club and a phone number in case of increasing interest. Very pushy and suspicious: I wanted out! Ready to run at a moment´s notice, notwithstanding anything.
After a jaunt on the roof with some Israelis and a McGuiver bong, I released a fair chunk of tension. Later, after absorbing everything a bit, I began to wonder what angle I wasn´t seeing, letting paranoia enter the fray. How can I not be suspicious when everything lately has been so mediocre or downright horrible? It feels like a setup.
Then Hsan enters the scene. A partial owner or manager of the hostel, he´s a suave cat who reminds me of Maxim, making all sorts of outrageous claims along the lines of owning an island on the Amazon, talking about setting up a hostel there on his 358 acres with horseback tours (led, of course, by me)...
We chill up in a room on the roof that resembles a dorm room with unmade bed, Bob Marley posters, disheveled clothes, Men´s Health (in Spanish), which he says is occupied by his brother who helps run the hostel.
He adjusts his cap--Royal Carribean logo now more visible--and I wonder how this can be, this guy who earlier promised to get me a job on a cruise ship. Who now claims to own tons of land.
Then a horrible thought strikes me: am I in a dream?
This is all so absurdly perfect, appealing to your deepest heartstrings, it must come from within, no?
Will I wake up tomorrow in a dark alley, crunching broken glass as I groan in pain? Gradually piecing together moments from reality? Spiked beer in the restaurant: Dealers take all...
Hsan introduces me to his brother, who tries to get me to bet money on pool. An obvious shark attempt. I never play for money. He ends up beating me, but I´m confident he intentionally blew some shots to set me up. Sometimes it all just lines up too perfectly.
Am I dreaming a new reality to compensate for the last few days of savage loathing? What if I can´t get out? Would I start dream-dreaming of reality, how I think it should be?
There is no way I believe any of what these folk are saying. My trust has been used up, I think. Am I just paranoid?
This place gives me the willies...or maybe that´s just the lifesized statues lurking in every corner. It´s just all too perfect. Strange and lulling.
So tonight--what dreams? Horror of stolen articles and exploitation? Get back to the comfortable reality? Finding comfort in similarity, not essence. Familiarity breeds love...along with contempt.
So what happens if I get stuck back again in the blood-drained and discouraged dreamscape, forced to imagine again something different...?
My phases of being/desire alive/to be waver in and out of different levels of reality. <--is the previous a successful representation of simultaneous thoughts? If I am dreaming, can´t I make it so, whether you like it or not? Again, stuck in a dream in a dream in a book, vascillating between, in narrative confusion. Unreliably unreliable.
Near the embassy, this place became my mecca after much exhausted hesitation. The promised pool table might´ve sealed the deal. It took me some time to find it, dodging traffic after an arduous embassy-block tour. But I arrive, grab a cue, and start chatting with the bar tender.
Lima is a beautiful ocean-front city. The conquistadors were smart, mourns the owner of a ceviche restaurant, though hated. He urges me to tell all my friends his place is the best ceviche spot in Miraflores. Easy conversations in Spanish. Things are looking up.
But my mindstream from last night brings up a complicated question: What is real?

My life on a bus. A sour turn. Arrival in Lima

2009-05-30T10:10:00.002-05:00

27-05-09
The thing i hate about this place and these people is that they immediately try to exploit anything breathing. No word of welcome; no time to think; no buffer.
The border crossing between Ecuador and Peru is essentially SET UP to fuck travelers. The exit office in Ecuador is a taxi ride from the border where you take another taxi to the entrance office where money changers swarm. Potential robbery everywhere in this sordid no-man´s-land.
And no cash machines near where the bastard took me to an exhorbitantly overpriced bus station which doesn´t even offer night rides to Lima. Where´s the central terminal? Nonextant.
FUCK YOU ALL you fucking savage bloodsucking leeches. Do you really wonder why your countries and your people are looked down upon and shat upon? Maybe grow some decency and hold off on the exploitation and lying to people just because they´re foreigners and might have money. How can you expect to come up in the world constantly dwelling on the bottom sucking scum at every opportunity?
Latin Logic means every man for himself NO MATTER the cost to others nearby or to dignity. That is the reason you shit-swallowing catfish will never make it into the first world. It´s not your skin color, it´s your savage and uncontrollable urge to make a penny at the cost of a dollar.
Fuck Peru. Why would I ever want to stay here and spend my money with a welcome like that?
Shortsighted little fleas. No wonder.
A border crossing in a civilized country is set up thusly:
A bus terminal. An exit office. The border. An entrance office. A bus terminal. Cash machines on both sides, no fucking taxis in between: instead a short walk of 300m MAXIMUM.
That increases security, improves welcome, keeps the maggots out, and overall benefits everyone (except the maggots).
What are they thinking?
They aren´t. Latin Logic, remember?
I never thought I´d long for the Canadian border crossing.

28-05-09
And then to top the motherfucker off, someone swiped my backpack from the cargo hold of the bus after I boarded.
Seriously. These fucking leeches. I want to watch them squirm in salt. I want to believe in hell just so I can imagine them rotting forever, tortured for eternity. I want to bomb this place to oblivion. I want to go home.
Alas, the bastard will probably profit immensely by hawking my poor goods because in this world, the truth is that crime does pay.
At least now I can travel light! And I have a slight financial cushion from the bribe paid me by the luggage handlers to keep from killing them. I should have taken far more than 600 soles ($200) but I didn´t have the heart. After all, I´m still much better off in the world than they are. Stuff can be replaced.
It´s just bewildering the things people are willing to do to each other, as if they can´t realize that we´re all human. How can they be devoid enough of sympathy to steal my stuff when I am obviously out travelling with my life on my back? What kind of twisted mind makes someone willing to take someone´s life--representative as it may be?

Mindflow in Latacunga 21/5/09

2009-05-30T09:57:00.003-05:00

Loud kids playing in the huallway in the morning inspires grumpy grumbling, but I have to get up soon anyway--and who can blame kids for playing? Surely not I, of all people. Not the kind of hypocrite I want to be.
So I smile instead of frown; listen instead of hug a pillow to my ears, and just like that--my attitude is happier, my morning brighter.
Deep mental control is a funny thing. Like learning to laugh when a toe is stubbed. Such things happen, so why let them be bothersome?
I should again reread Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence. And I should somehow obtain a motorcycle. And I should let my writing continue for a bit, free of formula. Stream of consciousness as it were.
I´m reminded of a question I had while discussing s.o.c. writing (s.o.c. like Socrates!) with Spencer: how much would what I write control my thought train, and how much would my thought train control what I write?
A balance. Libra.
Damn, but my pen can´t really keep up with my thoughts. Do we think in words? or rather concepts/ideas? How does thought work? I know the awareness of the idea springs well before my mind forms words around it. How to mesh the two?
Like stepping through my shadow of self--Carl Jung (must read more of hiw writing on aenima and conscious).
How do these indigenous folk think? What exactly is Latin Logic? Do they really think so differently in terms of analytical thought processes? Or is their system just so deeply rooted and convoluted (damn! but I would have loved to quick-think a rhyme word with deeply) that it guides their mores and behavior?
What a fucking trip all these folk gathering from all points to sell sell sell their wares--most everything a duplicate, true originality (everywhere) pretty well lacking. A rarity.
Like the people on the bus. Every stop, some vendors with fruit or chips or juice/water or candy, and one person with the heart-throb story about crippled children or blindness or government cruelty or other misfortune, passing out candy or gum or packets of vitamins, hoping to guilt-trip people into handing back bills instead of the item. Memorized speeches, practiced piety (whoops, took a full split second to think of that one), carefully crafted exdpressions of sorrow and pain...
Spare me.
I really ought to practice this straight stream of conscious--perhaps i can learn something of myself.
More cocoa? Or save the cash? What time is it? How much of my thought is questions? How much of a question rut do I get stuck in?
Okay, time to go.
Cotopaxi beckons.

Caressing the moon´s neck

2009-05-22T20:07:00.004-05:00

I finally decided to go ahead and drop $200 on a guided hike up Volcan Cotopaxi. Though a substantial hunk of my travel funds, to hell with it! No more hemming and hawing. This is big. Buy the ticket; take the ride.
At 5897m (19,347ft), Cotopaxi (meaning Moon´s neck in Quechua) is one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. Apparently its most recent eruption was in 1940.
At the tour office, after watching my stack of 20s disappear into a cashbox, we sort through rental gear, trying on boots, jackets, crampons, snowpants, et cetera mountain gear.
I´m joined by a couple from Holland and two guides, Joaquin and Juan Carlos. We hop in a rickety gas-reeking truck and head out north from Latacunga.
The park is a protected area, but mining companies have gotten around that pretty easily, as Joaquin points out. The soil is dark brown--almost black--and nourishes a thick variegated green carpet--except where more companies have planted pine trees for export to Chinese paper factories. What a world.
Other than the pines, we see cacti, agave, spiky grasses, and hundreds of other plants whose names are unknown to me. Not much fauna, though. Supposedly a few endangered condors make their home here, but we see none.
The road cuts through the volcanic sediment, which is very pretty. Lucky, because clouds obscure the cone, so at least we have something to look at over the rough road.
We get to the main park office to pay. I catch a glimpse of some indigenous women selling clothes. I hop out. How could I resist the opportunity to haggle for an alpaca-wool zip-up hoodie?
The truck labors up to the parking area from where we´ll hike a steep 200 meters to the refuge where we´ll eat, sleep, and then begin the true ascent.
A biting wind souses us with sleet in the parking lot as we struggle into the rest of our gear. Welcome to alpine activity!
Heavy boots with crampon tabs bang the shins and try to gobble socks. Gaiters protect pantlegs from snow. Tucked into the boots, thermal pants under waterproof snowpants. Three shirts (thermal, fleece, alpaca) stuff my pink jacket--hombres ciertos llevan la rosa!--whose pockets hold liner gloves and heavy-duty mittens. My already overheated head is hidden under a hat and two hoods. Hanging over my chest, a pair of sturdy sunglasses. The real gear, crampons and an ice axe, are strapped to my pack along with my sleeping bag and water bottle.
Geared up and good to go.
The ground rises up, heavy sandy gravel. Walking on it reminds me of the dunes back home: walk three steps, slide back two. At some point while watching my feet plodding along left right left right, I pass the cloud into the sun. Blood pounds in my ears, lungs wonder why I´ve given them such thin material to work with.
I stop now and then to take photos and check my progress (but really to catch my breath).
This is a strange landform. It´s more or less flat all around, and then BAM a volcano. None of the gradually ascending foothills I´m used to in continental-rift mountain ranges. The valley below is a deep mottled green. Beautiful.
Plodding, trudging, side-stepping, v-stepping. Ragged breath from my lowland lungs.
Juan Carlos trots past me, and of course, I try to pick up my pace--but to no avail. My blood is languid and sluggish. He soon disappears into the refuge--a yellow-roofed building with smiling windows and a welcoming patio.
Just a few more meters!
Plodding, trudging, side-stepping, v-stepping.
Finally inside. Warmth, rest. Foggy breath and people in winter garb playing cards and telling stories in several languages. Guides in the kitchen preparing food. Homey wooden tables, and a scuffed floor of pine planks. Bright windows and dozens of bunkbeds upstairs.
Outside on the patio, a beautiful view--when not obscured by cloudbanks--of the valley below and the snowcapped cone above. Doesn´t look too hard from here...
Atop the world, and not even there yet.
Back inside for the sweet relief of hot tea, crackers, and spinach soup. My body starts to get used to the altitude as the Dutch couple and I discuss higher education.
After lunch I move around the cabin snapping pictures and feeling very much the tourist--but fuck it: we´re all tourists here.
Naptime.
Can´t sleep.
A spaghetti dinner at six and some instructions in mixed English/Spanish from our guides. The gist: always listen to the guides, and the summit is not the most important aspect of this trip (bullshit!). I nod in agreement and ask very specific questions in spanish.
The sun heads toward retirement, silhouetting enormous purple anvil clouds in the west.
Naptime.
Too excited to sleep!
Eleven p.m. wakeup comes all too soon.
Out of the cozy sleeping bag and into the rented gear! Time to go.
The stars overhead are glorious, swaddled by the MilkyWay. I´ve already seen a shooting star. Not as cold as expected, but I´m grateful for the new alpaca.
Crampons and ice axes in hand, we start up the path toward the snow. Slow going--I long for the bite of crampons in ice.
Finally, the real fun begins. By headlamplight, we strap on our bootblades and scurry up the mountain. Lovely going--fresh legs; delighted demeanor. The snow sparkles like the sugar I scooped into my insta-coffee.
A quick lesson on self-arrest techniques before tying in, I with Juan Carlos, and the Dutch couple with Joaquin. The snow crunches; the stars twinkle. Mars watches our progress over the peak which is visible only as a space devoid of stars.
I´m loving every step.
This is dangerous--not because it´s unsafe, but because I´m quickly realizing that I could be enamored of mountaineering.
JC and I take the lead, stopping (and resting!) every so often to let the others catch up.
I prefer to hike sans headlight, but when JC notices, he scolds me and makes me turn it on. The stars vanish.
A storm rolls over us, blowing sharp snow and coating us with rime. We hunker in a hole and the guides bring up the possibility of turning back due to weather.
NO!
"My vote," I calmly announce, "would be to continue on, but you guys are the experts, and we´ll defer to your judgement."
But goddamnit I didn´t spend a tenth of my budget to almost summit Cotopaxi!
After a solid rest, we climb out and brave the blustery winds, ice axes at the ready and crampons kicking firm.
Turns out we have chosen wisely: the storm blows over, revealing the stars once again.
Oh my god is that...? Is it...? Really...? Yes.
When you see the Southern Cross for the first time...!
Then it´s driven from my mind by the steepest section yet. By this time I´m getting tired. Juan Carlos takes my ice axe as we wait for the others, and pounds it into the snow up to the hilt. Then he hooks me to it with an anchor and begins climbing a vertical section of about 30 meters of frozen snow.
I sit and rest, banging my hands together to get the blood flowing again. Everyone else ascends the fixed line between JC´s anchor above and mine below, and I´m left alone to watch the stars. Down below, the distant lights of Quito look like a lake of lava.
Then it´s my turn.
I expect a tight belay as I hack my way up the face, truly ice climbing! but the rope is a slack loop below me. I´m essentially free climbing ice...
Sweet!
At the top, warm and exhilarated, I hear Juan Carlos say in English, "Twenty meters more."
"Mentiras!" I scold. There must be more than that.
We slog up the final slope as the eastern horizon glows with the rosy promise of dawn. It´s a strenuous twenty meters (more like sixty--crosslingual numbers are difficult) but finally!
We´ve made it.
Hugs all around once the others reach us, and we greet the sun while keeping a weather eye on an approaching cloudbank.
No time to rest atop the world: gotta get down before the snow blows in earnest.
An uneventful and horribly exhausting descent, and home for hot showers and soft hostel beds.
Vale la pena? Claro!

for pictures see: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=48930043&id=2205691#/album.php?aid=2579641&id=2205691

2009-05-20T16:26:00.002-05:00

Having escaped the bloodsucking rotten soulless stereotype-fullfilling evil savages in Cali (what is one to do when the very force hired and endowed to protect people is out helping con-men scam terrified travelers out of their precious and dwindling funds?) I found myself in Popoyán with my friend Spencer.
Popoyán is a pretty little town in the southwest quadrant of Colombia where all the white Spanish-style buildings look much the same, which makes orienteering difficult.
We took a room in a hostel with nice dark wood floors, spacious quarters ancient furniture, and (of course) no toilet seats.
The landlady lacked enthusiasm, however.
In the evening, waiting for some friends to show up in a taxi, some Germans who were also staying at the hostel came up nd we all started talking.
An extremely drunk indigo ambled up and mumbled nonsense sounds as though trying to reproduce our English. he babbled and giggled and swayed while we ignored him.
Suddenly someone noticed a growing puddle of dark liquid at his feet, soaking his left shoe as he stood there.
What the hell? What kind of gross...wine? oil? urine? Oh Jesus--blood!
We crowded toward the door, initially hoping to escape without getting infected or attacked, but the German girl insisted we help the guy. She fetched a first-aid kit (replete with gloves) and we cleaned and bandaged a nasty knife wound across the middle two fingers of his left hand. He groaned and yammered in pain when I sprayed disinfectant on the cut, but kept asking for more--he knew what it was for.
He refused a visit to the doctor (drugs and money issues) so we bandaged the poor bloke as best we could.
As the tape was wrapping around his fingers, the taxi showed up with our friends.
They said, once we finished and got in, that most locals (including them) would not have helped the guy and he was lucky to have stumbled upon us. They said it was strange that we were so willing to help.
It´s a weird discrepancy between people here minding strictly their own business yet within an elevated level of community.
A couple days later I saw a bus full of strangers come together to confirm for the police that a boy was old enough to be on the bus without sitting on his mother´s lap.
Latin Logic is a funny thing.

Wax palms, a taste of the jungle, and windsurfing behind a jeep

2009-05-14T21:30:00.002-05:00

In the town square, we caught a jeep up to Cocora. All the seats were full, so we stood on the rear runningboard holding onto the roof rack.
What a trip!
Driving through the winding roads reminded me of windsurfing, how balance must be fluid and anticipatory as the jeep whipped through curves and sped over broken bits of road.
The road passed through the rolling valley, with Jurrasic Park fields, mountains, and vegetation all around us.
Tall trees lined the road like fenceposts--in fact, barbed wire was strung between the trunks to keep the cows off the road. Majestic wax palms rose up 150 feet and more, the tallest palms in the world.
More thickets of trees in the couloirs, and more cow-terraced slopes.
Dramatic cumulonimbus clouds swept overhead, dropping mists between the peaks.
I expected a stampede of little dinosaurs at any moment.
Before leaving town, women and children approached the busdriver with bags of food--lunch for their loved ones working up in Cocora. He declined payment. Heartwarming and culturally odd to see how community-oriented these folk are.
What a better ride we had than the folk stuffed in the sweaty enclosed interior of the jeep! THe rolling hills were so lush and lovely--so much green grows here.

In Cocora, we dismounted and proceeded on foot toward Acaime. For almost 5km, we walked through the valley floor, mostly through ranchland with fat cows grazing and horse-sign all over the path. THe path itself is likely a rushing creek in the wet season.
At some point, a German Shepard joined our journey. He behaved like our own dog, dashing ahead and returning to the pack, sometimes leading; sometimes following. A quick attachment of loyalty to guard our way.
After about two hours, we entered the jungle, walking along the shallow Rio Quindio through vines and ferns, slippery rocks and mud, waterfalls and stone steps. Cut logs crossed the river as bridges, though the remnants of an old suspension bridge caught my attention.
Farther along, an intact suspension bridge with split-log slats of various size and moorage crossed the river. Moss and lichens decorated every surface, giving it an ancient look despite the concrete pilings.
We left the path for a bit to explor a waterfall. The water was fresh and so sweet, but the rocks were dangerously slippery, and we were on a slight time crunch--last bus back to Salento at 5--so we climbed back to the path and continued up.
I wish I knew all the names of all the flora. Description fails me of the primeval plants and trees. Surprisingly few bugs bothered us.
The path crossed the river over logs several more times before we came upon Acaime. For 3,00 pesos (just over one dollar) travellers can enter the spread of a couple who keep hummingbird feeders and bell-shaped flowers all over their garden. Tiny birds whirred by our heads as we sat at a picnic table and the couple served us a hunk of hard white salty cheese dipped in hot chocolate. Much better than it sounds! especially after the 2.5-hour hike.
The dog waited for us outside the "hidden"mountain home where the couple thrives on the tourist trap.
But the whole was worthwhile, and in the evening, we returned to ride the jeep back into town, sitting on the roof this time, jouncing and jolting and clinging to finger-stiffening roof-rack handles, as twilight settled over the valley.
We picked up several pedestrians on the way--more community thinking--which would never happen in the States where one person sits alone in an SUV with windows up and doors locked.
What a place.
At the entrance to town, we had to get off the roof so as not to attract police attention. I guess cops are more or less the same everywhere.

Coffee plantation domecile, cont.

2009-05-14T21:22:00.004-05:00

Darkness falls. The buzz of nocturnal creatures hums over our headphone-blasting speaker setup. Food smells good. Conversation floats hither and thither as the lights of Armenia begin to twinkle and shimmer in the gloom. How far away?
Thirty minutes by bus--twisting and turning up mountain roads past military checkpoints--but maybe five miles or less as the crow flies.

Raw beans, we find out, take approximately ages to cook in chicken-and-mushroom soup broth.
But who's in any kind of hurry?
This is exactly where and when we belong.
What a crazy trip.
Turns out raw coffee beans, when plucked red ripe from the tree, are remarkably sweet and fruity...as long as you don't crunch ém too hard.

Cooking beans and vegetables straight in the can--I'm lovin' it.

We wake up the next morning to COCKADOODLEDOO! repeated several times until the rising sun streams through my eyelids. Fresh mountain air and the smell of woodsmoke from the plantation workers' cooking fire downstairs blend to stir the growling beast in my belly.
A tinge of envy--Spencer and I have four eggs between us to scramble in a tin cup over a little butane burner. With some hotsauce for flavor.
Clouds sit over the mountain, leaking down into the valley, cutting visibility. The breeze rustles the wide banana leaves as the dogs chase chickens around the yard.
The eggs are good, but we'll need some more sustenance before hiring a jeep to Cocora and then hiking a couple hours to see the wax palms.
Juan, the long-haired fellow who first met us here, ascended the stairs as we tied our shoes and adjusted our hats for the hike.
"Tienen cuadros?"
Our experience heretofore has taught us that this means paper. As in rolling paper.
My supply is dwindling, so I hesitate to give him a precious square for his cigarette--but i get a funny feeling, and dig through my stuff to pull one out.
He pokes and digs at his palm for a moment, and just as I realize what he's doing, out pops the fattest one-paper joint I've ever seen.
He sparks it and we sit next to the tent wreathed in smoke, rapping in rapid-fire and slang-filled Spanish about politics, the coming of the trout into the valley, the pros and cons of tourism in the village, Presidente Uribe, colombianas guapas, food, coffee-plantation work...and a hundred other topics which have slipped past me.
How many temporary and instantaneous friends have been made through the simple tradition of burning herbs? Que locura...

Coffee Plantation domecile

2009-05-14T20:54:00.002-05:00

A corrugated aluminum roof protects us from the spattering rain. To the west, thunder rumbles and lightning flashes into the mountain peaks.
So green and lush--trees grow in the couloirs along the slopes which are covered in grass. So different from the naked red rock of Colorado or the grey granite of Yosemite. Side-stepping cows have grazed de facto terraces into the slopes, which catch the shadows and seem to sing a sad song of almost-nature taken over by people.
A light breeze blows through the bamboo supports of the roof. We have pitched a tent on a raised platform of wood overlooking a coffee plantation owned by a jolly British fellow with a Homer Simpson Valdez T-shirt and a floppy brown felt hat.
After arriving in Salento from Armenia from Bogota, Spencer and I stepped off the bus into the town square. The Lonely Planet Guidebook suggested The Plantation House Hostel--but we planned to find a spot to camp. Cheaper that way.
The owner described two options: a campground down the hill by the river (for only a few pesos less than the hostel) or asking at a farm miles down the road if we could borrow some land.
We slogged our way downhill through a muddy rut full of tree trimmings and horse droppings. At a farm we stopped and asked, but the kid pointed us farther downhill.
By this time, we were hot and sweaty carrying our laden bags in the muggy heat. I just wanted some cool water and perhaps a dip in the river.
We considered just scouting a spot along the river and squatting--but decided against what would likely (in this day and age) be trespassing.
Another few hundred meters down the hill, we came upon another gate in the barbed-wire fence strung along the road.
"Buenas!"we called, entering. "Quien duena?
A tall young guy with long hair and dirty pants tucked into muddy rainboots led us around the corner.
A rotund middle-aged fellow with a short grey beard climbed awkwardly down some steps, blonde hijita in tow.
"Como esta?" we asked.
"Bien, bien."
"Buscamos un sitio para camping." We explained that the hostel owner had sent us down toward the river, but we wanted to make sure before hiking all the way down.
"Ustedes son de francia?"
"Oye no no! Estados Unidos."
"Oh!" he chuckled, gratefully switching to English. "So you guys are looking for a spot to pitch a tent, yes? Hm. Hm. Okay."
We nodded.
With his pleasant British accent, he explained that there wasn't much in the way of flat space--but we'd be welcome to stay up on a platform overlooking the slopes.
His little daughter of about three watched our interaction, now and then chiming in with a charming bit of garbled Spanglish.
"Just have to clear it with my wife first. Um. Hm. Okay. Yes." He scooped up the girl and went inside, leaving us to scope the platform.
A space of about 12'x12' made of 2x6 planks bordered by a railing of bamboo (which grew in a thicket farther down the slope). Like a lookout tower--in fact, we can see for miles in the space between the peaks toward another town (Armenia) in the valley.
Below, banana trees shade and sustain the coffe plants which grow out of the hillside. The main house below us is made of solid brick and plaster with a patio and a big cooking fire.
A machine for separating coffee beans from husks sits on the concrete slab. Crickets and birds chirp as the sun heads for the hills.
This spot is perfect.
A couple of collies trot over to investigate. Tim--the limey--has given us the greenlight. We'll negotiate cost later (not much, hm hm, he says)--and we're left to our own devices. Turns out Tim lives up at the Plantation House (which he also owns with his pretty little colombiana wife).
This spot is not in the guidebook. I am immensely glad we've stumbled upon it. This is the kind of adventure I have looked forward to--crashing in random spots of hospitality. This is the kind of place I'd like to spend time in, but alas--settlement is not on the schedule. Tomorrow we'll hike around looking for the tallest palm trees in the world, and after that--onward to Cali.

2009-05-09T14:10:00.002-05:00

Steve is almost forty. So I gather from his numb-lip mumbling. Stifling a sigh, I close my book around my index finger and grace him with my attention.
Apparently he´s been in the navy. Benn in the hostel about 30 days. Or so. Or almost.
A grim blond stubble decorates his soft chin, and when the breeze in the courtyard is just right, I catch a whiff of stale booze.
He sparks a Marlboro Rojo.
I ask what he is doing here, hoping to swing the conversation to a quick close.
"Here investing. Spread some money around. Six-fifty a month from the government."
I nod. Steve smokes.
"And free dentist visits. Hundred dollars for groceries. Yeah, it´s pretty great."
The way he smokes, I´d almost call it greedy.
This is not a GI-bill cat. Probably couldn´t even fake a high-school diploma. In a funny sort of way, he looks like Rudy from the movie. Camouflage cargo shorts above greasy black socks protruding from hiking boots.
Hasn´t bothered to learn a lick of Spanish.
Suddenly he starts talking about firewood. How his mind made the connection, I´ll never know.
"Five thousand pesos for all you can carry."
I don´t want to carry anything.
"But only in one trip. So let´s grab a bunch!"
No, goddamnit, I´m trying to read.
"Yeah, alright. I´ll help."
His eyes light up, pleased to have a friend. Turns out we´re from the same town.
In the rare moments when he is not talking, Steve´s lower lip is tucked in in a sad sort of reverse pout. His ruddy cheeks stand in lovely contrast to the hay-colored whiskers.
"I´ve already talked to Germán. He might let me put some money in."
Germán is the hostel owner. I decide not to tell Steve he´s already invested in the hostel. He wouldn´t get it.
"You ever been to Tucson?" Steve´s mumble has an odd breathless quality.
At least he´s animated.
"I haven´t been. I´d like to though..." This last slips out before I can bite my tongue.
"Tucson´s great, man. I can get you acid by the sheet."
Ah ha. Thus explained the mysterious electron-sporatic connections Steve´s mind makes. Psychonautic exploration is fun and healthy--in distinct moderation.
Steve might not know the word.
Outside the clopclop of a horse or mule and the unintelligable babble of Spanish via megaphone.
No one is listening, che. Lo siento.
"Yeah, so how old are you?"
"Twenty-two."
"Yeah, when I was your age I was out in New Mexico searching for peyote."
For the whole year?
"Never found it though. I got a whole book on hallucinogenic plants. Really cool, man."
This is the sort of dude who gives Nixon and his cronies the nearest thing to justification they ever could have had.
From what I´ve heard from some Choctaw friends, peyote buttons reveal themselves only to the worthy.
Sorry, Steve.
At the carpentero´s next door, Steve asks How much for the place.
I translate.
"Tres ciento millones." Por todo? Si, por todo.
A large courtyard full of scraps and unfinished projects. Solid wood and plaster construction. Even concrete floor. Sturdy lumber supports. Unbroken roof tiles. A mahogony table stands drying, waiting for a second coat of varnish. This man, Hernan, is a craftsman.
"That´s outta my price range," grunts Steve.
The courtyard is surrounded by several rooms. A good-sized bit of property.
12,000 U.S. If you can´t afford that, what the hell are you doing here investing? I don´t bother to ask.
Maybe I´ll try to assemble some capital. The place has potential--maybe a restaurant/cantina and some guest rooms.
Dangerous thoughts.
Finally Steve is satisfied, and we return to the hostel where I manage to slip away on some pretext. As I leave, he hunkers in front of the brazier to organize the scraps of fuel. Harmless and happy in his own little world.

2009-05-08T21:31:00.002-05:00

In the Museo de Oro in Bogota, there are an unimaginable number of ancient pieces of hand-crafted goldwork. The history is very interesting, including videos reproducing techniques for casting gold.

Apparently they used beeswax to design the piece, encapsulated it in soft clay which hardened in the fire (also melting out the wax) and then poured in the molten gold.

We wandered around the museum looking at all the pieces and talking about value and perception and antiquity.

On the third floor, the arrangement is slightly more pointed (and less linear!) talking about the indios cosmology and worldview. I was pleased to discover that they believed the universe consisted of multiple layers coexisting and interacting.

This led us into conversation about how our current (western) ideas are really rather backwards. Though we are technologically advanced, our worldview is quite infantile in that we believe everything we see is everything there is. In fact there are infinite dimensions, and we merely perceive three (though some people think they understand time to be the fourth).

This naturally led to discussions about psychedelics and trances and other transcendental mental processes--the museum also had a couple interesting displays of yopo and yage and coca.

Such mind-bending chemicals enable people to dip deep into our imaginations to see a bit beyond the mundane (even gravel is intensely beautiful with some psilocybic nudging), but the Establishment has always been fearful of such substances (hence Nixon and his drug czars rabidly pursuing LSD and other such substances that actually make people think differently about the world, but more or less ignoring the dangerous drugs that destroy people) because of the threat they pose to people's subservient and sheepish worldview.

Anyway, we wandered around the museum and into a circular room with a low ceiling. Suddenly the lights went out and the automatic doors slithered shut.

Encased in total darkness, we were a bit nervous, but a shamanistic chant emanated from hidden speakers, and a dim glow illuminated (and silhouetted) innumerable gold pieces from behind.

The lights cycled and moved, almost in a slow strobe. Some of the pieces looked like a flock of birds. Others were large discs. Some were arranged in spiral (a la the indigenous view of time).

I quickly lost my awareness of space, entranced as I was by the moving light and low rhythmic murmuring.

When the lights came on again, I felt somewhat dazed, though very calm and content.

I must, I once again resolved, develop some meditation/trance skills.

2009-05-08T21:28:00.001-05:00

folks, i welcome all comments...however, pretty please take credit. anonymity I do not dig.

2009-05-08T18:21:00.004-05:00

The sun slipped free of the horizon, chasing the darkness and illuminating a small figure seated cross-legged in the dirt in front of a wall of granite. A modest fire flickered shadows across his face as he peered closely at a bit of shiny metal held lightly in dirt-caked fingers.
Hunched as he was, the smoke from a clay jar between his feet billowed in his nostrils and streamed around his ears. Fragrance. Vision. Transa.
Screened off from the world.
His spirit soared with the smoke and he breathed deeply.
Overhead, beyond human sight, an eagle soared on thermals.
In the distance, muted by a thick grove of trees, the village bustled and hummed.
But the sage and yopo filled his ears.
He flipped the ingot in the air and deftly caught it in his teeth. A flat polished stone sat next to his hip and he shifted his weight so he could lean over it.
With the rhythm of the wind, he began pounding the ingot, spreading it like clay. After a while he gripped it between two clay rods and thrust it into the fire. When it was hot, he pulled it out, dipped it in water, and found his rhythm, rocking and pounding and pounding and rocking. Muscles rippled on his shoulders, and tendons stood out on his arms like vines in the trees.
Again he heated the gold and annealed it.
And again.
Until it was thin as a coca leaf.
He added another coal to the herbs in the clay pot, and squinted at the yellow disc. The sun was a full handswidth above the horizon now, and he held the gold up to compare.
As the thick white smoke filled his senses with fragrance and calm, he picked up a long sharp stone. The tip of his tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth as he scratched a design into the gold.
He positioned the sharp stone and tapped it with a rock.
tik tik tik
tik tik tik
tik tik tik
The sound echoed off the granite, mingling with the crackling fire and the hush of the wind. Briefly he closed his eyes and enjoyed the song. tik tik
A spiral emerged on the disc. He narrowed his eyes and rode the rhythm of the spiral until it joined with the eye and beak of an eagle.
He stopped tapping and glanced skyward. Somewhere, eagle was watching, searching.
When he could not see the bird, he returned to the gold disc.
tik tik
tik
tik
More gently, carefully now. Details. A feather. A nostril.
tik
He raised the disc to the sun again and smiled.
The smoke filled him with calm and soothing heaviness.
His feet had long since fallen asleep, and as he shifted, they were filled with a tingling pain. Momentarily worried, he glanced back at the sun. Angry? Had he made a mistake?
Suddenly the screech of the eagle tore through the stillness and all was well. He punched a hole through the disc, and rubbed the whole with sand til it shone with a splendor of life-giving brotherhood with the sun.
He lay back, stretched his legs, and absorbed the warmth like a lizard.

2009-05-08T18:21:00.001-05:00

5/1/09
almost 4:20 am

Oh my god.
So many memories. Unbelievable in scope and complexity!
Homie, I've had to pull into the old cemetary to have a good cry, man. My eyes brim up, obscuring my vision and making driving impossible.
Goddamn.
Some crazy times, man, from high-school friendly fencing up into an indellible development freshman year and stoop-smoking roommate-meeting before we barely knew each other.
I can't even fathom that I just said goodbye for possibly the last time ever. I hope not, but if there's one thing we've taught and lived by, it's that anything's possible.
Even now, my sorrow overwhelms me. You have been there for me through everything; through triumphs and tribulations, through ups and downs, summits and nadirs, girlfriends and lovers, arrests and graduations, fifths and forties and eighths and pints and quarts and grams and gallons and pussy and passion and sun and sorry and truth and lies and...and...
...everything.
I mean, for Christ's sake, we have traded personalities!
And women.
And bottles.
And clothes.
And loves, hates, cares, victories, defeats.
Man, I cannot believe it might be two years or more until I see feel hear smell sense you again.
Who knows what the future might bring?
We, who know that there is only present and everything else is made up and imagined.
We, who know that nothing is as important, as meaningful, as everything!
We, who have traded souls.
We who have endured both heaven and hell together.
We who have cried together, laughed together, slept together, ate together, fought together--LIVED together.
We.
Remarkable we.
Incomparable we.
Closer that either of us would ever admit.
Shed tears together.
As I am now...alone.
As I imagine you are as well.
Through everything; bros. Homies. Friends. Counterweights. Harmonizing jazz-riffing charm-smiling lady-killing pot-smoking song-singing life-living self-loving world-saving book-reading bar-drinking cavorting goddamn scoundrels!
And then, of course, there's all the crazy shit between all the lines.
My god, chum, we've been inside of the same woman!
Who could ask for more?
I could, dude. I could ask for a hundred--a thousand--more college-chillin' days like the ones we have loved and loathed, prized and passed, imagined and ignored, anticipated and forgotten.
Inseperable to the end.
I can't even remember not being best friends with you. What a weird concept.
Here I am with Dispatch playing in the background many minutes after we reminisced about that miraculous summer long ago when they asked if you'd mind going out on trip with your homeboy.
Oh my god.
They didn't even know.
Dude, it's getting late, and I haven't even begun to describe what you have been for me.
Crying again.
Nothing I could ever put on paper can come close to capturing this string of moments. This crazy trip.
I'm dying, dogg. I have no idea how to lock this shit in my memory. My perception changes so much, how can I keep you close?
Goddamn but I'm getting sentimental.
I hate long goodbyes. I don't do well with them. I need to just get gone, man, disappear. Vanish into the mists for a while.
We both know what I mean.
Listen, there's a whole lot more I'd like to say, but I have to get to sleep before my journey tomorrow.
Peace be the way.
Not all who wander are lost.

Yours in brotherly love,

Paul

2009-05-06T20:50:00.003-05:00

I´m here. Utterly unbelievable.
I felt very much the gringo in the airport, and I lacked the confidence to speak in spanish to anyone (especially because even when anyone addressed me, it was in english) and I began to worry about the future. Cold feet, as it were.
However, after sleeping fitfully through the three.5 hour flight, I stepped down the stairs onto the tarmac into a bus to the terminal and began to worry about finding an ATM.
I tried some spanish with the customs agents, but they grew frustrated and switched to english. It was especially difficult because they all wore surgical masks to protect them from the swine flu menace. I cannot believe people´s capacity to surrender to fear mongering. Probably more than a third of the pasajeros on the airplane wore the masks (I´ve been surprised to see several pedestrians on the bogota streets also wearing masks. how horrible to live under such paranoic conditions).
Having cleared customs, I stood in line to change money and I heard a New Zealander (could tell by his flight-of-the-conchords accent) flailing to communicate about ATMs. I stepped in with him and we walked toward where the vague directions pointed. We talked for a while and then I acted the translator when we had to find taxis to our respective hostels. Suddenly my confianza was back. Though my spanish is still not quite up to par, I´ve been finding that I have more than many of my fellow travelers, and this is quite a relief.

2009-04-30T11:56:00.002-05:00

Every day recently has been full of "lasts." Last trip to the arb; last day of work; last shit in various toilets around campus; last kisses; last ann arbor adventures. My departure date draws near, rapidly and without hesitation.

Finally moved out and closed up shop--an awfully arduous process spanning a long and tedious weekend of trying to dispose of my domestic detritus (but mostly failing). I still have just as much pack-rat clutter as always. Some things never change.

But at least I'm escaping--for a while anyway. After the wedding I can seek a more long-term escape. Perhaps ranching in Australia. Or fishing in Alaska. Or rangering in a national park. (and I welcome any other sweet suggestions!). Anything goes, really, except this convoluted and washed-out concept of "real life." Please.

As if I could ever handle a rut-setting cubicle-stuffed existence. I've just barely slipped my anchor as it is, goddamnit. What was I thinking putting down roots?

Phew!

Finally out again, with only my whim and luck with bureaucracy to guide me and determine my path.

Relief wells over me at times , but I am not sure it will really hit me until I'm standing on a street somewhere trying to understand what anyone's saying.

But hell, I cannot bloody wait.

Ciao putos!

2009-03-25T17:46:00.002-05:00

It's finally settled. I'm going to Colombia. Even now I can scarcely believe it, though every now and then I enjoy a spine-thrilling stomach-fluttering electrical revelation that this is it and I'm actually doing it.

I've been talking about it for months now, never (i'll be honest) really confident that I would back it up and walk the walk. Because that's what it is: a walkabout.

Leaving on Cinco de Mayo--a Mexican holiday with no relevance in South America, but a bit titillating nonetheless--for a solid three months. I'll spend all my money, have a great time, and write nonstop. Then back to the States for Eric's wedding and a few months of work to save up for the next jaunt.

I registered with the U.S. Embassy today.

Purpose of Visit: Escaping the clutches of the hometown to see the world. The plan is to hostel-hop around all the northern South American countries. Return to the US in early August; departure site unknown.

What are the chances someone at the embassy actually reads the Purposes of Visit listed by various excited travelers. That would be a fun job; just read and react to people's reasons. Get some diplomatic interaction going with the disaffected proletariat. Let us in!

Anyway, I'm extremely excited and I plan to use this as a travelogue. Consider this the first entry.

2009-01-02T00:44:00.002-06:00

Once upon a time, there was a sapling atop a hill in the middle of a field. The sun shone on the rolling green, and the sapling's leaves stretched to take in the light. They stretched so hard they grew longer and wider, putting forth new stems and shoots.
The warm earth cradled the sapling, nurturing it and sheltering it. A root dug downward.
From out of the blue sky a tiny bird appeared, climbing and diving through the leaves. It paused to rest on an upper branch.
"Bird," said the tree after a while had passed. "Bird, how is it that you sing with such carefree energy? Aren't you horribly frightened not to have the safety of earth?"
"Tree," whistled the bird, "if only you knew what it was to fly."
"But if only you knew what it was to stand firm in the strongest wind--can you truly be happy in the buffeting wind?"
They sat in silence, both dwelling in thought. The bird shifted from foot to foot. Now and then the bird hopped and fluttered. The tree rustled and flexed its limbs.
"I can't imagine being bound to the earth."
"I can't imagine being so small and frail."
"Don't you worry," asked the bird, "that your root will grow so strong and fast that you'll never move? Even an inch?"
"Don't you worry," replied the tree, "that your wings will grow tired and you'll lose your ability to fly? Then what?"
"I hadn't thought about that," said the bird.
"I hadn't thought about that," mused the tree.
The wind blew gently, and the leaves rustled and the feathers ruffled. And still the two sat in pensive silence.
When the sun had moved to a different vantage point, the tree spoke.
"I'm starting to wish this root weren't so strong."
"And I'm starting to wonder about the strength of my wings."
Filled with doubt, the bird hopped to another branch. The tree dropped a few leaves.
"I need to fly away and think about things," it chirped.
"I need to consider this root for a while," the tree murmured.
The wind moaned in the branches as the bird took wing. Years went by. One afternoon, the bird sailed and soared and dipped and dived until its wings gave out and it thudded to the earth at the foot of a thick gnarled trunk.

2008-10-17T02:52:00.002-05:00

It's 4 o'clock and all I want to do is write something. On my typewriter. Which is far far too loud for the small hours in a house full of sleeping students. So I bide my time, as I always do. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, as they say--until the last fell notes of the clock in which I believe only because I have to.
It piles up, the amount of brilliance I'm just waiting to unload--waiting for the right time, the right circumstance, the right experience--until I'm fit to burst, and then it's all forgotten. Gone with the sands of time whose fleeting fantasy guides us all.
Tick tock click clack. It calls my name, but I'm unable to answer. My fingers fizzle when they dare brush the keys. Never enough time. Never enough inclination.
And yet I can feel it, somewhere scarcely tangible. Building; growing; evolving. It seems only a matter of when...

2008-10-08T12:03:00.001-05:00

Corona Conceit

There’s an ancient piece of machinery occupying the star spot on my desk. It has a keyboard organized much the same as the newfangled computer next to it, but the keys reach out invitingly; honestly. No hidden functions, no backlit letters, no fickle electronics.
Sheet-metal body, heavy and robust, colored like spilt wine. It exudes an energy of wisdom, experience, and history. Faintly musty like an old leather chair in the far corner of a leather-bound library. How many words has it written? sentences inscribed? paragraphs composed? Like an old violin: how many hands have tickled out a reflection?
A sheet of paper sits waiting––mostly blank––with a few words etched in black ink. Across the page, a black and red ribbon stretches like a banner of literary significance. Below the ribbon, a multitude of metal letters lie ready, poised to strike. A silent story unfolds, before my fingertips even brush the lillypad keys.
And then––no secret writing in the rhythmic clack clack clack––the song of prose grooves to the steady strike of type on paper. No pattern of zeros and ones: all words, all the time. Dancing and skipping across the white expanse like the footprints of fictitious figures in my dreams.
Old and new, side-by-side on my desk, coexist in perfect anachronic harmony. Which will my fingers flit for today? They say a man’s desk is a window to his soul—or maybe they don’t, but perhaps they should…

2008-09-24T08:01:00.004-05:00

Looking for excitement? Philosophical conversation? A free beer or six? Grab a good book, hoist a travel mug full of coffee, don a ruggedly handsome face and a thick pair of legs, and saunter on over to Dupont circle when the weather's fair and the breeze is fresh.
I was sitting on a bench when a fellow approached and sat down. Moments later, he apologized for blowing smoke in my face--I hadn't even noticed, due to the cleansing wind--and stood up. Shortly after, he engaged me in conversation--small talk. Sports, girls, marriage, my open book, anything that came to mind.
I was just beginning to lose interest and yearning to get back to my reading when he offered to buy me a beer. I didn't need to look at my watch to know it was hardly beer-thirty, but I acquiesced anyway, despite the warning klaxons screaming in my head.
Shut up, I scolded, there's no way this guy can do anything to you against your will. Better watch out for roofies though, my afterthought added.
I figured I'd go to a bar, sip a drink, and leave to scoop my lovely lady from work. No harm, no foul.
The first bar we entered was an Irish pub where, to my embarrassment (and moderate relief) I discovered I had exchanged my ID for my visitor's pass, and I was without age-verification.
Undeterred, Chuck led the way to the next bar. Same story: No ID, no drink.
Instead, we went to a liquor store, where I picked out an IPA. No sense in wasting a perfectly good opportunity. After all, Chuck instructed me to pick Whatever I Wanted. (In the bar, my first instinct had been to go for Chivas. Chuck had opted for vodka/cranberry--yet another dead giveaway.)
Sixpack in hand, I accompanied Chuck back to the grassy traffic circle where I poured a bottle into my emptied coffee mug and proceeded to drink in public. He told me about his musical career. The conversation was wholesomely bro-ish, and I felt in no way threatened. I guess he just liked to hear philosophy and bullshit from a strapping young straight guy.
As we parted ways--I toward a pair of beautiful bouncy breasts and flowing, herbal-scented hair, and he toward whatever he had planned for the rest of the day--Chuck got a phone call. He said it was a Marine whose Marine wife had just been sent to Iraq. The guy wanted Chuck to pick up some weed and join him for a sordid sodomitic romp in the Pentagon...

2008-09-23T22:40:00.005-05:00

Now and then there comes a time in everyone's life when he finds himself in a position in which he would never wish to be.
Just this weekend, I was in a Metro station when all of a sudden I had an urgent need to unload. Struggling through the turnstile with my bulky bags, I asked the location of the nearest restroom. Perhaps sensing my urgency, the guard slowly responded, "Sure, right there at the end of the hall."
Expecting a run-of-the-mill public facility, I hurried toward what looked like a cross between a '50s concept mobile home and a space shuttle. After I lurched inside, the door hissed shut once I located and thumbed the heat-seeking button.
Convenient metal hooks accepted my luggage, and a sign suggested I press another heat button to access the toilet seat. It slid out from the wall dripping water and smelling faintly of industrial cleanser. At least I would be spared the hassle of wrestling with one of those paper seat covers which invariably stick embarrassingly to ones cheeks. I dropped my shorts and sat.
Across the room, a sign proclaimed, "Time limit: 10 mins. If amber light begins to flash, exit immediately." Below the unlit warning light were the words, "Wash Cycle."
I finished my business and turned to the toilet paper dispenser. It too featured a heat-sensing button, which I pushed. Expecting a quick whir and the appearance of several sheets of toilet tissue, imagine my dismay when nothing happened. I thumbed the button again. Nothing. Again. Nothing.
Fighting panic, I glanced at the amber warning light which remained mercifully dark. How much time had elapsed? How many minutes had I left?
Fortunately, being a writer in perpetual possession of paper afforded me an uncomfortable and somewhat chafed out. Scrambling to tear sheets from my notebook, cursing colorfully all the while, I wondered what would happen if I were still seated when the Wash Cycle began. Would I drown? Would I be clean?
Finally I finished and washed my hands several times, lurching out of the box in the nick of time.
For all its technological wonder, the space-age shitter had one fatal flaw: it required a human to refill the toilet paper.

2008-09-16T21:11:00.002-05:00

What is it with girls? What goes on in those pretty heads of theirs? It really bothers me that their insanity affects me so deeply. I can't quite figure out just why I'm so interested that I'm willing to deal with such back and forth, up and down, twisting spiraling impossible-to-figure-out madness. It seems to me that it should be easy enough to just let go and move on, but I'm somehow stuck.

Women wield a kind of weird power, and it really gives me an appreciation for priests and monks and hermits. Now that I think about it, uninterrupted solitude and disinterest in women might not be a bad way to be.

2008-09-11T01:04:00.002-05:00

Egad, has it come to this? Lipstick? Puhleez. I think we've had enough of this smear campaign shit--and I do not mean that as another goddamn lipstick pun. Why can't they just play straight? Why does it have to come down to playground tactics?
Come on! We're gonna go squeeze glue on his seat--want to come along?
Right. Count me out.

2008-09-07T23:49:00.002-05:00

I can't sleep. There's been a lot on my mind today, right from the moment I awoke. The rest of the day passed paradoxically in a stand-still sort of way. It seemed I could no longer convince myself that time existed. I was entirely too aware of the instant and the fact that any sense of time we have is merely a construct of memory, a chain of instants strung together to give a semblance of continuity.
I wonder what causes such days. There are a couple issues I can think of that might have led to the odd feeling of today. But it couldn't be any one thing, right? Or maybe my mind is just too focused on what I'm missing that it suddenly became aware of its fleeting existence and overwhelming insignificance.
Today I floated through the universe, stuck in the instant, and the whole day had a nightmarish quality. Usually I enjoy my awareness of How Things Are, but today, it just seemed downright wrong.
However, I did enjoy myself with a book and a good cigar, so I wasn't unhappy. I just don't have to words to accurately or adequately describe the day. I just hope tomorrow isn't the same. I need a rest from it.
I also feel much farther than normal from the one I love, and I'm wondering if it's already starting to crumble...

2008-08-31T23:23:00.001-05:00

When I was young, we still used corded telephones...

2008-08-31T20:36:00.003-05:00

First day of practical Palio training. It was hectic and my feet hurt, but I think I'll be able to handle it. I'm looking forward to getting out on my own and not having to shadow someone (and get tips!). I had something brilliant to say, but I plumb forgot. Now I'm cooling my heels and warming my belly with some Chivas Regal--an excellent drink.

Edited: Ah ha! I remembered:
Sauntering into the doors, decked out in my spiffy new all-black outfit (with a three-colored tie), I looked for the manager who'd introduce me to my trainer.
"Oh, you're working outside with David."
"Better get a polo for him," he added as an afterthought. The outside sections aren't air-conditioned.
I donned the polo, realizing at the same time that my tattoo was now visible, and I hadn't put on a watch. I was in violation of the no-tattoos-visible policy. Goddamnit, I thought, seeking a wrist band or BandAid. We found tape. Now, taped up, I looked like an athete. In my eyes, anyway. Badass. Yes.
However, I now find myself in flagrant violation of my primary principles, which include, ironically, never holding a job that disallows bearing a tattoo on my left wrist--commemorated, until recently, by getting a tattoo on my left wrist. And now I have to hide it. Ah, me.
Anyway, once I start making money and rolling in dough--by the way, Palio serves Zingermann's bread--I'll be happy. It seems as though the people working there are pretty cool too, which is good. I guess people are pretty cool wherever you are. As I strode (and sometimes scurried) hither and thither, I recognized the odd and wonderful sensation of being in a completely separate world from the majority. Not a patron is privy, not a guest can guess the esoteric and exclusive existence chillin' in parallel to their own. The staff is completely separated, cordoned off as it were, from the guests--never customers: guests. I can't wait to be a connected member.

2008-08-29T11:06:00.003-05:00

Republicans are brilliant. Evilly brilliant. McCain's choice of a woman as his running mate is a huge blow to democrats and anyone who's intelligent enough to understand that republicans do not have the best interests of the people in mind and they're just trying to steal votes.
All those women and feminist supporters who were planning on voting for McCain out of some stupid spite because Obama ousted their choice are poised on a knife edge of change. Hillary grabbed them and swayed them with her speech. But I fear McCain grabbed them all back by picking a woman--regardless of the fact that she's younger than Obama and inexperienced (a friggin MAYOR mostly) when McCain railed against that with his entire force.
I think we're screwed. The only bright side is, win or lose, we're getting a minority in office for the first time since Catholic Kennedy.

2008-08-28T18:22:00.002-05:00

I've been watching the Democratic National Convention off and on. Usually more off than on, but the speeches I've seen have been wildly inspiring. Maybe not quite enough to get me out in the trenches, but certainly enough to get my election juices flowing.
Finally, finally, finally, the democrats have fronted a candidate with some chutzpah, some verve. No more limp biscuit, lame duck, tired old has-beens. This guy is an up-and-comer. I'm really excited. But also really worried and nervous: the republicans are up to their usual evil tricks, and I fear that too many people are too stupid and sheepish to ignore the lies and irrelevant dirt dug up by people with nothing better to do than , and realize that anyone who votes republican and earns less than a quarter-million dollars is being duped.

I'm watching it right now and wishing I'd been watching and blogging throughout like all those people paid to post on the internet

sign: 911 was an inside job
msnbc as liberated
this could be a turning point--excitement builds; my heart starts thumping.
how can one BE a republican?
how can they sell out humanity like that?

Well, I've re-initiated the blog, and I'm hoping for some feedback. Much more to come.

2008-08-13T12:18:00.004-05:00

In this day and age, psychology and psychiatry are in the stage of development equivalent to when surgeries were performed by barbers. Very scary stuff.
Of course, that doesn't at all mean I don't advocate the field. On the contrary, the only way for mind studies to advance to the point of being very helpful is the trial and error method. Psychiatrists and psychologists struggle in a field misunderstood by nearly everyone. Their craft is not supported by those profit-mongering axes of corporate evil, insurance companies. By far some of the least ethical groups of people ever to sanctimoniously step up and "grudgingly" accept our monthly deposits into the corporate coffers.
If you know someone who is considering becoming a psychologist or psychiatrist, offer a crumb of encouragement and steer them away from talking to anyone who might reveal to them the difficulty of in a field disrespected, misunderstood, and feared by most everybody.
I almost wish I had a reason to sit and talk to a psychology person.

2008-07-26T23:34:00.004-05:00

time is such a goddamn confusing thing. there's only an instant. everything else is just a memory or dream. Seeking continuity through REM rearrangement of the neurons. It's just so weird, it freaks me out sometimes when I start to think too deeply about it.
And we barely remember--a hazy idea at best, generally--what came before this one infinite instant (<--how can that even be?). There are methods and materials that can cause the isolation and highlight of that instant. Present. The only one that really exists (our concept of past is very much alike that of the imagined future). Unfortunately, the mainstream has been rather effective in shutting down that portion of humanity. They sort of shot themselves repeatedly in the foot though, by being such poofs.
Maybe that's part of why I'm so interested (but bad at forming habits) in dream activity--specifically achieving on-purpose lucid dreams. And why I spent a good part of my younger college days soaring on the wings of demons.
As far as the past goes, it's not even difficult to completely make up a scenario in one's imagination and place it in the shelves of memories. I've tested it. For real. Eyewitness testimony is a pile of crap. Pure dramatics. The human mind is not so difficult to tap. Psychology is really our weakest science with the greatest potential--but no one pays attention to all that junk.
There are so many saps in the world, it shocks and saddens me. How does one get to be like that? If I were like that, how would I know? Am I a sap?
God I hope not.

2008-07-26T15:41:00.002-05:00

the 37th annual Mountain Fair opened last night with a some Buddhist monks chanting prayers followed by a sweet drum circle which made me think about Indian powwows where dudes sit around a huge drum thumping away--I want to get that together sometime soon with some homies. It's intense as hell. I got to play a big bass drum, which maybe had something to do with the intensity. BOOM boom boom boom BOOM boom boom boom BOOM boom BOOM BOOM BOOM boom boom boom...hiaalaleellayeleylaalalayelyea!

2008-07-24T16:06:00.002-05:00

Siempre digo que quería practicar mas el Español. Siempre. Pero nunca tenía la oportunidad. Hasta ahora. Mis jefes añadieron a unos Mexicanos y ahora puedo hablar. Por primero, no tenía confianza. Siempre tuve en miente las frases y conversaciones, pero siempre vacilé en miedo. No más. Puedo hablar con ellos en tópicos anchos

Me ha ponido casi intérprete entre los Mexicanos y mis jefes--lo comprendí cuando el jefe pide algo y mis amigos me miran para traducir. Pero lo difícil es que no se muchas palabras especificos para los implementos.

Está bien. Gano mucho. Ahora (como siempre) quería irme a un país donde podría hablar solamente en español.

2008-07-20T19:02:00.003-05:00

The past several days have been completely taken up by a most enjoyable visit. I don't feel like going into all the details--and you probably wouldn't want to hear anyway.

Camped, climbed, fought, loved, saw Girltalk, imbibed, ate, river-bathed, etc in Aspen.
Chilled in Carbondale.

Now it's time to get back to work for a while, until the day I finally return home to my lovely lakes, far-flung forests, sleepy sanddunes, wrecked roads, and wet winters. Gotta make that money.

I'll write something better once I'm back in the swing of things. Tonight: a concert in the park featuring some musicians connected to Grateful Dead. Should be fun.

2008-07-07T21:16:00.003-05:00

Thank God for South Park. Is it okay to say that? Will I be smitten by the nearest lightning bolt? No? Phew! Okay.

Every once in a while, there comes a time when the only solution to a mounting problem is to slap on the closest relevant South Park episode. Today I had to watch Smug Alert (Season 10).

For those of you (meaning mostly me) who've seen the episode, an explanation is unnecessary.
I'm out in Colorado in an area rife with wealth, an area where people can afford to be Progressive and Ecofriendly and 100% Organic. Commercially, of course. Not necessarily morally. They drive their Hybrids; they buy their price-gouged organics; they tout their values--and they are Smug.

Don't get me wrong: I'm all for ecofriendly behavior and progressive attitudes and organic crops. But once such ideas become fads, and once people get lofty dispositions because they buy ONLY organic food, they lose any favorable stance they might have had.

There's a law of Judaism that says that charity must be anonymous: It doesn't count if there's a nametag. I agree with that particular facet. Do good, but don't point out to others that you're doing good. Being ecofriendly, progressive, and organic is good. But don't strut your stuff.

My landlady, God bless her soul, is a prime example of a smugger. She always flaunts her hybrid and her organic-only diet, and claims to embrace eastern religions. However, she hasn't the first foggy fucking clue that her attitudes toward other people don't even touch--aren't even on the horizon of--those mostly-ignored prophets of ALL religions whose culture she and other westerners like her--and other easterners for that matter--try to embrace because it's the cool thing to do.
If someone says they are Buddhist, they are probably lying. Ask them what enlightenment means. If they answer anything other than "enlightenment is realizing there is no enlightenment and that people are people, for better or for worse," they haven't even begun to understand Buddha's teachings--which generally tend toward There Are No Teachings.
The same thing is true of the other religions. Teachings twisted, prophets pushed out. Goddamn, this could turn into quite a rant. Anyway, you know what I mean. Or maybe you don't. It doesn't really matter.

When you're eco-smug, progressive-smug, or organic-smug (or religion-smug), you're no better than the assholes who think only about their own massive bank accounts and private jets when it comes to politics. There's a word that I think a lot of people misunderstand that really applies to Smugness: liberal fascist. Please don't be one.

In other news:
I had a great visit with the family. It was a nice, refreshing break from the doldrums of work. We hit up lots of great beyond-my-budget restaurants, and I took them climbing. Having the dogs stay with me was nice too. Except landlady's attitude toward dogs in the house opened my eyes wider that she's a blesséd hypocrite and far more stiff-necked than she claims.