tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71281015876068744952024-02-21T08:22:57.918-08:00The PerverseDocumented Reckonings and Noted AbsurditiesFreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-63118623122544122822010-10-07T19:37:00.000-07:002010-10-07T19:57:49.028-07:00Then there was none.This will likely be my last post. I turn forty, I begin a different blog elsewhere. I haven't persevered with the perverse, and even my recent unfinished writings have a different personality stamp. They haven't matured, necessarily. They just don't feel right here.<br /><br />A lot has happened. We're expecting a baby in November. That would be jumping to the exciting news...simply saying there is a 'we' is cause for joy. I've been head over heels for this gal for two years, and I confess I'm a little stunned that it hasn't topped out yet. I feel stronger and stronger about this relationship when I stop a moment and check myself.<br /><br />Aside from happiness, there have been other distractions. I'm more likely to be at the gym than writing. Of course there's the nesting for the coming baby - I'm always moving crap from here to there, then back or elsewhere - creating space for little Ezri (we already have a name for her) has made day to day life a Jenga torture. Christina is barely moved in...she's still in the process of going through boxes and reckoning what makes the grade in the new life.<br /><br />And there is Starry. Camille isn't as accommodating as I am, and the two cats are not getting along at all! Starry is a boy and he's very territorial. Camille is Camille: princess and reluctant center of attention. So much has been going on all at once, I worry about her. Moving in was a step up for Starry, but she just hangs in the computer room all day to avoid confronting him. Also, I notice both cats eat more and more; I think when there's competition or cause for scarcity, they eat each meal like its their last.<br /><br />That sums it up: I had to stop writing to attend to my duties as Mayor of Catshittown. Perhaps one day I'll retire and write my memoirs, though thinking about what I'll have to write about invokes the smell of ammonia.FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-68829554017101010452009-10-22T22:16:00.000-07:002009-10-22T22:33:18.197-07:00Windows into Widows<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CBENJAM%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="country-region"></o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"></o:smarttagtype><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} /* List Definitions */ @list l0 {mso-list-id:950357310; mso-list-type:hybrid; mso-list-template-ids:-545890882 67698703 67698713 67698715 67698703 67698713 67698715 67698703 67698713 67698715;} @list l0:level1 {mso-level-tab-stop:.5in; mso-level-number-position:left; text-indent:-.25in;} ol {margin-bottom:0in;} ul {margin-bottom:0in;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Since I haven't written in awhile, I took a look at all the things I never finished. These pieces have occupied my mind in many ways...woolgathering on the bus, mind-wandering on the elliptical at the gym...they just never worked out, regardless of my hopes at their maiden voyage. The crux of it is, I'm in love. It's so much easier to write when you are lonely! Like fashioning you own Golemn out of clay and the hours you don't have to spend with a hottie much, much, more animated.
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">Mercurial U</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">You enter the tent…and it is so massive inside, and it is intoxicating and exhilarating all in one, this tiny universe that promises to entertain and fulfill.<span style=""> </span>The air is permeated with a blood orange hue, a reflection of crimson drapery and stagelight from the intenser end of the rainbow.<span style=""> </span>You feel a new aliveness, a childish glee as you catch your elongated form in a distorting carnival mirror.<span style=""> </span>Everyone is so colorful and spectacular here…and the volleyed reflection tells you that you, you too, might belong.<span style=""> </span>You force yourself forward, deeper into this strange atmosphere: those previous thoughts of contentedness, the assurances you gave yourself over how happy you already are, are drowned out in a jamboree of horns.<span style=""> </span>A dozen trumpets and tubas and saxophones arc and pitch against one another sounding like they would each rather forge their own melody: but they have come together especially for you, in a tentative cease-fire. <span style="font-weight: bold;">
<br /></span></span></p><p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"></p><p style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">Attachment Theory</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">On rereading the notes, I may have been writing something through the eyes of a child, a child who does not feel like they are a high priority for their mother.<span style=""> </span>Of course, I’m interpreting my notes through the lens of the title.<span style=""> </span>I’ve already described more than what was there; it could really be any number of cries for help.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">Snake Oil</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">Is there such a thing as religious deprivation? What happens when it is gone?<span style=""> </span>Theology: the promise of a never ending skirmish.<span style=""> </span>Not for the casual; god for the compulsive.<span style=""> </span>Is this about the constructs that we put in place to displace it?<span style=""> </span>The nagator, the deconstructor, the busybodied armchair psychological engineer: the peanut gallery.<span style=""> </span>What do we hate about it?<span style=""> </span>Really.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Sadly, there is not one coherent thought in my notes – but I know that snake oil referred to the recent posturing in atheism, not religion in particular.<span style=""> </span>Ok, I’m an atheist; I enjoyed the 2 popular books that helped reassert it, too.<span style=""> </span>What I don’t get is the preoccupation with it, or why people exert so much energy towards conversion or conviction (apparently, I<span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span> don’t see why people get so vested in it, since I never finished it).<span style=""> </span>I mean, what is the value to the individual?<span style=""> </span>I didn’t finish “Atheism in the time of Irreverence”, either.<span style=""> </span>I’ve been in forums and seen people passionately argue non-negotiable points.<span style=""> </span>Really, you either prefer the fantastic lie or the plausible lie, and proof carries no water here.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">Cassanova</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">That might be what did it: Hank made a habit of contemplating all the possibilities.<span style=""> </span>He was deliberate – people had to be patient to hear what he would say – because he was imagining all the different directions his words could take.<span style=""> </span>He wanted to be prepared for every possible contingency.<span style=""> </span>Then this one.<span style=""> </span>He couldn’t read her, or she lived outside the world he though he had all figured out.<span style=""> </span>He’d been with many women – so many different personalities and situations – and thought he had it all down, knew how to handle a skirt in any circumstance.<span style=""> </span>At the outset, he tried to play her like any other: he would read her moods and know when to shift into another gear.<span style=""> </span>But this one.</span></p><p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I’m not sure how I feel about my grandfather.<span style=""> </span>On one hand, I’ve romanticized him as this pre-punk figure.<span style=""> </span>I saw a photo of him a couple years ago, and that was my first thought: before the skin heads, before the straight edges, here we had this stove pipe punk.<span style=""> </span>It was a strange photograph of his entire family: someone probably blew two weeks salary to get a picture with a ‘camry’, getting the entire family to pose before the above-ground oil tank.<span style=""> </span>None of which is germaine to cassanova.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I think I referred to this story, at one point, as being about the ‘most selfish person I’ve ever known’ (make that a second).<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>I don’t think he ever worked a day that I existed on this planet, but I’ve heard just enough stories to romanticize his life.<span style=""> </span>This story was about his career (one of very many) as a race car driver in the 50’s.<span style=""> </span>Aaaaand, his abandonment of his wife and children around that same time.<span style=""> </span>I pulled this paragraph from my blogspot notes; I have about 15K words in disparate locations on my pc.<span style=""> </span>I’ve attacked it from so many different angles, and I was challenged by the time displacement and intimidated by failing on something with a tangible tangent to my own identity.<span style=""> </span>I still want to finish it, but I think I’ve decided to wait until my grandfather has passed.<span style=""> </span>What I have written so far, considering the context, felt very weird in the writing of it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">A Soldier’s Things</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">3. A long metal bar.<span style=""> </span>It was part of a lock to the warehouse we broke into.<span style=""> </span>It was a sweet deal – it was between leases, unoccupied, and the upstairs was like a gigantic indoor skate park.<span style=""> </span>Some friends and I visited it a couple more times, until one day we snuck inside to find the toilet at street level was overflowing, flooding the place.<span style=""> </span>It was creepy, dawning on us slowly that we weren’t the only people invading this place.<span style=""> </span>Endless reams of Asian porn were strewn all over the place, floating in the thin pool.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I have a box of momentos.<span style=""> </span>One day I decided to perform an inventory.<span style=""> </span>Other items of note: Sandman, from Star Wars.<span style=""> </span>Rosary Beads.<span style=""> </span>A Slot Car.<span style=""> </span>Numerous concert tickets.<span style=""> </span>My Huskies Watch, my bolero tie (hey, I should bust that out!).<span style=""> </span>I think the absence of things in my momento box says more about me than what’s actually in it….</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">The Third Son</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">Isaac could not be deterred.<span style=""> </span>Fervent imaginings had lit a fire in his heart, and his mind was boiling with many hopes and possibilities that could arise from this venture.<span style=""> </span>He shared them with his father, and he made known his frustration at the sole gray path marked for him should he stay.<span style=""> </span>And Lott understood, and Lott let himself be proud of his son.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I might finish it.<span style=""> </span>It’s a facile rewrite of the bible.<span style=""> </span>You want the firstborn to follow in your footsteps, and the second born will be a great backup if they don’t go off to war and die.<span style=""> </span>But there is no clear destiny for the third son…which is why we have priests and musicians.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">Roe v. Wade</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">…is blank!<span style=""> </span>But I remember my intentions.<span style=""> </span>I wanted to review the judicial argument, which, by the way, is inadequate and flimsy.<span style=""> </span>I understand the right to privacy, contingent on other SC rulings…but since I’m not going to ever get around to this, I highly recommend you read it for yourself.<span style=""> </span>Then read a couple others, just to garner some idea what a logical conclusion should look like.<span style=""> </span>My fear, and preoccupation with this, lies in knowing that the ruling was tailored not to constitutional grounds, so as much as it was designed to appease popular opinion at that time.<span style=""> </span>And by saying ‘at that time’, I’m implying that popular opinion changes.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">What we really need is an amendment, a caveat indicating that life is not precious or sacred.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">Flip Your Wig</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">But what does this have to do with wigs?<span style=""> </span>Well, I’ve been making allowances for them lately.<span style=""> </span>The do what wigs do – distort, embellish or misrepresent – and though my communications with them has been minimal, they’ve manifested over the past couple months as really bad ideas I either indulged or humored a little too much.<span style=""> </span>Here’s the net-net: they’ve made me either deny/confirm, or explain away, my behavior.<span style=""> </span>This is an embarrassing, undeserved, inconvenience to me.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I try to avoid being personal.<span style=""> </span>This invective is more or less complete, though unpublished.<span style=""> </span>Kind of sad, since we tend to be funny in our mean-spirited moments.<span style=""> </span>Rolling this rag about 2 wigs who don’t know each other but share lying compulsively in common was therapeutic…though I think if I met a Crackwig or Mindwig tomorrow, I’d probably make a snap judgment about her.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">Structure</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">Each day becomes more and more submerged in detail.<span style=""> </span>My time estimates are in blocks five minutes each.<span style=""> </span>This isn’t good enough; my focus can be derailed in five minutes.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I’m not sure what happened here.<span style=""> </span>The notes are copious and nonsensical.<span style=""> </span>I may have been suffering from insulin shock.<span style=""> </span>This is one of my symptoms of the shock by the way; an obsessive micromanaging of moments.<span style=""> </span>Don’t laugh, it will happen to you right before you die, I just get the opportunity to live the moment on unplanned occasions.<span style=""> </span>There’s more:</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">
<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">
<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">When codifying behaviour, do we go too far?</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">How do we know when to stop?</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">What values are in place?</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Is this serving self, or something higher than self?</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">An immediate self, or a self conscious that it reaches into the past and future?</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Isn’t the very defining of structure something I do in an inspired moment, something I do because I want to do – an impulse?</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">What am I positing, knowing that it is in the face of what I may be inspired to do tomorrow?</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Why is one compulsion more virtuous than another?</span></span></p> <p style="font-style: italic; font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Perhaps I wanted to look at the transience of our compelled transcendence.<span style=""> </span>There are a lot of words here.<span style=""> </span>There are also a lot of references to killing squirrels; I kid you not.<span style=""> </span>It is broken up with the statement: “Provide an itinerary.<span style=""> </span>Here.”<span style=""> </span>No reference to what the itinerary should serve.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">Fan Boy</span></p> <p face="trebuchet ms" style="font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;">A<span style="font-size:85%;">nyways.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span><span style="font-size:85%;">Secret Wars sounded a death-knell, and as DC minimized it’s number of universes and Marvel decided to expand theirs, I found I wasn’t enough the passionate archivist to keep up with numerous cross-overs.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span><span style="font-size:85%;">Even books I liked were being marred with disjointed one-offs, forced storylines that made no sense inside a comics’ gestalt.</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Meeting Howard Chaykin was a great moment for me.<span style=""> </span>Even Christina & Otto, standing right next to me, couldn’t gauge the synapses in my brain doing a spastic bumper-caring off one another. <span style=""> </span>Even as I walked away from my fanboy moment, my nerves were calming down as enthusiastic, tiny metal Pachinko balls, might do. <span style=""> </span>I was short-tongued and nervous the whole while.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">There’s no good excuse why I didn’t finish this one.<span style=""> </span>Fanboy would never be approved by my internal <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Vatican</st1:place></st1:country-region>…y’know, the ones who decided the story where Jesus turned into a goat shouldn’t be included in the Bible?<span style=""> </span>Or was it fucked a goat?<span style=""> </span>It’s all academic now, anyways.</span></p> FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-14066299449577628932009-07-12T17:00:00.000-07:002009-07-13T21:51:34.793-07:00Starting<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The cigarettes were good for him for they measured the time.<br /><br />He did not look like someone positioned to start. Slouched in an armchair, a terry cloth robe his better off brother bought him at Penny's, draping his flanks. Not that he needed a nice robe. What was the point of owning a nice robe, unless you are independently wealthy and making your way about in it, all the day? But if you're going to buy a robe for someone as a gift, and you own a chain of machine rental companies, and you know, you're probably taking down six figures a quarter? A twenty dollar robe seems a little chintzy. Like, why bother at all, brother. Though everyone should own a robe, even if they don't wear it. It's just nice to have, though he wonders if the house were burning down he would think to grab it on the way out.<br /><br />He leans forward and picks up the newspaper. Remembers when it used to be "this" wide: swears the print is a little bigger, too. He picks at the corner, separating sections and shucking away the periodicals for the glossier grocery advertisements. His thoughts are ahead of him now; he's guessing what red meat will cost him, how dearly, before he finds the image. He always does this. He imagines the worst. He does it so he won't be disappointed; no matter how bad prices get, they'll never be as bad as what he expected them to be. Makes him feel a little in control, a little bit the master of his own destiny. The steaks find him first. The splotchy redness of the </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">t-bone </span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">slabs jump off the page, the photo is bereft of anything appetizing, but he is swept away by the numbers: 6.99 a lb! That isn't half bad. And he deserves a little treat. <br /><br />The cigarette has burned down, and he remembers only taking one little drag, when he first lit it. Just to get it going. He looks at all the paper he still needs to pore through, and decides to light another.<br /><br /></span></span>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-54761150665346934732009-07-11T18:31:00.000-07:002009-07-11T18:56:23.374-07:00She's a BOOK<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">It was a good place for people watching. Only, once he had given his eyes the reign, he forgot himself entirely. It would be a good place to be if it could be a place that unfurled into perpetuity: but that never happened. No, his mind would take back control, and an evil comeuppance would take place. As if to say. As if it were to say, flexing extremities in a show of dominance. But that is two things. It would flex and say, "Look who is back in control now!" (curving toes, tightening sphincter, arching spine and heaving chest - way back now; arching parallel to the earth's surface and robbing the eyes of their power completely). Or, instead of looking at who is in control now...it wouldn't really be necessary, declaiming it so, having directed the eyes to look into the sun: "So, while the cat's away, the mice will play!" - or some other folkish aphorism pregnant with judgment and disapproval. But that is the mind. It is always framing its pulsations in a manner that assumes everything else has a mind; deep down it knows this is not the case and it only acts in this way to please itself.<br /><br />It was a good place to watch people, but it became grist for comparisons, self-evaluation, and the imagined interpretation of a relationship of the self - only known imperfectly - against an overwhelming whole that returned his gaze in circus mirrors and imported artifacts.<br /></span></span>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-51953173043445826922009-03-16T17:46:00.000-07:002009-03-16T17:54:18.890-07:00$$$<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CBENJAM%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><style> <!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Trebuchet MS"; panose-1:2 11 6 3 2 2 2 2 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">It was the only time I raised my voice at her.
<br />
<br />After all, we both had plenty of expendable income. Our bills of necessity amounted to less than a fifth of our combined paychecks! I shook the credit card bill at her and intentionally jacked up my indoor voice. I usually have a stoic approach; I like to absorb a problem cerebrally and try to never appear flustered. But this was no time for stoicism or understanding. I was dealing with an appetite out of control, and I calculated my temper and words to animal training volume and tone. I had to get across what could not be tolerated.
<br />
<br />"How? <span style=""> </span>Eight Thousand Dollars! On what? Food? Clothes? Do you have any self-control at all? Don't you see you have nothing to show for this? What are you expecting, some kind of windfall of cash to take it away?"<span style=""> </span>I broke down the simple math: if the bills get bigger and bigger, you probably aren’t living within your means.<span style=""> </span>If you don’t do something about it RIGHT NOW, it is only going to get worse…<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: trebuchet ms;" align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">*<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">
<br />In retrospect, we had an ill-conceived dynamic. Eighty - Forty doesn't add up. I had always tried to make allowances so she could enjoy herself to her heart's content, while extending myself paying down the principle on the house and covering all the surprise expenses that homeowners quickly learn to expect. The more she indulged herself, the more reticent and conservative I became. Naturally, my anger that day was aggravated that any sacrifice I made up to this point went to naught.
<br />
<br />To her credit, she paid off her debts within the next 3 years.
<br />
<br />But I was resentful. I was resentful when she couldn't help out with bills because, after all, she was paying more than the 'minimum payment' on those credit cards (the eight thousand was only one of many). I was resentful because I had already done so much: solely provide the down-payment on a house while tossing her name down as co-owner; buying us a car that she used almost exclusively; I was resentful because it dawned on me that in addition to being the responsible one, I also had to be the one to compensate for her selfishness…because this is what I believed a partnership entailed. <span style=""> </span>I responded by putting every spare penny in the bank, foregoing any venture that might be financially taxing. I put extra hours into my salaried job, hoping this might better my situation somewhere in the future. Certainly, the universe would stand up and recognize my efforts, and something good would happen! What I was saving was a basal protection, a financial barrier against what surprise she might have for me next. A hefty raise became the carrot at the end of the stick: if only I had my own windfall, I could buy a ring. Or sail around the world. Do a big something fun for the both of us.
<br />
<br />For her, the distance between whimsy and satisfaction was a brief hop. She had a sense of self-entitlement that I never understood: at a moment's notice, she would see what she wanted and feel she deserved it simply for being her. She's not the only woman I've seen display such caprice, and found it an unattractive trait - but I wrote it off as an occasional necessity, an infrequent letting off of steam. In other women, it was an ugly petulance, but since she was my love it was simply an event and not her character. Simply another obstacle to scratching our way back to zero; I could easily spend another month putting off the things that I want.
<br />
<br />And so I worked until I burned out.
<br />
<br />I worked days and nights. I had maintained a level of self-sacrifice for years that never resulted in the recognition I hoped would arrive. I felt the squeeze between a partner who consumes for one and a half, and a shrinking job market that stunted my pay and increased my workload. Day in and out, my thoughts were filled with despair.
<br />
<br />But I looked at the money I had put aside: This accumulation - partly because I no longer had the time to spend or enjoy it, partly stored as a precaution and reaction against her excessive spending – had reached an appreciative size. <span style=""> </span>Wasn't it supposed to provide a comfort? It could be the down payment on a bigger house, or the beginning of a child's college education…but what mattered at the moment was that it was also saved with an ambiguous eye towards freedom and possibility.<span style=""> </span>What mattered at that moment was that I could afford to perhaps, finally, do something for <i style="">myself</i>.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><span style=""> </span>
<br />I quit my job.
<br />
<br />I did it with self-righteous bravado. I felt the world was telling me I had to suffer because I had no options, when really, <i>I had another option</i>. And I exercised it: to not stand for the situation! And I'll confess it did not bother me as much as it should, that my partner would have to be the ‘reliable’ one for awhile. I was so proud of my nest egg, so confident I could land on my feet, that I continued to maintain that 80-40 balance without a foreseeable second income in sight. And I managed this, while throwing money into home projects and going to school, for 3 years.<span style=""> </span>I was going to show a debt-loving world that there was still some reward in paying it forward; show the world those old sensible fables were still valid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">I’m still proud of what I did, even if it turned out somewhat badly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">I eventually went back to work, but with a healthier optimism.<span style=""> </span>It was a bit scarier than I thought it would be - finding a job with equitable pay after being away from the industry for three years. <span style=""> </span>But I scored! (Side note on the IT industry: I could’ve better spent my time away going to cosmetology school and becoming a hair stylist.<span style=""> </span>Sure, I’d be on my feet all day, but the pay would be the same and I’d have nights and weekends open to enjoy).<span style=""> </span>However, I don’t think I completely understood the effect on my partner.<span style=""> </span>I might love morality plays played out in fables, but her world was something entirely different.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">She had to explain to her peers why she was working and I wasn’t.<span style=""> </span>How does one explain all I have stated up to now without implicating oneself?<span style=""> </span>If she chose to vilify me, I cannot blame her.<span style=""> </span>It would take a conscientious mind to explain things truthfully…and being as fiscally irresponsible as she was, it’s questionable whether she had that conscientious faculty in the first place.<span style=""> </span>So if she expressed frustration to others over my inverse freedom, especially with the perception of chosen unemployment as such an available taboo, I completely understand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Also, it was stressful for her: it was stressful from day one of my unemployment, even when I still handled the financial burden.<span style=""> </span>We were one lay-off away from complete exposure, and I’m certain she felt the weight of being the person on the hook for it.<span style=""> </span>It became even uglier in the last three months of my unemployment, when I had to rely on her in reality: the eighty-forty was abandoned for a sixty-forty where she was handling so much more than what she was used to.<span style=""> </span>For those three months, she was carrying the same burden I carried for eleven and a half years (excepting the additional I saved or paid in principal; she wasn’t about to go that far).</span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">We landed on our four feet: we had both provided our drama, now it was time to live happily ever after.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; text-align: center;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">*<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">This is all written so long after the fact.<span style=""> </span>I write these things to make them clearer in my head.<span style=""> </span>For the most part, I’m over it…but from time to time, some aspect of our relationship recurs in my head making negative waves.<span style=""> </span>I write about it to get it out, to see what I was missing; to look for that off chance that it will reveal to me some bit of information that I missed.<span style=""> </span>Maybe acknowledging it helps me move on.<span style=""> </span>The act of writing engages the left side of my brain, the dogmatic and objective side.<span style=""> </span>I’m just as prone to shake something out that I did wrong, something about me that I’d like to change.<span style=""> </span>I don’t think anything I’m writing today has cultural value, unless it provides an insight into money and relationships.<span style=""> </span>I’m beginning to see, as I write, that it may have had some value to me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">She developed a tumor.<span style=""> </span>It was benign.<span style=""> </span>I was terrified at the thought of losing her; doctors can reassure you at the probability of successful surgery but the word surgery will trip you up; the word alone will kidnap your thoughts into a multitude of ominous scenarios.<span style=""> </span>But she was okay.<span style=""> </span>I appreciated the people who came to see her in the hospital.<span style=""> </span>I doted over her during her months of bed rest.<span style=""> </span>I thought it must be hard for her, unable to move without assistance…it bothered me more that the days were so short and the light was so little and it made our bedroom into a cave.<span style=""> </span>Hardly a place to recuperate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<br /> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">When she was able, she started going to the gym.<span style=""> </span>She was very persistent about it.<span style=""> </span>Over \months, a desire to lose the bed rest fat was replaced with a need to become as toned and weightless as can be.<span style=""> </span>A week wouldn’t go by that she didn’t bring home another pair of new designer jeans.<span style=""> </span>But she was healthier; I couldn’t ask for more.<span style=""> </span>Even when all those endorphins kept her from coming home after work: hitting happy hour, going to shows, coming home who knows when.<span style=""></span></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><span style=""></span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">I knew what her new lifestyle was costing her, and we slowly returned to our old dynamic.<span style=""> </span>I stored for an inevitable winter.<span style=""> </span>She continued to spend.<span style=""> </span>After all, look at what she had been through.<span style=""> </span>When I accidentally opened a bill and saw a balance of nearly five thousand dollars, I just kept silent.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">There was no need to be passive-aggressive.<span style=""> </span>I was in fact, already beaten.<span style=""> </span>She was not going to put me in the position of having to raise my voice again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: trebuchet ms;" align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">*<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">She left me when I told her I wouldn’t change.<span style=""> </span>I have to stand by that response; though it has taken me this long to figure out exactly what about me I won’t change (what exactly about me needed changing was never made clear in the first place.<span style=""> </span>It had to wait to come out in numerous post-breakup conversations).<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">She wanted someone who invests in self discovery: really, I should go to therapy.<span style=""> </span>It would be good for me.<span style=""> </span>She wants someone who wants to travel the world.<span style=""> </span>Learn to relax, take a vacation.<span style=""> </span>She wants someone who will go out after work with her every night.<span style=""> </span>She wants someone who will do this, that, and the other every weekend.<span style=""> </span>She wants someone more fun.<span style=""> </span>She wants to try rock-climbing and she expects someone to do it with her.<span style=""> </span>She wants more sex.<span style=""> </span>She doesn’t want someone who shies away from an expensive restaurant.<span style=""> </span>And on and so on.<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">I remember my initial reaction at the time: she basically listed everything I AM NOT.<span style=""> </span>After twelve years together, this was understandable.<span style=""> </span>After twelve years, faithfulness and unequivocal support don’t carry much currency.<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">I remember my secondary reaction, when I was alone and away from her: I hated that her new job at work was centered on defining and building requirements, where people like me are supposed to provide technological solutions.<span style=""> </span>It was like her brain got stuck in a rut, and this seemed entirely unfair for me.<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">We moved forward with the separation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><span style="">
<br /></span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: trebuchet ms;" align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">*<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">This is where it gets ugly.<span style=""> </span>How do you decide who gets what?<span style=""> </span>Unspoken and tacit agreements about money and material things suddenly require definition in a spiteful context.<span style=""> </span>Being the abandonee, I didn’t ease the process.<span style=""> </span>I argued from the standpoint of what made sense: I put all this work in the house, I plan to stay here; take the car, she uses it more; I don’t care if she found and brought the cat home, I’m the one who takes care of her; I’m not the one leaving.<span style=""> </span>I’m not the one leaving.<span style=""> </span>Isn’t there a price to pay for being the type of person who just walks away and abandons?<span style=""> </span>I don’t care if you made out with some chick in a bar and it made you feel new, that it opened your eyes to all these possibilities.<span style=""> </span>Do you think you’re the first thirty-something, sexually confused woman who thinks she can build a fresh lesbian life on the back of what her man earned for her?<span style=""> </span>Well, you’re not, and go fuck yourself.<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">It all came down to the house.<span style=""> </span>I tallied up what I put into it.<span style=""> </span>I busted out percentages.<span style=""> </span>I broke down what we both put into the house, and what we both could get out of it if we sold.<span style=""> </span>I came up with a fair number.<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">She came back with a complicated road map of 401-k’s, blue book values on cars and a fifty-fifty divvy of what would happen if we sold the house.<span style=""> </span>I found it hilarious, this circuitous route that cut her assets in half, that separated things I felt I had no right to.<span style=""> </span>But she had this legal take for a good reason; the legal take would give her almost twice the fair one, and the legal one would always win.<span style=""> </span>As absurd as its complexity was, she was going to choose the option that gives her the most money. <span style=""> </span>Money in hand was what mattered to her most.<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">We played a dangerous game with theoreticals.<span style=""> </span>In <i style="">theory</i>, we were saving this much money by not incorporating lawyers.<span style=""> </span>In <i style="">theory</i>, this was the value of the house if we sold it the day she left - days after I had torn up the carpet to put in the hardwood floors she wanted.<span style=""> </span>I held my tongue over all the other potentials.<span style=""> </span>How we wouldn’t be arguing over the value of the house if it hadn’t been for the only one of us paying the mortgage since she left.<span style=""> </span>How she was expecting a lawsuit payout from a traffic accident, and she didn’t figure this into her ‘legal’ definition of what she deserves.<span style=""> </span>I just wanted it over.<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">We met one last time.<span style=""> </span>We thought we had a number we agreed on, but we were apparently thirteen thousand apart.<span style=""> </span>It was the difference between selling and not selling the house: if the house were sold, she wouldn’t have that thirteen thousand because it would be used to pay a hypothetical real estate agent.<span style=""> </span>But I wasn’t selling the house, so she believed she was entitled to that money.<span style=""> </span>Since I did not want to sell the house, I should pay it to her.<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">I was flabbergasted.<span style=""> </span>This was downright offensive.<span style=""> </span>I was jumping through hoops to get her bought out before the lease on her apartment was up – instead of waiting the two years allowable to me to arrange the sell of the house and then settle with her.<span style=""> </span>And wasn’t she basically threatening me?<span style=""> </span>Wasn’t she telling me that in order to make that check to her a little less hurtful, I had to sell the house?<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">I was done.<span style=""> </span>I told her I would give five thousand.<span style=""> </span>Through tears, she accepted.<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">If there IS any cultural value to impart, it is to get a lawyer.<span style=""> </span>I was no longer dealing with my partner; I was dealing with an animal.<span style=""> </span>I could only <i style="">see</i> my partner, though.<span style=""> </span>Considering that she carried the secret with her – that we were no longer in love – for a much longer time than I had, she had me at an emotional disadvantage.<span style=""> </span>In addition to all her new life requirements, she also felt entitled to be a homeowner herself, and she was going to chisel as much out of me as she could to ensure it.<span style=""> </span>A lawyer would have brought all those theoreticals into play, the aforementioned ‘potentials’ would have been on the table.<span style=""> </span>A lawyer would have told me not to act in haste, to not think about ending it as quickly and painlessly as possible.<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Because it didn’t end there.<span style=""> </span>I may have gotten her out of my life, but I’m reminded each month that I’m only paying the interest on what I paid out to her.<span style=""> </span>I can’t afford much more.<span style=""> </span>The housing market went in the crapper, and I just made an inflated buyout based on an inflated house value.<span style=""> </span>Doubly screwed.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-family: trebuchet ms;" align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">*<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">I keep asking myself, why now?<span style=""> </span>Why so long after the fact?<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">One reason is positive.<span style=""> </span>I think I’m healed.<span style=""> </span>I think that after dicking around for a year and a half, I’m finally thinking about my own new life.<span style=""> </span>When I think about what I want to do with this new life, I’m angry at how trapped I am.<span style=""> </span>How little I have to offer, because I let myself get taken advantage of.<span style=""> </span>And I know what regret feels like; it is an ugly tarnish on what should be something hopeful and bright.<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">I think part of it comes from shutting her out entirely.<span style=""> </span>I don’t know how she fares now.<span style=""> </span>I know I never wanted to know how great she is doing.<span style=""> </span>When the fables don’t come true, when evil prevails, when you are thoroughly played…you’re not up for watching a victory jig at your own k.o., you’re just not up for it.<span style=""> </span>But distance from the event has made me wonder.<span style=""> </span>Is she a raging lesbian now, or did she find a nice man-gina?<span style=""> </span>Did I earn her enough money so she got that house of her own? Can I find anything positive in the time we did have together?<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">That is where it all comes home; that’s the reason I write these things.<o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><o:p>
<br /></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">How it would end between us? <span style=""> </span>It was always evident.<span style=""> </span>As clichéd as it sounds, it was about the money.<span style=""> </span>We could get along gangbusters, but it could never last.<span style=""> </span>Not a pay-it-forward guy like me, and a pray-the-bank-makes-an-error-and-wipes-out-my-balance girl like her.<span style=""> </span>My only regret is that it took her so long to realize her requirements.<span style=""> </span>Scratch that: her requirements were cognitive bursts, a running list of wants by line item.<span style=""> </span>What I wish is that she took the time, a long time ago, to metacognitavely realize what all those wants require.<span style=""> </span>She shouldn’t have wasted her time on a man who likes the simple things in life, who practices living within one’s means. <span style=""> </span>I wish she could have just walked on by, looking for the big money-maker, instead of taking advantage of a nice, well-intentioned guy like me.<span style=""> </span>There’s nothing wrong with that!<span style=""> </span>I watch the E! Channel…I think it’s even celebrated as a virtue.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">
<br /><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></p> FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-8478162820467054522009-01-04T23:01:00.000-08:002009-01-04T23:02:15.126-08:00the trees<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">I liquidated my anxieties, thumbed my rosary beads, burnt a votive, and nothing happened. Selective attention and self-fulfilling prophecy: aren’t they a little like Tweedledee & Tweedledum, with their exasperating agreement to never disagree? Well, this is the time of year that Carroll’s comedic duo haunts my home. Each winter, I twist and wring out all this negativity bandying about in my brain; a pablum puddle of stress and insecurity and unfettered fretfulness I offer as a little sacrifice…a little reassurance, that the trees will not fall on my house. Because nothing bad will happen if I put pay to it; because nothing good ever happened if I didn’t lance an ounce of flesh.<br /><br />It isn’t like, one year I decided to become fearful of the trees in my yard. It started with the last prolonged snow storm. The branches of the trees were weighted with snow; a spike in the temperature the next day was followed by freezing temperatures that night that turned the pine’s beautiful white coat into a cumbersome armor. A little after midnight, the branches began falling. The first one took out the corner of the garage, and as I was out to investigate, neighbors from up the street were standing in the alley way: the crack on breaking, the landing on the garage, was enough to rouse them. I assured them everything was okay, no one was hurt. What else could I do at that moment? I drew a mental geometry in my head, figured if a tree fell it would fall short of their home, and wrote them off as saintly for their concern.<br /><br />But that was only the beginning; the next twelve hours brought eight additional branches giving up the ghost. Sometime in the wee hours, M abandoned the master bedroom for the living room sofa – putting a little distance outside of the trees’ canopy. I slept alone, each new thud interrupting my R.E.M. with a fire crack and jump starting my heart rate with a defillibrating pop. I don’t have many regrets, but I definitely regret sticking it out in this manner, I carry some second-guesses over thumbing my nose at Mother Nature by standing pat and pretending there was nothing to fear. Ask any Scientologist: the subconscious is no place to make a stand, and mine took a beating that night…by trying to sleep through trauma, I put out the welcome matt for engrams galore. When I awoke the next day, there was a mish-mash of large branches that in one place came to my waist; by the time I had cut and de-branched, I had a mass that could fill an entire room. <br /><br />None of the aforementioned is news to people I know. If you know me slightly; if you have seen my home, I have mentioned the trees. You know I live in fear of them. It is a tentative, peaceful cease-fire…I don’t want them to disappear, but each windstorm announces a new political unrest. If you haven’t seen them: they are two majestic pines that loom over my tiny, 1000 sq. foot shack. There are two more trees in my neighbor’s yard, one of which is a ponderosa pine whose needles seem to fall only in my yard. I’ve cursed at all four of them since my first year here, when I spent the fall raking pine needles out of my dead lawn; a lawn killed by their acidic injections. I could never resolve what to do with them. On the one hand, they were a bonus when I bought the house. Look in any direction, and you will not see trees so tall. There are four of them, so they have an interlocking root system. I simply didn’t see the downsides when I bought the home; I didn’t grasp the amount of maintenance. And I didn’t know we would come to this contention where I would be on the losing side.<br /><br />Up until the snowstorm, I had never conceived of an entire tree falling. It’s something that just doesn’t happen, right? But I read about it in the papers. Roads are closed because a tree fell. Electricity is lost because a branch took out the wires. I would try and determine what kind of tree it was, how old it was, what kind of conditions made such a thing possible. Part of the reason I tell everyone about the trees, is simply to get some reassurance. I want people to tell me that these pines look healthy, that we get enough water that their roots are strong and they would never give entirely.<br /><br />The last several years have been difficult. Simply knowing that a windstorm is coming fills me with dread. The trees have become a strange Achilles Heel, a chink in my normally stoic posture. I have given so much power to them, and when the winds kick up they affirm it with a mean-spirited validation. I lay supine and jet awake at night, imagining escape plans should the greatest crack resound…while they assert themselves in a fanning fury, reminding me there was a time when people believed it was the trees that made the wind. It is a primal instinct and short stone’s throw from animism, but they make a convincing case: my heart rate accelerates – sometimes pull me from my sleep – as their flailing tantrum is thrown above me.<br /><br />I know it is illogical, but I cannot have them cut down.<br /><br />Despite the inconvenience of maintaining them. Despite knowing I’ll never have a beautiful lawn. Despite knowing that a well-placed lightning strike could destroy my house; even knowing I’ve wasted so much anxiety and stress should the worst never happen.<br /><br />Part of it is the novelty – I look about me and see that I’m a rare custodian for what many people would see as a developmental inconvenience. It hearkens back to the first time I walked through this empty house and looked up between the trees’ interlocking branches and felt a full heart and reverent awe. I’m wary what would be the outcome from amputating the x-factor in a personal pride. Also, as ashamed as I am that I’ve developed this insecurity about the trees, it too has become a part of me…it is as though, in lieu of having a god to be illogical over, the trees have stepped in as my personal absurd recourse (and discourse).<br /><br />There is one other reason.<br /><br />I believe we roll over peaks and valleys, that nothing is ever all-up or all-down. And the trees might challenge me the year round, but this intense aggravation is bookended in the harshest winter. I know it is coming, I can brace myself for it, and there is a familiarity to my anxiety: I know how to deal with it, I’ve exhausted my imagination playing the terrifying scenarios over and over again in my mind, and I guess…if the worst happened, I’d like to think my body would react accordingly.<br /><br />Then spring comes. It only happens several days through the season, but as I come home from work, a full block from my home, I hear a sound competing with the car traffic. I’m always impressed with the ruckus the returning birds can kick up, surprised that I can hear it from so far. I begin to walk a little slowly, taking in the moment: hundreds of birds converge in the trees; finches and sparrows and some I’ve never been able to classify. By the time I’ve reached my front steps, it is like a sheet of white noise…only it is a cacophony of individual chirping, an orchestral rehearsal. And I tell myself, this is my home. It is a wonderful end to a work day; I usually grab a chair and set myself below them, below the spring blue sky. It is chaotic and joyful at the same time, and I want them to go on and never end but I know this is only their rest stop and they are bound to move on. But it isn’t lost on me: it’s no longer just about me and the trees. And I feel pretty lucky, knowing I’m custodian for these tiny beings as well, believing that each year they identify my home and my trees as their rest stop.</span>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-34333197348604377072009-01-01T22:31:00.000-08:002009-01-01T23:57:04.526-08:00deep six ought eight<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">when i send my mind searching for arching themes to sum up last year, one song plays over and over as the images flip by. it isn't a song by my favorite artist, nor is it even a sentimental favorite, but it fits perfectly with the backdrop of failed, half hearted pursuits and the revolving-door of transient relationships sprinkled over the period. Morrissey invoking the title, 'lost', and each context he presents giving us an opportunity to drop the term as excuse or resignation, is hauntingly a propos for my mental 8 mm. i try not to fight my brain on these things; if my gut, heart, chi or whatever, annoints the moz as its song troubadour laureate, i'll unashamedly acquiesce. indeed, i was lost in 08.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">when i look at the peaks and valleys, i have a tough time seeing them simply as such. a high point was buying M out of the house and being quit of her...though i'm still kicking myself for not really looking out for my best interests and likely overpaying to expediate the process. out of the biggest positive, i'm still second-guessing the outcome and dealing with the negative results. the lowest point, the justice show...i made a complete ass of myself in my public drunkedness, and spent weeks hating myself over it. but it was the first of a couple rock-bottom moments that prompted me to start drinking less and start focusing on taking better care of my body. so: out of the sour came something sweet.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">that these intenser moments came in the early half of the year doesn't surprise me. the year vibrated like a struck tuning fork. i had more questions, was more ill at ease - more lost - at the beginning. i was more erratic and misdirected in trying to be something different than who i was, either overshooting or falling short of my mark. i just needed to be centered, and the tines didn't come to rest until the closing months of the year. acknowledging you are lost is a good start: from there, you're either going to posit where you want to be and make your way there, or you are going to plant a flag where you are and start seeing things in relation to where you made your stand. I think I'm going to do a little of both in ought nine, resolving to <em>stop wandering</em>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">and maybe a year from now, i'll be looking back and hearing 'sing your life' jauntily ringing each image in. or if i'm lucky, 'last of the famous international playboys.' </span>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-40766099737665268942008-12-16T22:49:00.001-08:002009-03-30T18:39:40.270-07:00Urban Famine<div style="text-align: left;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280663462713082082" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 400px; height: 300px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXvvdiFt9x5C8w4Jq-RdkSzHPLRpX0p7d7b55aBOWoTTF1KLXCr43zjqd8sHv-cJMlG2fLcR2hL4xbF5qBSKBxL8NrH6IcsiEkuDqmQ01PsFZFrNV7W_phoN4BU4sMGwiJ2gzA2g4wLpzZ/s400/.2.jpg" border="0" /><br /></div><div><div align="left"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" > I will try and make the best of today, but most of the people here see me as a threatening pariah and unknown quantity. Most of them do not approach me; I have to sidle up to their little groups, show my affable side, and undo whatever <em>mots de merde</em> have been bandied about in grumbled spite at my general affluence. Can I be blamed for my anticipation, or for a situational providence? Testimony has come my way confirming I can certainly be held in suspicion for it. Meh. It is the suspicion the weak have for those with the power and pull, the uncomfortable alliance the dependent have with those on whom they depend, mostly so when the relationship is undefined and left open to fanciful interpretation. This much, this much I can appreciate - and I can understand their group wariness, even when it springs up amongst them in camaraderie of mutual insecurity. What I wish the people could understand – is that I never asked for this relationship. I only pursued advantages for my own reassurance and longevity, and this foisted me into a position of responsibility…and I am among them today simply to enjoy a little cake. To celebrate Horace’s ninth birthday; my good friend Mikal’s eldest son. This is supposed to be a beautiful occasion, a cause for celebration, and I was drawn to the street by the people <em>en masse</em>. That such an agglomeration is not associated with a rumble, riot, looting or…strategic displacement of undesirable people...is no fault of mine.<br /> “You might remember my husband – he was on the committee that organized the barrier in Arbor Heights.” She detaches herself from a group of women, holding blankets and quilts in her hand. That she looks my age – an age where anything attractive we once had diminishes in favor of asset or status – is not lost on me. “He always spoke highly of you. That you were a solid comrade; that you looked to what would benefit the most for the greatest number of people…despite the decisions that needed to be made.”<br /> “And what was his name…?”<br /> “David Douglas. You might not remember him by name. I know there was a sense of urgency at the time, that names were unimportant and quickly forgotten.” She looks about, measuring the distance of people for reassurance that no one but the two of us can hear: “He set out with two others to go east. This was in May, and he hasn’t returned. Phaedra and I…we are so terrified. It’s been seven weeks since his promised return.” I tell her that I can ask after him. I can get an inquiry to the bootleggers who commerce in information as well as contraband - but it does little to mollify her anxiety. “My daughter and I have gone over this a thousand times. He is not coming back. Either he is dead, or he has found a better life and left us behind to feign for ourselves. He left us with this…he left knowing the risk, and he wrote the date on a rock and told us many times that should that date pass, we need to begin a future without him.” As she spoke, she pushed her bundle to me, in a suppliant application.<br /> I ask her, “Isn’t this for the boy? For Horace?” She looks away from me.<br /> “No, it is for you. Just so that we can have some kind of consideration. We live in the same division – three blocks over, though we’ve never met – and we don’t have the fortune of having a garden. We have to get by on trade. This, this we can spare and hopefully, we can establish a rapport of sorts…I’m not sure what we will gain by it. Possibly your goodwill. Or protection.”<br /> I’m taken aback. Nobody could have anticipated my coming out and joining this cold afternoon, and I cannot recall the last time I participated in any gathering dedicated to levity. I look past the woman to her daughter – a wispy twenty-something who could be beautiful if life were not so hard, if we could all be well-fed and didn’t need to consider how we spend each calorie of expendable energy. And I think of how long it has been since I’ve been with a woman. I’ve never felt comfortable with my position in the community; I’ve mostly wanted to be alone, and I would partner with others only as the need arose or whenever I saw fit. But I’ve remarked the faces about me today, seen how no one will meet my eyes, and I can feel it: they respect me as a necessary evil, a key to their own survival.</span></div><div align="left"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" > When I was younger, I read that one in every two hundred men could claim ancestry to Genghis Khan. He was a merciless warrior and apparently, a profligate rapist. The statistic seemed so fantastic that it would always return to me – the grist of disbelief. For every two hundred men I would meet, one of them must have had this gene, could have had this capacity for ruthlessness that I wanted no part of. It foreshadowed my distrust for fellow men, and I forged relationships as cautiously as a scout making hhis way through a field of landmines.<br /> “Please. Give what you have to Horace – I suspect this is what you intended. I appreciate your gesture. You can come to my home anytime; we can discuss in private what it is you need to improve your circumstance. I am not here today to barter services or material necessity.” I shift my head and eyes about to let her know the conversation is finished: “Now I must try and find Mikal…”<br />I break away from her. I know I have given her the impression of a man obdurate, but I am secretly flattered – she is offering a validation I never thought I needed. This idea that the people might see me as their own warrior, even if it is a mantle I do not necessarily accept. I see Mikal at the center of a group of people, and they disperse at my approach.<br /> “Well done, Mikal. Or should I commend your wife? I can’t envision you going door to door and inviting all these people.”<br /> His smile is sheepish. “You know how I feel about this. She does it out of spite. The boy is lame; he cannot lift a thing. Look at him. The only thing working is that mouth of his.” I pat Mikal on the shoulder. “It is different for a woman. You might put the food on the table, you might be her support, but the boy is the apple of her eye. Their existence is more entwined than your marriage, even though you are the father.” Now it is my turn to lower voice, and I lean into his ear: “Is that what today is about? Did you have the talk with her?”<br /> Mikal’s pause is drawn out, and he barely moves his lips to mutter. “It did not go over well. What am I to do? I feel terrible about the accident, but I don’t know if we could handle another year like the last one. We are still young. Times can improve – I believe they will! But this is too much. Oh, the days I went without eating.” He inhales deeply and releases a dramatic sigh. “Entire days.”<br /> I feel so bad for him. I cannot imagine the joys or the grief that become a father. I look at Horace: the boy with the crooked arm. His right arm, broken several years ago when he and some other boys were playing in the quarry. When we arrived at the scene, it was folded like an accordion holding its air, swinging about when we removed him from the rubble. We tried to set it back in place. The boy’s screams were harrowing. We didn’t do a very good job, and the arm didn’t heal straight and apparently there was some nerve damage. He could eventually move his fingers, but he could feel nothing with them. When he reached the age that bring the young into toil, the men were frequently interrupted with Horace’s dropping and breaking things. He will forever favor the hand that is not naturally adept, his full potential will be a scepter haunting him.<br /> I sit down next to Mikal and we watch his son together. I try to make him feel better. It is a tribute to the occasion. “Well he is full of happiness today. And you are right - things might make a positive turn. There’s no use worrying about it now, we have a planting soon, food won’t be a concern, and who knows? There might be something the boy can do to make your family’s life easier.” Mikal gives me one last smile before looking to the ground in contemplation. But I know we are thinking the same thing; it is the way anyone of us who has survived these past decades will think - or we would not have survived at all. We are thinking about what we will do if the situation worsens.<br />I’m already contemplating and bracing myself for what might fall upon my own hands, when I think of Genghis again: the statistic that sits in my mind as a nuisance. I had never factored that I could be the cursed numerator in a novel, insidious statistic.<br /><br /><br />I kneel down on the floor next to her spent frame. I set a large bowl next to her filled and overflowing with ears of corn and potato and carrots, and my heart is warmed as her eyes widen to take it all in. “Take this home for you and your mother. And this:” I present her with a 30-06 and six shells. “You surprised me when you said you had no weapons.” Businesslike, I make exaggerated movements to draw her attention: “You load it like this.” I put the cartridge in place and cock the rifle. “…and aim. Now, don’t go out and kill anyone with it, or we’ll hunt you down. I will hunt you down. And I’ll make sure there are more of us than there are shells I’m giving you now.”<br />Her eyes do not move from the rifle as I hand it to her. “How many people have you killed with it?”<br />I tell her she doesn’t need to know. “People can get by without killing anyone at all; aren’t you are proof of that? First rule: consider this a tool to warn intruders off. Rarely do they act alone anymore…if a group attacks, a warning shot might be all you need to distinguish your home as one that shouldn’t be invaded. Killing should be a last resort. Always a last resort.”<br />She is adjusting to the weight and feeling its density: “But there’s so much we could do with it.”<br />“No. You are too young to remember. There was a time when killing for food was unacceptable. A taboo. I know this will be a difficult transition, but there are those of us who want to bring this time back. For the community. Even for the people who threaten us…it needs to be something that we never consider or accept. Ever again.” I offer her my hand and lift her to her feet.<br />I lead Phaedra to the door. Though I tell her to call on me should they need anything, I want that they will be sufficient and I will not hear from them again. I feel it as a resignation and guilt over my actions. There is an allure in the supplicant, an allure that awoke a sleeping libido – it was further fueled knowing she was a child, 30 years my junior. It was enflamed when I could tell she was getting no pleasure from any of our coupling, and I was soon overwhelmed, mouth-breathing all my future sadistic plans for her to the back of her ear. I am able to better see the transaction for what it was, now. Now, that I am fully engorged.<br />Not that I wouldn’t do it again. With a different woman. But I don’t have an unlimited supply of rifles.<br />I have forty-seven of them – an assortment of automatics, specials and game-hunting fare - minus this one bartered away. It is an odd assortment, many taken from a looting grab-ass spree when two dozen of us ventured Northing in the earliest weeks of the famine. When we knew we could call it such, when circumstances were begging a name to attach to the pestilence. We raided like locusts: piloting stolen shopping carts, shattering shop front windows as we berated bystanders waving our baseball bats and voicing hostage-scenario threats. It was a successful route. Many of us absconded with carts loaded with tin-canned imperishable. Two of us came away with a small arsenal. “Haven’t they heard the old parable about teaching a man to fish?” The other asked me. I could only smile as we watched the others congratulating each other for their plunder. They measured their success in their immediate need, for them and their families. “Perhaps we forgot our aphorisms and parables when our stomachs became empty.”<br />I become nostalgic when my thoughts are redirected to those first several months. It was a time of rampant adrenaline and collective ambiguity. In a short amount of time I went from being nobody to approaching someone untouchable. It was a time where many of my shortcomings were reinterpreted as strengths. A time where the bar of success became an irrelevance, and old subjective values lost their density. When I awoke each morning, the anticipated drudgery of a former life was displaced by a new reality – a notion that I could possess more prominence and leverage before my head hit the pillow at the end of the day. I can think of no better way to explain it: the world’s end marked my new beginning.<br /><br /><br />Nobody can point to one single event as the downfall. Certainly, there are as many root causes as there were once attention-seeking pundits, but I hold it to be true: the disparate, cataclysmic events were unrelated. Every claimed root cause will find a series of perpetrators. Some caused by humans, some caused by policy, some caused by nature.<br />I was born at a time when the ‘energy crisis’ – or the existence of such – was coming to the forefront of world debate. Our own country seemed to be the last to reach a consensus that it was deserving attention; that it needed to be addressed in policy. Ours was a country with a long history of division. The country as a whole was divided, and you could take any large parcel of land within it and find more division therein. Still it was a rich country. We were all well fed, so our tensions were comprised of pettier things. We had so much, yet were so unappreciative of it. All of our citizens had so few worries, so many conveniences, that we valued our opinions – ideological, traditional, and culture-edifying – as something more valuable and true than natural law. We saw politics as a casual dissipation: not something that needs constant attention and internal pressure, but an intermittent event where having a voice becomes an electuary compulsion. And within this framework, we had dissension that an environmental or ecological problem existed. Within this framework, there were even still, deep seated resentments that would interfere in fixing it.<br />We were a strong, but slowly-progressing country. A country rooted and obsessed with its own unique history. A narcissistic, central and self-referential country as well. Debates would culminate in arguments invoking our constitution and within our temporal frame of reference, attempts to interpret the intentions of our forefathers. We became a country of two opposing mindsets: to take risk or stay pat. To create a utopia for all, or allow each individual to pursue their own best interest unfettered. To provide guarantees, at a national level – or to make each person responsible for their own life. A country frozen in its bipolar identity; a government that encouraged only the two loudest and majoring voices. With a political structure that allowed the perpetuity of only two parties, our way of life was subject to a game of constant tug-of-war.<br />There were many signs at the end of the century, so many warning signs. Signs that humanity was negatively affecting the global climate. Signs that we were losing our competitive advantage on the global market. We looked to our fathers and mothers and envied them their bounty of opportunity and opulence; believed we should have the same even if it meant borrowing against our children’s future - so that we could possess it in our own turn and validate our own efforts. There were some brave enough to cry out against a consumption that came naturally to a status-minded public, but their warnings were discredited. Their facts and evidence were dismissed as selective attention and self-fulfilling prophecy. A natural apocalypse was reduced to a matter of faith by the same interest groups who professed that the faith they offered would culminate in a supernatural apocalypse…<br />The wealth of our nation, even as it devolved into farce, still drew respect. And resentment.<br /><br /><br />People often inquired about Blake Island. It was a former tourist attraction, just shy of a square mile, resting in Puget Sound. When we were a metropolis, people would board from Elliot Bay for Tillicum Village: spend an afternoon being served lunch and beer while being entertained with tribal dancing. To our knowledge, the island never had more than a few, to no, residents. Now it was hard to tell. It looked no different from our shore, to those of us who could remember from our youths. A bountiful mound of majestic pine trees. The potential for wood resources and farmable land. An advantageous outpost. Several families wanted to inhabit the island, seeing it as a place of safety and privilege. Getting there by kayak would be possible, as the island lay but four or five miles from our shore. For many months, we spoke with wonder and what ifs and we brainstormed how we could get a couple dozen of us out to the island and back. We spoke big with our words, and we collectively dreamt a lodge that would house us and protect us before moving on to the peninsula where true game might be found.<br />The expedition had to wait, however. In my own neighborhood, all the men’s days were focused on breaking rock. Food was the greatest priority, and we were still trying to undo the progress that had become a hindrance in the new world. The neighborhood would awake these winter mornings to the peal of a sledgehammer breaking up street concrete - Clark had an internal clock and skittish hypertension that sounded our daily work bell – and screen doors slammed as we joined him, still aching from the previous day’s labor.<br />We broke up the sidewalks and the street. We created a rock quarry at the southern downhill side of the street, tacitly agreeing on a wall where none of us felt we had relationships with people we would miss. The women and children would join us, herding up any object that could be put to use breaking rock and putting their backs to the wheelbarrow or carrying away of rock and sediment. As the sun set, we cajoled Clark to give it a rest: the end of his workday would herald our own. It took a good solid month, this setting free to the soil.<br />When we took on this work, I would say that a third of us were still present. Many left with the hope that prosperity could be found elsewhere. Some left quietly, with resignation, looking about them and knowing that they did not have the heart to compete against their own neighbors for food. A few – individual members of families – simply disappeared. There was a woman, Samantha, who would sing aloud to fill her own ears with the sounds she missed from her iPod. She would take long walks, sharing her melody with anyone who wanted to invite a little joy into their heart. Whenever I recognized her tune, it would bring back all the memories I had attached to it and I would find myself humming it for hours. Then she was gone. She was one of many, and nobody, not even her family, suggested that we go looking for her.<br />It was agreed that it made the most sense for our downsized community…plant our food outside our front doors where we each had equal opportunity to guard over it, and guard against each other. Anything grown on each individual’s property, in our own yards, we would retain as our own. It was an agreeable mix of the communal and the rights of individuals to put forth an extra effort to gain a surplus.<br />After the spring planting, our focus returned to the expedition. We took inventory and found we could muster a half dozen kayaks or small boats to accommodate twenty-two people. It would take that many to carry them the mile to shoreline, but we agreed that only eighteen of us should go to Blake Island: we did not want to risk not having enough room should a boat capsize. Reuben and I brought guns; Clark and Mikal, in separate boats, would drop fishing poles. After all the work in getting the boats to shore, we didn’t want to waste such an opportunity. We were each anxious with our own private expectation at what we might find! Almost a year had passed since we banded together into some unknown venture - and despite our many talks leading to this day – we knew we could not have visualized every possible contingency.<br />None of us had made this journey in the prior life. With the weather and the water at calm, we guessed at how long it would take…I thought ninety minutes. At midpoint, both shores looked like impossible swims and the rolling currents felt like Mother Nature’s muscles posturing in flex and extension. The salty air brought out an affected ribaldry and we shouted quips across our vessels, making light of our threatening surroundings. It was as though we were channeling the spirits of ancient sailors or triggering a latent gene. We quieted our merriment as we neared the east shore of the island, the first to arrive taxiing until we could group a hundred feet from shore.<br />Our boats met in an uneven starfish shape: “There’s a landing dock on the north side – we could reach it in another fifteen minutes,” Conrad said in a low voice, barely strong enough to carry over the hum of water. I disagreed. “If there are people on the island, we don’t want to use the front door. I say we land here.” The others nodded in agreement, but inside I felt sick that we had never discussed such an important detail. When this played out in my mind, we were landing at the southern tip of the island, but the northwestern currents steered us to the eastern side. My mental scenarios were being upended by the reality of the moment, and doubt and second-guessing were invited into my decision-making process.<br />We hit the shore, a tight little ledge that blossomed immediate into a coniferous wall. The boats were secured to the trees, flopping from side to side in the wading water, with plenty rope to spare. We broke into six groups: as many groups as we had guns. We felt like we were back on plan. We would advance about a hundred yards branched apart from one another, canvassing the tiny island.<br />I led the eastern shore-hugging party, bracing my automatic ahead of me. The first leg of our journey was a cumbersome incline, manipulating our feet through ferns brushing our waists. The absence of trails was interpreted as a positive sign, and every few minutes I reminded myself to never let the east water completely disappear from my sight or I might lose my bearing. This has to be a safe place. If there were a threat, we would have felt it by now. If there are people here, they have to be more frightened of us. I did not know we were making slower progress than our neighbors. As we heard Randall yell, we broke into a run.<br />“A Chinaman! A Chinaman!”<br />No thought was given to what might attack our legs below the ferns; I am amazed none of us tripped and fell. Our threesome reached the scene of the standoff. Not twenty yards ahead of us, there were four of them, their hunched statures making like disembodied busts above the sea of ferns. They did not appear to have any weapons. One of them shouted: “What do you want?”<br />“We’re just checking out the island! We are not here to harm anyone.”<br />It was my voice again, taking control of the situation. Though normally reserved among people, it takes only a few moments of ambiguous suspension to draw me out. I navigated myself towards them, aiming the automatic to the sky. I was almost upon them and I could see their visible shaking - they were, indeed, more afraid of us than we were of them.<br />They were a family. Korean. They reached the island as we did, departing from Alki Point - not several miles from where we debarked, but four weeks prior. As both of our groups converged in this small clearing, I continued to probe them with questions: “Is there game on the island – how do they eat? How many are you? Why did you leave the mainland? Have there been other visitors like us?” But these were the questions that they would not answer. They would look at each other and demur.<br />Rueben leveled his gun at them. “You don’t have to talk. But you’re going to lead us to your camp. Now.” They lowered their heads and turned to walk, and Rueben lowered his arm as they acquiesced.<br />They did not lead us far before we broke into a clearing. Though the trees enclosed the island in an illusion of unaffected permanence, the unkempt grass reminded me of what happens when society breaks down, just how much our old world needed constant care and maintenance. An asphalt trail was lined with benches half-swallowed in the overgrowth. If there was any game on the island, it wasn’t of the grazing sort.<br />I directed Reuben to stay outside with the family while several of us trekked to the performance hall. It loomed disjointed against the landscape, a majestic log cabin. Inside, we milled about like insects: surveying the kitchen, looking for sleeping quarters, walking about the stage and pretend-commanding over the large room. It was an eerie novelty in this unlit setting…but I wasn’t getting any of my questions answered. The looks on the others queried the same thing: where is the food? How did they make it a month on this island?<br />“It’s out back!!”<br />We followed Clark’s voice. Ruling out edible game and the limited containment of the island, I think I already knew. Emerging onto the back deck, I took in the fire pit and several refrigerator units hugging the backside of the lodge. Clark was walking towards us from the edge of the woods, waving a bone in his hand. It looked like a femur.<br />“There’s a rat’s nest of them back there,” pointing to the trees. Clark breathed heavily, carried by a frenzied enthusiasm. “They’re human. I found a couple heads. We need to get out of here…it might be a trap.”<br />I looked at the fire pit for some kind of evidence but none was divulged. I looked again at the refrigerators. “We aren’t going to open them!” Phil froze in midstep, and then slowly backed away from the metal tombstones. “I don’t care how curious you are. Leave them be.”<br />We rejoined at the clearing. I asked that the island inhabitants take us back to our boats, for we had seen all we needed to see. The looks on their faces were defensive and shameful, and I tried to sidestep the taboo issue. “We are not here to fight or conquer…I’m sure you understand our curiosity to see whether the island was inhabited or not, and we have our answer. Let us part without issue.” I warned Rueben, in quiet convoy, what we found: my fears that we don’t know how many others might be on the island, and that we need these men with us as hostages. They managed to take the island once, so they must have had some hidden means – despite how harmless these few appeared. But we were returned to our boats without event or ceremony. We didn’t feel completely at ease until we were rowing a good hundred yards from the shore.<br />The others began talking and I withdrew in quiet. A part of me wanted to see what was inside the refrigerators, but this ruthless, practical part of me, knew that the weather was too warm to open them. That whatever was inside could spoil. Those doors would be kept open as we gaped and gawked at dismembered body parts; the boys wouldn’t be satisfied until each cut had been held up and displayed in morbid curiosity. And it would all go bad, down to the last cut and chop. It would be useless and pointless.<br />I could not judge what these people had done. It is possible they only displaced a band of people who dispatched another band of people the same way, who in turn did the same. The island might be a microcosm of our world today, repeatedly eating away at itself, inheriting the shelter of the old world but having to reevaluate what is truly necessary to survive. And when they saw us, they probably thought their time was up – they would have offered what was in those refrigerators to buy another day, only to have us leave. Withdrawal seemed the most mutually benefitting option, and I had to avoid such an awkward parlet. I’m not ready to see people I know arguing whether we should barter in such a thing as human flesh. Suppression and avoidance sometimes has its place in human interaction.<br />Perhaps we can return in a year, better knowing what to expect. Perhaps there will only be one person left when we return: a reluctant king, an embittered victor.<br /><br /><br />Our city, like any other metropolis, had an identity all its own. It was the only city I ever knew, and I wanted to grant it at least that much! As a child I would visualize the city as a sprawling, supine body in human form. A ghost overlaying the landscape. I would try and see the body in my mind, but it escaped me in a transparency because it was its moving parts that were the thing that mattered. Tiny cars making their way along vein-like streets carrying the blood in and out of the heart, the heart of a thumping shopping center. People were like blood cells. Some existed to move, some existed to heal, and some existed to transcend the needs of this fanciful, hypnagogic vision. The heart beat in the shopping malls, the mouth consumed in the most elite neighborhoods, and somewhere in the south – we’ll call it Tacoma – the remainder that could not nourish was unceremoniously deposited. All that I took in, I took in as indicative of the actions of something greater. I could never take the intensive or individual and see it for what it was. Many people generalize from an extensive point of view, and make their judgments against the individual in light of it. I believe I worked in the reverse; I took in the smallest parts and wondered their place...how they forged their place, into some greater whole. What greater purpose did these tiny motes, or their actions, serve in the movement of this mighty beast?<br />I may have been right in my vision. The metropolis was an audacious entity, a noble monument…but against nature. It would have its rise and fall; its birth and heyday and sad decline. It would contend against other like entities, and they would eye each other’s interests suspiciously as they sought what the one could get from the other; just how far it could trust the other and what metrics sounded an alarm when the other was a worthless dead weight or becoming a potential threat. All these great cities. Accelerating their passage of blood and reinforcing their own metabolism: posturing and affecting a hopeful individualism as they all equally petitioned a central government for favor. The Federal government acted like a head cheerleader plying each social clique, granting favor to any confidential ear who could keep it private, promising everything to everyone who would vote her homecoming queen. My young mind would despair in disgust. It saw the world in this superficial schema, became bound by it, and hoped little for it.<br /><br /><br />I don’t have the answer. I have my moments where I feel I grasp it, but it eludes me. Like many others, I want to have a single cause I can point my finger at. Some act that I can point at, and with all the others say: ‘we’ll never make that mistake again!’ But it isn’t that simple. It is more gasoline fueling the argument, as we take exception to what the other believes is the problem. I’ve had many fireside chats with the others. We hold many of the same disagreements we had before. If I could separate them into different corners, they would fall between carrying a sense of responsibility to something greater than the self - opposed to a petulant, selfish expression of individual will. My phrasing may give away where my sympathies lie.<br />Our country was already over-extended when we elected a politician who would promise much more in the way of what rights were guaranteed to each citizen. It all sounded very good; his like-minded Congress echoed his sentiment and healthcare was added to ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His opponents gratingly called it the Nouveaux Deal. With hindsight, I can understand their criticism. Once we embrace, or have implemented, a well-meaning social program – it is never easily eradicated. Not even when it has outlasted its usefulness.<br />And as it is with any other social program, it created division: some people truly needed it; some people felt like they couldn’t take advantage of something they were funding unless they were sick or dying. I created mutual suspicion that the services were abused, and I see this as a natural reaction. I applaud those who paid their tithe and kept their mouths shut; they compete with the saintly. This did not stop universal health care from creating a new generation of people who saw death and sickness around every corner; who self-diagnosed them into emergency wards and critical care. It is a metaphysical rebellion; some people wanted to tax the system that laid an unfair tax upon them.<br />For the wealthy, the true leaders of the country, the new path was made apparent. They serve a higher, intangible power: share holders, some unknown and some highly vested and vocal. Enabled by advancements in communications, four of the five largest corporations were able to re-establish their executive branches outside of our country’s borders. Any debate or red tape challenging the plumbing our own country’s natural resources was deftly silenced as the perpetrator shifted locale beyond jurisdiction. Elder statesmen and retired CEO’s could be seen on television beckoning the second tier to join them in this exodus, to relocate to the new safe havens scattered over the established countries of the old world. Even third world countries put aside their envy of America’s long-standing wealth and stature to unfurl their red carpets, attracting away prominent business owners and giving them the keys to their diminutive kingdoms.<br />Tax penalties were applied. New laws and restrictions were passed to coerce away this trend. It was to no avail. Where possible, the jobs followed the executive to their new homes. I don’t think anyone has the answer to whether any of this was unavoidable…the government responded as expected to an event that could have happened regardless of the party in power. Some will say a very fine line was crossed with the burden of too many social programs. Others spit a raspberry at the deserters - who needs them, we can get by, by wanting less for ourselves.<br />The jobless rate climbed into double digits. Prices for anything you could name skyrocketed. People adjusted their needs, but the economy was in freefall. The pundits called it contraction, and graphs and variables reinterpreted our land’s aggregate product and blooming population in new paradigms in an attempt to interpret why we had time to watch this all at home on our television. I remember looking forward to Sunday morning, because I would splurge for an Americano at my coffee shop. It was the last one surviving – probably because it was not part of a global chain - and it too eventually disappeared as the world I couldn’t control continued to adjust its bottom line.<br />People continued to doubt global warming. Even after the third flooding of New Orleans. Even after everything west of the San Andreas Fault slid into the ocean. Skin cancer cases rose like the cholesterol levels of people who prefer bathing in the light of their television sets, but it seemed as though no one was going to change their behavior. There were many campaigns to enlighten people, but people still drove their cars to work each day, watered their lawns, and pushed every watt in their electrical box until a breaker told them enough was enough.<br />The terrorists became less choosy about their victims. Or maybe, they only became smarter about targeting them where they hurt. Domestic dams were targeted; oil wells abroad were set afire and burned for months. Several I recall, burned for years. So I am told. I only heard that their fires expired by way of testimony, from travelers who say it is so. Electricity had become sporadic amongst the rolling blackouts; we had slowly regressed from being an age of immediate and cheap information, to one rating information’s value low on a scale of what’s crucial and edible at the same time...<br /><br /><br />We were contentious with China. Fifteen years into our freefall, they had accumulated almost half of our country’s debt.<br />Debt to pay for their product. Debt to bail out our companies, only to see them leave. Debt to keep our health care, our social security, our welfare: debt to maintain a notion that America should transcend natural, financial laws, to implement a utopia. Debt accrued as we were told that consumption was a duty. The debt that aggregates when you aren’t as competitive as you would like to believe.<br />It is an age-old, self-criticism: we Americans are obsessed with the other; the other beyond and the other within our borders. Even the other that lives on our own street. What, you don’t believe in unfettered Capitalism? You are the Other. Any religion other than Christian? The Other. You’re the only Democrat or Republican on your street? You are the Other.<br />Our collective ego bought into it this notion: You are not an American? You are the Other. It never occurred that we could be this “Other”. That there could be a bigger player in the game, a more robust power - that we could be the nuisance, or something to be swept aside. For there to be an other, requires identification with a false, subjective sense of entitlement – whether it is ethnocentric, ideologically centrist, and even geocentric.<br />China dumped our debt on the global market because they could; they were that strong.<br />China dumped our debt because it was increasingly likely we couldn’t pay it off.<br />China may have declared war on us as they did so, but communications have been sporadic ever since.<br /><br /><br />Gas eventually became cost-prohibitive. People had always complained about the price, invoking it as some belle-weather mark of the economy’s health, but it still took many years before people stopped paying the price and investigated other alternatives or made the sacrifice of not driving at all. It was this - people adjusting their behaviors and demand – that prompted the providers of gasoline to seek other means. I remember the words of the people: they would go with another alternative when it was equally convenient and powerful. It is ironic to think when it became financially inconvenient enough, they were able to adjust and it was simply too late to make a difference. The public was too set in its ways; gasoline was like a variable in an equation that gave the city’s infrastructure a motion. It’s ectoplasms of existence.<br />When the combination of terrorist attacks on oil rigs, increased population, and reluctance to change met head on, the government stepped in to make private consumption of gas all but possible. It was reserved for the delivery trucks, mass transit, planes, and our armed forces. People gnashed their teeth at it. So many cars became useless; a ton of metal and plastic that could only be used at best, as a second shelter. A third or a fifth, in some cases. A few had electric cars, but the price of electricity followed that of any other resource…it became a luxury of the very few, and most would sooner spend what money they had to light or heat their homes at night than charge a car battery.<br />We didn’t know it at the time, but the S. S. Epiphany would be the last cargo ship to leave our port. Speculation about when another ship would arrive - when the trains would return from distributing their imports inland – bubbled on everyone’s lips. Nobody would say aloud that we were cut off, because salvation could come any minute. When shipments stopped coming in, when grocery stores didn’t receive their deliveries, store owners kept mum and unceremoniously raised their prices while they quietly horded away anything not perishable.<br />And there was so much buzz. Wild theories about an imaginary b<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ZsY2YpKVyAhNIOtr2m9TEWMKtzSMswsimJbbLZZI-5sqs8JNt-Xvpwodb1U14mTPhaxAmK3U399nY5hY_6RiG_pwRjRykzfelqxqafKS1_v7gXlWF_lUPYw5D7-e1eYVZQIBj6A_orSe/s1600-h/photo.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280663799362078226" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right; width: 320px; height: 240px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ZsY2YpKVyAhNIOtr2m9TEWMKtzSMswsimJbbLZZI-5sqs8JNt-Xvpwodb1U14mTPhaxAmK3U399nY5hY_6RiG_pwRjRykzfelqxqafKS1_v7gXlWF_lUPYw5D7-e1eYVZQIBj6A_orSe/s320/photo.jpg" border="0" /></a>order that was determined at the Federal level, amputating away the remote northwest. That possibly, the federal government didn’t exist at all anymore. That China had decreed an embargo against the states. That the richest people in the world had boarded a rocket aimed at Mars. Nobody knew for certain. Between the rolling blackouts, we tried to get as much as we could from the media, but there was no news. The internet ceased to exist. If one could get a television signal, they would come across a couple dozen channels showing reruns, or worse, a lunatic broadcasting pirate television from their basement – espousing conspiracy theories about what was going down. Either way, we finally achieved an age bereft of commercials, an age where information and opinion were synonymous.<br /><br /><br />There were community groups, dating from my youth, that promoted green living and responsible consumption. These were good people; so socially minded. They were unfortunately a tiny pioneering portion of the population, their sound and logical initiatives no match for the barrage of salty, appetite-whetting grist and image that lures the population at large to seek a quenching in more material, or superficial, manna. As noble as their ideal of how the world should work, they were often very naïve about the animal in our human natures. They projected their own willingness toward good intentions upon the population...on the one hand not giving themselves enough credit; on the other giving the world at large too much Not everyone is ready to forego their interests to defer to the good of all people. When mutually existed conditions worsened, the conflict between communal acceptance and self-preservation was further divided by perceived, assumed risk: every endured sacrifice was viewed askance. The joy one sees on their neighbor’s face can only result – in their mind – from the neighbor benefiting at their expense. I don’t know of any organized communal network that survived the famine. Perhaps if all bought in…if we had all enjoyed a sense of community when we could afford to…the transition may have been different.<br />Instead, we had – forgive the sense of irony - <em>la bella confusione</em>. Several weeks of rising anxiety and misinformation, experienced privately in each home and apartment. At what point, we asked ourselves, do we stop waiting and give up hope? When do begin breaking shop windows? When I visualize this passing, I see every family looking at each other with distrust while equally summing up who could be trusted to be complicit in breaking the law to survive. And I bless those who had the foresight to flee; they are nameless heroes, true transcendentalists who took the greatest risk, made the greatest sacrifice of all they earned, to spare their families of the urban famine.<br />I cannot bring witness to it, being a suburbanite. Though the transition for us was an immense weight and readjustment, we had just enough resources to provide ourselves food. We had gullies and parks and arable property: we had enough to take us over that bridge of doubt and the temporal suspension between not knowing if we would be delivered, and resolve that we must take our fates in our own hands. The lay of the land - rotating hills and flatlands stepping down to the water – provided a natural demarcation between neighborhood communities. It was conducive to communal living. We had shared experiences as we withdrew from the world, by simply withdrawing from the metropolis but ten miles distant. We had all, at some point, stopped paying our mortgages in quiet, only to find there was no one to come collect. We all had the same problem of trash removal; we all lost our electricity at the same time and needed to band together for protection; we found the importance in sharing the same heat and fire. We may have hungered, but I believe a tiny part of us knew deep inside that the bleak future posed a challenge igniting an inspiration long atrophied.<br />But I can only imagine the city. Its tangent bureaus and compressed glass, steel, and human flesh. The city, where you will have to make your way past a thousand souls before you find a vending machine or grocery store. Where a hundred people or more may live on a quarter block. Where the supremely rich, the barely scraping away, and the homeless make contact with one another on an hourly basis. Where human activity is soldered between the service industry and a dream that your art will pay for itself someday…<br />I can only imagine what it was like. Did they all pour forth from their condo towers and apartments and riot in the streets? What happened when they ransacked the grocery store or corner deli to only come away with a bag of Sun Chips and a packet of head cheese? Were the off-avenue homes burned to the ground? Did they band in large groups? What happened when a thousand, perfectly functioning alcoholics, realized the problem they didn’t know they had was abruptly solved for them? I play it over in my mind, but it is more romantic in there: I see them rushing Broadmoor and throwing a party in the largest mansion. I see them inhabiting the shores of Elliott Bay and Madison Park and taking the boats to a better world – even though I know there is no fuel. I try to see the streets fill with dancing, below a DJ’s monolithic speakers - all economic differences put to the side to celebrate the Armageddon. But I know no one would use electricity for that, or put a surge at risk.<br />I remember a city full of life; a place where entertainment was only a short walk away. Where there were so many choices of events, resulting in stacked scheduling conflicts, which I would need five of me to take in on any given Friday evening. A complete immersion in consumption; each five of me would sell my soul to make room for a second stomach to digest it all. It was supply-side entertainment too: there were so many attractions in this circus, there were even markets for the esoteric or lovers of amusements provided to the tiniest of crowds. There was a fine line between performer and spectator – I could never tell who the flatterer, who did the humoring, was or whether the point was simply to drink and have a memorable night. Even as you obliterated the memory.<br />I knew a Thomas, who said he had been there. He said that many fled. That it was not a good place to be – there was general hysteria and unwillingness to give up a free, libertine lifestyle. There were hysterical mad dashes for any bar that still had a little booze to serve - that it was bartered for random utilitarian items, sexual favors bereft of any artistry, and empty promise notes for future preferment. If I am to believe him, our first outbreaks of cannibalism were in Belletown and up on the Hill. It was saddening to hear, but when he reported on it, I could only shrug. It made sense.<br /><br /><br />Mikal went for fresh water and never came back.<br />He isn’t the first to make south for the reservoir and not return. Mikal joked about the several who did before, heckling those who would abandon us like this. Where was my mind when he volunteered? Nobody volunteers for anything they don’t have to. The reservoir is several peaceful communities away; nobody is attacked on their way to the reservoir or the Ocean-side. I thumped the palm of my fist to my forehead. Mikal was surreptitious in letting me know his intentions.<br />I made a promise to Mikal and Gelsomina: I would watch over her and the boy should anything happen to him. At the time, I was picturing myself a savior to a family tragedy – not a smoldering anger at his betrayal. To me, to her, to the boy – to his responsibilities. You think you see clearly what you would do in a situation that you have promised yourself to, but the reality hands you a distorted rendition that dampens your enthusiasm. I don’t want to do it. Not if this is about him screwing me over in securing a promise that alleviates his conscience. But he is gone now; I cannot slay a ghost; I am the least victimized in his wake.<br />Gelsomina and I sat at the table and had an honest discussion over our new situation. I told her about my doubts about Mikal, and in her wired state, she agreed. She was full of emotion, and it was better for her to hate him alive than to lament him in death. Perhaps she was only choosing the option that gave her the most hope. Living without knowing an answer draws away our energy. Hating an enemy, even a loved enemy, has some therapeutic release.<br />We agreed to maintain our separate homes. I will be a father figure to the lame boy, Horace. I would convince the others that the two of them will continue to get the same share as though they had Mikal about to perform the needed work.<br />It is a carry over from the old world: despite all the promises we make in stride, we want to believe we will never be called to deliver. We want our lives to be lived with little upheaval; we want our tomorrow to look the way we chose to live today. I want to find some path where I can juggle these inner needs and social obligations, and this arrangement – though imperfect – approximates my want.<br /></span></div><div align="left"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" ><br />“Why don’t you just take them into your home? They should consider themselves so lucky. And Gelsomina has aged well. You should consider yourself so lucky…”<br />Clark is hitting on the wrong nerve today. We are pulling up stalks of corn. Whole, entire stalks. We are attempting to get a second harvest before fall, something we’ve never attempted. And this is not the first time I’ve been questioned about this. “We received your agreement on this. I’ve no interest in Gelsomina, and I have no interest in sharing my home. I don’t want the boy breaking my things.”<br />A few minutes of silence, and I can read in Clark’s face his wanting to say more, before he breaks into his plaint. “But it isn’t just Mikal. Glenn passed from old age, and there’s only ten men left who can handle the hard labor. You both have beautiful homes that anyone would envy, and if Gelsie moved out, we could attract a new couple in. It could be a good fortune, if you would only consider it.”<br />I answer with a smoldering look and turn my back to him. But I know he is right, and I know he is only voicing the ideas of the others. So I spend the next several months working like I am two men. I awake before everyone and at the end of the day I reaffirm myself as I see each of them quit from exhaustion. I do it to strengthen and justify my own sense of protracted entitlement. I do it to put myself beyond rapprochement, and it has its intended effect: I quiet any suggestion about how I should manage my affairs.<br />But it taxes me, maintaining this tangential second home. Clark is right about Gelsomina; she is a comely woman whose passion is rebirthing. She did not mourn Mikal for long; I suspect there may have been internal trouble and Mikal’s disappearance was affirmed as abandonment and not a tragic loss of life. When we were at first anytime alone, she would play the woman inspired with starting a second life - succumbing to passionate lovemaking. A lovemaking reinforcing her liberation and youth, a fire borne in spite at her own betrayer. I wondered if Mikal had been a misogynist – or not misogynist enough – because Gelsomina wanted to be defiled, disrespected and she enticed me with the depths of masochism she would creatively suggest and endure. My long work days were ghosted with an adrenaline barely pulsing enough to please her. But I would always want my own bed away from her...it was the last frontier of privacy in my life. My own bed and my unconscious, fervent imaginings.<br />And these disparate, unrelated parts of my life would converge upon me.<br />In these mental wanderings, I discipline the men into an adept fighting unit. We take neighboring communities by force. We kill the strong-willed and resistant and make an example of them, welcoming in those motivated and sensible enough to know that joining us is in their best interest. We grow stronger as a collective.<br />I delegate the large responsibilities, like food management and water patrolling, to those I trust the most. I have to. I cannot be responsible for all the needs of a thousand people: I determine who I can trust, and those I am on the fence about, I play against one another. But I become the leader and the last word, and I make final decisions with a forbearance that will inspire the trust of the people. Because I have to be sensible about many things that matter to them before I tell them that we are continuing to move our border south.<br />We succeed by expanding – taking and destroying. I galvanize the emotions and take command of a constantly growing army of men, and we survive by increasing our influence and largesse. It becomes a machine that I have no control over. There is no stop button. No way to stop or idle. It exists because it expands. Yet I am satisfied that this is simply the way it must be; if it were not I it would be another to put such a human machinery in motion. I only had the foresight to see this is so; it is better to eat than to be eaten. When you are attacked, you do not want to be the one on the hinterland of the kingdom; you want to be at its core. Let thousands perish before they reach you.<br />It is a fantasy I accentuate in my waking hours. Perhaps it is the exhaustion brought by the labor. I elaborate and try to fill in the cracks in my vision to make it complete. It usually ends with another community taken down, women paraded before me as I gesture to my second who is worthy of being my concubine. I and the men are threateningly formidable and half naked, brandishing our weapons. Ritualistic fires are burning to mark the ceremonious occasion. We joke whether we really need the crops they labored over, whether we should just burn it all to the ground, in a show of menacing force. We take in their fear. Their fear and complete helplessness is the most rewarding moment to putting life at risk in war; it is the complete realization of our victory. And I am never moving about in this fancied culmination of effort. I’m in recline, brought to the front by a rickshaw from which I demurely forego to alight. Because this entire scene is old business for me, and there is always another community awaiting us beyond. The parting image of the modern barbarian, the leader who lets others bloody their hands for his practical, sensible agenda.<br />It is an obsessive compulsion, this fantasy. Does it come from this re-emergence of my libido as I find women petitioning me because of my status? I think that is part of it. And this sense of entitlement and advantage I have against the other men in our community, it comes from that too. Fear as well. A fear that we need another Kahn to survive. A fear that I am the only man who can see beyond our tentative borders that we must act or eventually react. A fear, and a realization, that another heartless, selfish individual is needed to insure the life of others. I try to find ways in which the barbarians of the dark ages could have been simply…misunderstood.<br />As I work in our field, I frequently catch myself standing up, stretching my back, and looking towards the South. Somewhere in that rolling landscape, there is one such as I, one as desperately prisoner to his work as I, one who sees being a prisoner to his own interests a more appealing option – an escape from his immediate oppression. Such as I.<br /><br /><br />“Uncle T-----! Uncle T-----!”<br />My legs are so exhausted from my trek that waiting for the boy is a welcome stopgap. But it is strange seeing Horace this far from home: did he come out to greet me? Nonsense. Gelsie would have been expecting me from the East, and she would not have agreed to let the boy venture this far alone.<br />The fall was upon us, and I had an entire day to myself. I have no memory of the last such day, nor can I recall what I did with it. There was likely nothing memorable about it; I probably read from sunup to sundown and cleaned my guns not knowing how precious a day it would be.<br />I didn’t want to spend the day at my home. Gelsomina wanted to hike to the north beach and spend an afternoon together, but I had reached a point where no time with Gelsie could feel like an escape for me. I told her I needed this time alone to recharge; that I would likely head east to watch the skateboarding youths on the great concrete bridge and do little more. I tried to mitigate her and Horace’s disappoint, telling them they would not enjoy themselves with me today.<br />Only, I did not go there. I’ve seen it before - the great bridge to the metropolis. It was strange in those early days, to be upon it - gone bald with the death of the automobile. In the general anarchy of the time we treated it as a perilous slope for our skateboards. A single ride was enough, for we didn’t want to lug our boards the half mile to the top again. I hear there are sentries there now, claiming it equally for west and east communities. I hope they let the children play upon it, but I don’t know if they do.<br />I broke through her hemming and hawing and Gelsie was persuaded. I grabbed my rifle and backpack and headed north alone.<br />We are not the only neighborhood to uproot their street, and I found the alleyways a more direct route as I made my path. When I walk through these neighborhoods converted to condominiums, it feels like disadvantageously making one’s way along the bottom of a canyon. I crept slowly and cautiously, eyeing the windows and the roofs for any threatening contingency.<br />I abandoned this route for the main arterial, and as I did so, people were waking and descending from their homes. I was stopped and asked many questions, for I was an unfamiliar face and therefore an object of suspicion. We would do the same in my own neighborhood, and most times there is no cause for concern…I’m just a person taking a long walk! Shouldering a rifle as I do is only an indication that I mean to return from my journey.</span><br /></div><div align="left"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >I spent my morning having the same conversation over and over. I told of our double-harvest. For those communities that have not done so, I told of our labor in creating a farm in our street and I recommend it to them. Removed from my home, I am garrulous and lacking any pretentious, authoritative reserve. We shared rumors and information that we glean from bartering bandits flagging the troubled communities that teeter on anarchy. I repeated my words again and again, and surprised myself that I had the patience to do so.<br />The walk that once long ago took an hour, took three. When I reached the beach and felt the sand under foot, I collapsed in a pile. I could go no further, and acquiesced to the natural border trumping my pioneering ramble.<br />Those who made their living on the shoreline were too occupied to pay attention to me. I planted the butt of my rifle in the sand, and the landscape swallowed it like it was shipwrecked driftwood or orphaned pile. I surveyed the landscape and saw no one within a hundred yards of my self; I submitted to the white noise of the reaching waves and let my body relax supine. I even closed my eyes for a moment, lulled by the wall of noise. It was a background static I missed from my younger years, the loud hum of a world in motion.<br />“What are you doing here? Don’t tell mom! She doesn’t know we came here…”<br />Horace’s words draw me back to the present. I am only away for a quarter day, and my thoughts are swimming in an inattentive reverie. When his words shake me to, I react with a survey of the landscape. A jarring reaction to invisible human threats, chased by the notion that there are no witnesses about.<br />“Who is this we? There is no one but us about.”<br />The boy’s eyes fall away from mine. “OK, I come here alone sometimes.” He raises a tablet for me to look at, a picture book of drawings he has collected of penned landscapes and faintly recognizable faces. He hands it to me like it is an excuse and a confession all the same. His is a face of shame, and I feel compelled to encourage him: “These look very good. You do well with that bum hand of yours. Is this where you come to draw?” I try to look enthused; this may be all the boy thinks he is good at.<br />“I come here sometimes. Sometimes I draw when mom goes to your house. Here is best. I haven’t gotten caught yet.<br /><em>Nobody noticed you were gone, I think. You know this and this is how you deal with it. While the other boys your age are at work with the men, you hide and you draw because you surprise yourself with your talent. You shock yourself that you have this ability, and it separates and distinguishes you and it makes you feel full at once. Here you are making beautiful art with your mangled fist in private, in a world that has no use for it. I can only imagine. Perhaps when you look through your book you feel as though it excuses you as the others labor. Perhaps. Do you know how valuable time is, when all the effort is needed to put to the dirt to make yourself fed? Oh, to have the time to scribble so. This could be amateurish and it would amount to the same.<br /></em>“…but it is good. Very good.”<br />Horace’s eyes light up. The fears dissipate like a fog, and his face shines like a sun. He has feared this moment. I want to believe he is acknowledging the burden he has been to me these past months, but I know this is not the case. My approval validates his sneaking away and not contributing to the community; his only realization is that his anxieties were as private as his shame.</span><br /></div><div align="left"><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >“Horace. Have you ever shot a gun?”<br />“You know mom won’t let me…”<br />“This will be our secret. Just like your pictures.”<br />I let him carry the uncocked gun as we head in the opposite direction. My heart’s pace races, though my mind ambles with a steady hum. “We’ll go to the gully. Don’t rush ahead of me…we must be cautious. Horace. Hold up.”<br />He runs run ahead, but stops where the street ends and turns into an overgrown, a black descending trail. I talk to the boy in soft tones. “We always have to be careful. There may be people down there. Even at this time of the day, when it is still light. Do you think you are ready?” Horace gives a tight-lipped nod.<br />As we huddle beneath the low branches and make our way down the trail, I think about my return. I’ll head south from here. I’ll overshoot the reservoir by a half mile, turn east, and return from where I said I would. It is a long, roundabout trip, but it will confirm what I said I would do this morning. And the long hike will fill me with ideas, ideas and stories about where I was that can fill an entire day – a day that accounts for where I was as I lay upon a sandy beach and gave myself over to a relaxing nothingness.<br />“Shh!” I raise the back of my hand to halt the boy. I draw his attention to my feet, and how I carefully avoid the branches that will snap underfoot and make a warning noise. I point to the nettles and mime a cautionary prohibitive gesture and affect a heavy brow. I stick my tongue out to make sure he gets that they are to be avoided.<br />The gully is more inviting, and it correlates as no surprise – more dangerous - than the parks that were left behind by civilization. Here, you feel like you are lost in an oasis of wild nature… opposed to the tailored trails of levy-sponsored governmental maintenance. One is fought against, one is well groomed. In one, you might find the occasional wild animal. In the latter, human Diasporas hide at night because it is familiar and safer. I do not know how these places came to be, how these places managed to confound civilization. Sometimes it is just the lay of the land, land that we ran out of time conquering.<br />I ask the boy for the gun. Horace is charged with a sense of wonder at the moment, knee deep in a carpet of ivy and gazing at the canopy of branches blocking the afternoon light from the sky. Artists can be such dreamers, subjects to their environment or muse. He is oblivious as I eject the shell from the rifle.<br />I hand the gun back to him, and we tread at a slight incline until we reach a clearing. It is bare, a floor of dry dead branches and hardened dirt. “I would come here as a child. We found a cave once, but its recess was barely an adventure. We travelled a few feet and were attacked by bees. You just don’t find anything like caves in the city.”<br />“What’s a cave?”<br />“Well, it is a hole to the underground.” No, that’s not it. How can I describe a cave? “Not the underground. Into the earth. Like a tunnel, but it just goes deeper. I don’t know how they’re made. Some are manmade, they would use dynamite to tunnel into the earth…man made caves were in search of something, like coal. But caves were also made by nature, and they gave early people shelter from the weather, a place to create warmth with their fire.” The boy comes of a generation that inherited abandoned homes; he is not going to understand. Horace has already lost interest, pointing his gun and aiming at the homes atop the bluffs. It is sad and comical. His askew forearm causes him to support the butt of the rifle in feminine pose.<br />“Here.” I take him through the steps. To load. To cock. To aim. To pull the trigger.<br />I set him with his legs pinioned shoulder-length apart. “You only need to pull the trigger,” I tell him. “Everything else is set. Just wait until I give the go ahead.”<br />I back away several steps. “Until I give the say.” Horace holds his pose. The moments are protracted and I know that all his thoughts are diluted to a single verbal impulse; it was like this when I made my first firing. Only then, the bullet and the kick were real. And I was alone. There was no one there commanding me to fire, and I only awaited a voice in my head telling me to do so.<br />The seconds continue to race, and I watch him as he shakes, retightens his grip against his own perspiration and I watch the subsequent moments as he wonders if he ever got back his complete bearing from all that shifting. It is a tortuous temporality, where the beginning is borne of an event with unforeseeable outcome and the end never comes and the space between is all pricked nerve. It is enough time to look about on the ground, and find the perfect size rock, a battering ram larger than my fist but not so large it could not be wielded as such.<br />Because I could not see a bullet wasted.<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5280664847686772290" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 400px; height: 300px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHzQxyqhrs5rBp_MgVh6tXEP_CvcO66yeuIraSvSO8KAsGC05tWBt_GUihRpVKuEesh5vYdsfUJhRplm0crm5DSlAPy0XzX8HP7NqA7-Vv44MXsY8TvNYu2Mejf-dFXLqFdyXe6EvvXVRa/s400/photo5.jpg" border="0" /></span></div></div>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-82163301734850742002008-12-14T22:07:00.000-08:002008-12-14T23:03:29.538-08:00Stevens & Page<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRsTfhVhzIngIBEVPpcxYThmiOP_y2uf-ufnuHzyP7QZYUeU2WFV7_1h3VDp0FdoZdMASv-O6OPRqYtBtUNXAirVhV3xJlxuBzr359B8r_N6sbtap5gDFPmlEvF9UU2kvloOGaHr-FemPz/s1600-h/Stevens3Girls.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279907620213673282" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 332px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRsTfhVhzIngIBEVPpcxYThmiOP_y2uf-ufnuHzyP7QZYUeU2WFV7_1h3VDp0FdoZdMASv-O6OPRqYtBtUNXAirVhV3xJlxuBzr359B8r_N6sbtap5gDFPmlEvF9UU2kvloOGaHr-FemPz/s400/Stevens3Girls.jpg" border="0" /></a> <div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">With the passing of Bettie Page, I became nostalgic for the Rocketeer. Yeah, the Disney film from the 90's with Jennifer Connelly and Bill Campbell that maybe, two of you saw. I always thought it was an underrated superhero film that did the comic book justice, a film that would have succeeded if it only came out ten years later...even though it was a post-WWI pop epic that required the slightest leap of faith to follow. But Bettie, Bettie....</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I wouldn't know who Bettie Page was, if not for Dave Stevens. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Dave Stevens created The Rocketeer in the eighties, and I recall it started out as one of those appendages you would find in comic books: Perhaps the magazine publisher wanted to test the waters, or the selling comic's lead act writer / artist was getting all prima donna and wanted to do fewer pages - but the Rocketeer began as a bonus seven pages at the end of unrelated material. I swooned at the art.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">He contemporized classic comic book art. He also put together a story that was believable, a rarity in the graphic medium. And he knew how to draw women. I was pulled in, and rose to the challenge of putting together half stories unfairly buried in thes comic indicies. But: Bettie Page.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Stevens was a huge Bettie Page fan, and he based his leading lady (perhaps due to the temporal context) on Page. That character you see in the movie, played by Jennifer Connelly (when she had a fighting chance to do so), was meant for Bettie Page. Dave Stevens went on to more direct comic efforts, creating <i>Bettie Page Comics:</i></span><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI2_JKFpnDpTZsQdudWdmIzUbCeCu1ujr21cDhZsuHt7iyqn-AY3Tlz_a8crqZtElMy9YPFeaJ16IM8AM1z5d9sfDCnE6UDXFS4RJnpjcim7S0BiFBiYy-TgW8OBqLJyK7Pjot3_6ZSP77/s1600-h/bpcenterfold.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279907435956709570" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 303px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI2_JKFpnDpTZsQdudWdmIzUbCeCu1ujr21cDhZsuHt7iyqn-AY3Tlz_a8crqZtElMy9YPFeaJ16IM8AM1z5d9sfDCnE6UDXFS4RJnpjcim7S0BiFBiYy-TgW8OBqLJyK7Pjot3_6ZSP77/s400/bpcenterfold.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I'm a sucker for referential art in any form. The Rocketeer harked back to an age that I knew little about, and it seemed designed to amuse the 40's youngster as much as it could an eighties teen. There aren't many writer / artists who see a viable market in that...many today are competing with video games and bringing to the reader the impossible, the unimaginable, or a new novelty. Stevens' was a more modest art, the integrity of a realist. He took on the wire walking challenge of creating a past fiction, the story of what could have been. It is a different leap of faith, and I think, more challenging than forging a new universal tangent. The art must be believable, since reality has already excused the story.</span> <div><div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Stevens was open about his basing the supporting character on Page. It was an homage. Being the elusive idol she was in her later years, the reader could relate to the unfulfilled pining.</span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Dave Stevens passed away from Leukemia in March 2008. He was only 52, part of a rare breed of artists who tied the past history of comic books to their craft.</span></div></div></div></div>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-6241978411190289602008-10-31T10:14:00.000-07:002008-10-31T10:49:16.401-07:00UnDead<span style="font-family:verdana;"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbZL2xtvapvQdYr2B8DBeVrnzP523pC6CLJk3BcJIz3KfsgMjVaR9U1FQhkQ78B5CmzdrFlNm4pdO55nDx3KvC-MvqxXH-h37xFJZaPxOe8RcDzoVAMkoYoMgbcD9hdlu-1-IgO3ZOXWV7/s1600-h/DeadMe.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5263367706782112306" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbZL2xtvapvQdYr2B8DBeVrnzP523pC6CLJk3BcJIz3KfsgMjVaR9U1FQhkQ78B5CmzdrFlNm4pdO55nDx3KvC-MvqxXH-h37xFJZaPxOe8RcDzoVAMkoYoMgbcD9hdlu-1-IgO3ZOXWV7/s400/DeadMe.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><p><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">The 2008 Zombie Walk was a blast. Thanks to Wendy & Krystel for make up assistance! This was a bit out of my comfort zone - I'm a known party pooper when it comes to Halloween costumes. It was a challenge coordinating being away from the home office for hours at a stretch during a big implementation weekend - I only got paged twice, once as the march began and once at the end. It took me out of character! Over the first call, I couldn't help straightening up and speaking formally into the phone - one of the two dozen photographers ran up to snap a pic of me in my 'genuine' moment. I haven't seen the pic turn up online anywheres, but there are still quite a few on Flickr.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">As for character? Next year I need to figure out a different shambling gait. I would ram my left leg forward like I was putting a pickaxe to a glacier, then swing my right in an arc. Consequently, my left leg was sore and swollen for days. My growling drone was unconvincing, my attacks on civilians half-hearted. So many things I need to work on, but I'm excited for the next zombie event...</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I went home between the walk and the afterhours activities - just making sure everyone in the office was getting what they needed. Zombie Karaoke was fun, just - well, I didn't know anyone. Gabbles & me were the only Z's there for awhile, and the only people singing. But eventually the dead came out; met some cool freaks and had a good time.</span></strong></p>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-46340919227634734332008-10-25T20:09:00.001-07:002008-10-25T23:32:58.005-07:00Pop Politics<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtXAlpz2K0vPUpLj5Gs-IbyqD4eWLJ1jF5w4U0eL7GLaklBB73tjHYDG2hGLhYFhHTpmsos7-VBIOvf7pUdmTHJRqmK7AkikCRK5PvmPREGextiLfX7Ql_wS1D-3RGnWBG0722hF4it1NV/s1600-h/2941876303_f732d40bb0.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5261294581915964546" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 269px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtXAlpz2K0vPUpLj5Gs-IbyqD4eWLJ1jF5w4U0eL7GLaklBB73tjHYDG2hGLhYFhHTpmsos7-VBIOvf7pUdmTHJRqmK7AkikCRK5PvmPREGextiLfX7Ql_wS1D-3RGnWBG0722hF4it1NV/s400/2941876303_f732d40bb0.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Is it really the..sixth time? The sixth time I will be voting in the 'most important election of my life?'</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">If I sound underwhelmed, let me repeat: six. That's five times I've been on this emotional rollercoaster; five times that I let myself get emotionally vested in a contest that ultimately affects me very little. Two of them, feeling post-election optimistic...three of those times, spending an early November Wednesday morn with a sense of dread I knew had a long wait before dissipation or correction. Yep: I'm slowly turning into one of those independents - not jaded, not yet - who see little difference between the blue and the red. I haven't learned to cherish the good times, but I've noticed that when I don't get my way, the world fails to fall apart.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">That might sound like an understatement, considering the past eight years...and what might be viewed as the worst, most role-abusive, American presidency in our history. Perhaps I've only projected the potential worst on each Republican presidency: that my privacy will be noticably impinged upon; Roe v. Wade will get overturned; my cuss-word laden music will be made illegal; etc. None of this ever happens. Even the last eight years were more of a competency & motivational, rather than an ideological shortcoming: a case of a 3rd world leader's approach to running a first world country. You know, not wanting to interrupt your vacation while your constituents perish; suspending constitutionally guaranteed liberties as a matter of convenience to meet war time aims; summarizing an Axis of Evil that will only guarantee that your enemies stay your enemies.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Not like any of this is President Bush's fault. Way back in 2000, didn't he look into a camera and say that he trusted voters to make the right decision? He may have lacked a pre-emptive nerve when it comes to the environment, but he was golden on war, and on putting the onus on the decider...which in this case was the American public.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Which also makes a case against Democracy in general. If it were a perfect world, we would have a cap on the number of times we could vote. I mean this in seriousness. If you knew you could only vote in 3 presidential elections in your whole life, would you chose differently when and how you voted? Wouldn't this eliminate the 'cold war' of voting against the opposing party every four years? I would think if we are going to have term limits, we oughtta have voting limits too.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Even if 2008 doesn't bring us the 'most important' election of our lives, it vies for the most novel and entertaining.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Up until the last several months, I really liked John McCain. I think the McCain of 2000 could have made a swell - certainly better than the one we had - president. He seemed to have an honest, sincere connection with people, and at that time he distanced himself from the religious right - he was a maverick, y'know - that provided a small reassurance that he wasn't out to marginalize substantial portions of the American public. He tended to shoot his mouth off as much as Bush, but it had more to do with being direct than being self-servedly cavalier.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">There were plenty of red flags, but the first one that realy mattered was the 'Bomb Bomb Iran' clip. When I saw that clip, fully understanding that the rest of the world gets to watch it too, I felt that in the eyes of the world - our leadership could end up looking like the leadership in N. Korea or Iran. Tattooed in 'nutjobbery', with the only difference being that this would be elected - a reflection of the people he governs (okay, Ahmadinejad was elected too - by popular vote. But McCain by anything but a popular vote would doubly exacerbate a grievance).</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">As a presidential contender, you get to make one executive decision; a freebie. His was Sarah Palin. Either he was playing fast and loose with the maverick tag, or he threw his Hail Mary in the third quarter...oddly, he made a decision that ignored a middle, undecided electorate in favor of persuing jaded Hillary supporters. He brought his decision making process (if mavericks have those) into question, along with suspicions about his thoroughness in vetting a candidate who could potentially end up running the country. It recalled Bush's aggrandizing in the face of adversity, a completely unrealistic ignorance of potential outcomes.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">But what has been most decisive for me, recreating a nostalgia for previous campaigns and affirming previously unprovable assertions about the right, is the conduct of his campaign. Making himself a default by attacking his opponent's past and character. Letting his followers fight his fight for him. The waves of negativity that he needs to get back to shore. Even if McCain were to win, still a distinct possibility - it would be under the dubious context of pandering to the lowest common denominator and by dividing the country through fear, the only emotive he can enlist against his competition's message of hope. Suppose he were to win: he's guaranteed partisanship with a potentially Democrat congress. He has contributed to the rift between left and right by extending the crossing and deepening the chasm.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">So I'm voting Obama. With reservations.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">If there is one positive thing to say about the past eight years, it's the potential it opens for a saviour-like character. Demagogue has gone from being a smear - like liberal - to describing the medicine needed for a disenchanted populace. All Obama needs to do is to point out the faults of the previous presidency and state that he can do better. This, when any Joe Shmoe feels like they could do better.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I say reservations because - long before the Republican VP hopeful made it a more sinister prompt - I questioned his experience and depth. The press was talking presidency from the day he entered the Senate, and it all seemed so premature...and his attendance on showing up to vote was, well, disappointing. Initially, it felt like watching the bar being lowered all over again: we can dismiss the last president's enunciation challenges; let's dismiss the next one's voting record - or lack thereof. Afterall, he talks so pretty.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">My other reservation: Obama's rock star status, his messiah-like call to followers and ability to seem as though walking on water. In light of some of his voting decisions (FISA - big disappointment. Bank Bailout - bigger disappointment), I'm surprised at the lack of criticism he garners as the adored candidate. I've often looked at the right, questioning how so many impoverished can vote against their interests (the quick answer is religion)...and the Obama-phenomenon has me asking the same question about basic social liberalism. It seems that the bigger he gets, the more safe and conservative he is.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Perhaps it is my age. Perhaps because I've seen it all before. I'm voting for Obama to legitimize popular opinion, or what I see it to be.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">When I look for positive reasons, I find them coming from unexpected places. I want to vote for him because the rest of the free world wants to see him as our leader. I see conservative rats jumping ship, like Buckley's progeny or Vanity Fair's own tedious souse - endorsing Obama - and I see an opportunity for unity for which my own little history can provide no measure. In a nutshell, Obama projects being a competent, enlightened leader...something we haven't seen in awhile. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">If his speech in response to his connection to Rev. Wright serves an indication, Obama could be the rare individual that truly wants to lead: to enlighten and advance the people he represents.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">As I get older, left and right just feel like spatial directions: moving away from each other, in opposite directions, for eternity. Also, as I get older, I don't feel like there exists an ideology that is going to solve all the problems I want to see solved. The only time I feel jaded, is when I realize that a candidate that lives up to an ideology simply doesn't exist. But I do believe there are barriers that we have lived with that have long outlasted their initial points of contention, and Obama presents the opportunity for a youthful expansion of vision, a look from a different angle, at the image this country presents to the rest of the world.</span>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-5412653128350507542008-08-22T00:00:00.000-07:002008-08-22T09:35:59.958-07:00Conjuring<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">The blank sheet of paper soaked all the light in the room. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">In an irresistable contrast. Amongst the hipster chatter I could pick up dropped names, catch vibrant gestures and I navigated through bodies that would accommodate and contort to avoid a spilled drink. He must have been waiting for awhile; a single person in a large booth alludes to squatter's rights - especially when the tavern is packed so tight. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">As I slid into the booth across from him, he did not look up from his tablet. Which made me look at it too. The calming effect of this little window of pulp, in an otherwise jarring and clamoring environment, was infectious.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">He was away in concentration. His eyes swimming in the eleven by fourteen inch pool in front of him. Straight backed and upright, forearms at rest, perpendicularly framing the object of his focus. Immediate atoms charged with unstable anticipation and suspended intent.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- Are you waiting for the idea?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- No. I already have like seven. Seven grand ideas.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- Not grand enough to make you go, though? How long have you been here?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- Awhile. Before happy hour. When people were ordering more coffee than beer. Awhile.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- *Sigh*. At what point do you give up?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- Do I ever? I think you are giving <em>time</em> too much credit in this process. There is one thing I don't understand, and that is why it starts when it does. I never tell myself to pick up the charcoal and draw. I just find myself doing it. Sometimes I sit there for five minutes, sometimes for an hour.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I'm feeling an affinity with him. When we made plans to meet, there were no indications that I would find him compromised or engaged. There was also no plan. The idea, as usual, was to meet at happy hour after work and play catch up. Sometimes we run out of language and invite others; this is in fact, usually the end result. I look at my hardback copy of Zola's <em>Nana</em> in my hand. How often do I carry around a book that never gets read? Its blood red binding seems charged with a long anticipated purpose, and eagerness to answer the call. I slap the book on the table.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- I think there's enough light. Go on with your deliberations (with a smile).</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- I don't want to be rude...</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- You're not.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">The challenge is picking up where you left off. I read a page, the thirtieth, and wonder if I should start the book from scratch. There are too many characters. Too much time passed from the initial embarking on reading the book. But I continue, slowly. My metacognition isn't dropping me from being conscious of how I'm reading, to letting me lose my awareness of self in the pages. And I continually look up as young ladies pass our table. I fidget and repeatedly restart. I flip pages ahead to see where this chapter ends and whether getting there is conceivable. I peruse the pages and calculate the ratio of extended dialogue to black page paragraphs. I smell the book. Whoever owned it before me was a smoker. I imagine who owned it before me - an old person? The image of an octogenarian reading the book on a swinging front porch bench, after a long day of garden-tending. It's a lot to pull from these yellowed pages, this musty scent. But the imagery comes more easily than the story in the pages. It is the front porch of a large plantation and the sun is setting and there are mosquitoes all about. No wait, the book cannot be that old. I look at the publishing date. 1955. So it is old, but not old enough for my daydream. I check out another woman passing our table, and as my eyes travel from her hips to his face, I feel like errors in perception are mounting against me. But it doesn't matter; he's started.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">He begins with two sweeping swipes producing open and closing parentheses. He leans back and looks at it for a moment. He pushes his head far back on his spine, squinting his eyes. Waiting to see something there. Finalizing his idea? I look over the top of my book at it but say nothing. Then he leans in, curling up the end of the tablet with his left hand and attacking with charcoal on his right.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">It is all reckless movement - I watch his hands more than I watch the trails left by the charcoal. Dramatic slashes are followed by intense zig-zagging. Many of his wrist jerks are angular, and there are very few moments where he draws slowly. Or smoothly. Judging by his hands, there can be no curves unless he is working some experienced magic. He stops to pick up his eraser gum, changes his mind, and drags his thumb across his tongue instead. He rubs his thumb into the picture, creating his chiaroscuro where he wants it. After several minutes of more furious drawing, he sets the picture flat - sticks both thumbs into his mouth - and sets them to work smearing charcoal in every which direction. This is the only moment where he takes on a surgical air, where his eyes reflect an intent. As he grinds his spittle into the pulp.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">He leans back. He spins the tablet around. Like it no longer holds any interest for him.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- Done.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- It's a horse. Nice. I didn't know you did horses.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- I can do animals. Dogs, Cats, Horses. Wait, four - I can do unicorns too.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- I'm not sure if that counts.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I lift the bristol tablet so only I can see it, away from his vision - not that it matters. He seems disinterested, like this was his release. He can go to sleep now.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I was expecting something more shocking in terms of subject matter, but it is just a horse. But it is beautiful and sad. It looks like nothing that could have come from the disorganized furiousness of its birthing. Theres a contordedness to it - the viewer is in front of the horse, inches from the ground. The subject appears in genuflect, as though the horse is trying to touch its forehead to the ground. Its face is in near profile, with one eye looking accusingly at the viewer.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I want to take it home with me. How many drawings have I seen where a horse is a majestic animal in active bucking or broncing, or displayed from the neck up in a presidential profile? There's a uniqueness to this broken-ness. Even a tamed beast has some spirit, but there's something human about this horse with its defeated spine. The picture captures something that could never exist in the real world, something for which we lack any context.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- I like it. I like it a lot.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- Thanks. The long wait is really about trying to figure out what I want to say.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- And what is that?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- Hmmmm. Well, it's for you, so I guess that's up to you to figure out. If I was good about communicating directly, I wouldn't be drawing pictures - right?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- Does this mean I get to keep it?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- Yeah, you can have it. You can put it up at your place and look at it while you're pretending to read some fancy book.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- Funnyman.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Knowing it is mine to keep. I hold it up in front of me with a straightened, proud, back. My broken horse. As I hold it away from me, another picture emerges - in a Dali-esque twist, the total becomes another horse's face. My eyes adjust, and it is the only horse I can see: the new horse is smiling cheesily, incorporating a pond and faux reflection at the bottom of the page. An arresting twist. I have to concentrate to get the original image back...</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- Nice touch. I didn't notice the second horse at first.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- They're the same horse. Like you can't be broken and happy at the same time?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- Okay, so they're the same horse. Are you trying to get at something profound?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- Not really. Its for you. So I'm going to make it about you. There are times I don't think you give yourself enough credit. I hope when you look at this picture, you remember there's more than one way of looking at things. That's about it. This is your reminder to go easy on yourself, and I hope when you look at it, you look at it right.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">He says it with authority. He says it in a way that makes me recall all the negative things I may have said about myself in the past, but as I call them back they arrive with a weakened significance. I want to say something meaningful, but anything that comes to mind seems too familiar.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">- You're welcome.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">His smile widens and shows his charcoal-blackened teeth.</span>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-32619804608805396982008-07-28T12:17:00.000-07:002008-07-28T13:07:09.859-07:007 Days<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">1. Tore out ten more feet of fence, and one post. This post was heavier; had to wheel it to my dump staging area.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">2. Removed the sod to create a 5' x 8' garden.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">3. Enjoyed <em>There Will Be Blood</em> &<em> Trailer Park Boys.</em> The latter I watched twice.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">4. Visited Jen and we picked up a surprised Mark while waiting for the bus. Hit Talrico's. Nobody told me everyone is moving Westside!</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">6. Saw C at the bus stop next morning because I was getting to work with a hungover turtle's momentum. Chatted her up.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">7. Pre-ordered my iPhone; the story changes whether I get to keep my old number or not. On a happier note, my company provides a nice discount on the monthly AT&T bill.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">8. I begin writing Mercurial U; doubt I'll publish it.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">9. See C at bus stop again, this time I'm really kicking myself for not asking her number or something like that...I sometimes forget how shy I am. I keep leaving it to chance, that I'll see her again...</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">10. Visited Marika. Briefly.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">11. Rethinking beard. According to Just for Men, and my co-worker Ray, 'Gray gets no play.'</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">12. Saw S, who I haven't seen for years. After hearing about the split, he shares his own anecdote implying that he saw something wasn't right...something that annoys me a bit, since it only reinforces this idea that I was the only person in the world who didn't <em>get</em> that something was wrong. And I'm hearing this from someone drunk, at the video store, at 8 pm.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">13. My sister dropped off the karaoke CDs, and Dance Dance Revolution for the Wii. I really need to give that thing a chance.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">14. Rented and watched Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask). I've avoided Woody's 70's stuff until now. It was better than I was expecting.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">15. My parents visit. They give me a lot of ideas for the yard.</span> <div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">16. Rented and watched The Notorious Betti Page. Gretchn Mol. A beautifully shot film. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">17. I go to market. I replace last week's flowers with new ones. I buy rasberries that will go bad over the next 4 hours.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">18. I dig a 25-30' trench on the north side of my house. It is right against the foundation, so I'm always digging on my right side. I submerge a draining pipe that has rested above ground - rather tackily - since the day I moved in (1999). I'm surprised it only took a day, starting after noon, to complete the project.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">19. Neighbor interrupts to talk about the trees in the backyard. He wants to add on to his house, and might have his removed. This would weaken the roots for my 2 trees (and derail some of my landscaping plans out back). Or, he might just move. But if I have to remove mine? 5-7,000 dollars. I've been attracting a lot of 7K 'surprises' lately.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">20. Wendy visits, and it is great to hear how well she is doing.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">21. I sleep terribly. I awake at 01:30 and check in with a deployment; I wake at 05:30 to finish it off. Usually when I'm this sore, I sleep the just sleep, but I think my BG got low in the middle of the night.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;">22. My soreness continues.</span></div>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-77289462181840436462008-07-25T17:54:00.001-07:002008-12-08T16:36:41.264-08:00File Under Things To Do Before I Die<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhosfq8txUQxobxBLf1qe9sCTakEqFZcry3B7PNF7hDwsz3FVSS3VZnn6YbdZoIKWB6isHpcihrV-yPpLXJYWOeYuuNazgQPGxSnHKFVzUecJRCauyXbu_1CAk0Ck8PxS3yqt3g-f5xeAb0/s1600-h/PrincePolkaDot.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5227119960756370930" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhosfq8txUQxobxBLf1qe9sCTakEqFZcry3B7PNF7hDwsz3FVSS3VZnn6YbdZoIKWB6isHpcihrV-yPpLXJYWOeYuuNazgQPGxSnHKFVzUecJRCauyXbu_1CAk0Ck8PxS3yqt3g-f5xeAb0/s400/PrincePolkaDot.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-size:85%;">I want. Not to belabor the Prince kick I've enjoyed lately, but I had to toss in this fashion addendum. I arrived at work obsessed with hunting down the...well, <em>any really</em>...polka dot suit. If you start out with Google, like I did - good luck. Nobody is making and marketing men's polka dot suits online. Sure, you can have one custom made, I'm sure of it. I'm not budgeted for custom-made suits right now. I'm not the greatest search engine driver either, and my efforts went unrewarded.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">But I know a polka-dot suit exists; I have the same Uptown fanzine from which this screen-scrape was taken (note the opposite page imprints ruining an otherwise stark black and white photo). I was a bit frustrated that I couldn't find this LoveSexy-era pic in digital...I think its one of the coolest photos of Mr. Nelson, and though he's always flirted with polka, I've never seen it so overwhelmingly so.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">I would of course lose the reflecting mirror heart corsage (there's a better view of it in the pic below; this one just shows up as a light-catching glare). I would also lose the heels and go for something more contemporary - probably some Stacy Adams. I might try LeRoy's next week and see if they have something on hand. I dunno, the last time I stepped into LeRoy's, I got a lot of "you're no pimp!" stares, and zero customer service.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">Even if I get this suit, there's a problem with occasion. Once I found my suit - once I proved something like it exists - I had to share it with co-workers. "And where exactly do you plan on wearing it?" "I dunno, somebody's wedding?" I replied. "Hah. You can't upstage the bride!" Whatever. I'll find an occasion; perhaps I'll just ask to be buried in it.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">(The <em>Til Eulenspiegal</em> part of me thinks, well, if I don't like the bride? I might just wear it anyway. The <em>Sam Louis Obispo</em> part of me just want to wear it all the time - with a matching bowler & cane, steppin' out.)</span>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-34829641132287777382008-07-17T00:01:00.000-07:002008-12-08T16:36:41.686-08:00Colour U Peach and Black<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKH7T4XWHEddt9Lx_wL_FLAab0x-qqdwxpCXEgnHBXwsDBWqRv6luPoolwCty0Ac5AqGL047Nz6nn2bkd2B7kCxJ9lS9KXE0SsQLsTckeOWKAuiRjlInFmCEafULXENwPDT4UrCij-hdvM/s1600-h/PandBetter.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223877039550929570" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKH7T4XWHEddt9Lx_wL_FLAab0x-qqdwxpCXEgnHBXwsDBWqRv6luPoolwCty0Ac5AqGL047Nz6nn2bkd2B7kCxJ9lS9KXE0SsQLsTckeOWKAuiRjlInFmCEafULXENwPDT4UrCij-hdvM/s400/PandBetter.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;">I had Ed pegged for a rocker: he was effusive for Van Halen and Metallica, and when we did talk about music, he would cite bands that were either mega-this, death-that, or about to slay-one-another. So when we did hang out, when the 'older, bad-influencing' Ed invited me to his house, I was surprised at the music he was burning to share. It was 1983, and he had just discovered Prince.<br /><br />It was the audacious raunch. It was more direct and shocking than the euphemisms and metaphors cited by an army of hairspray bands: Ed wasn't going to let me leave until I heard Prince pronounce, <em>Marsha, I'm not saying this to be nasty...but I sincerely want to fuck the taste out of your mouth</em> (I never could figure out why he was insistent on "<em>Let's Pretend We're Married</em>" over the aurally more graphic "<em>Lady Cab Driver</em>"). This was my first exposure to Prince - I wasn't particularly wowed by the music. My interest at the time was limited to the Beatles, Elton John, John Denver & Kenny Rogers...artists who weren't preoccupied with rhythm or groove or funk. I didn't get any of it, but I thought watching the impaled eyeball spinning on the turntable was pretty cool.<br /><br />This is not to say that an impression wasn’t made. Ed liked Prince, and the Ed I know shouldn't like music like this. What gives here?<br /><br />The following spring, as my 8th grade class graduated, <em>When Doves Cry</em> was inescapably, repetitively, making its rounds on the airwaves. I was a little wiser at the end of the school year. I began to better understand what musical genres were, and I began to understand the appeal: Prince was someone who was transcending them. This was made ever so more concrete when <em>Let's Go Crazy</em> hit the radio rotation: this was no ordinary artist. After a lot of pining and pleading, <strong>Purple Rain</strong> showed up in my Easter Basket: thank you Jesus Bunny.<br /><br />So my love affair with Prince began. It was, like my real life love affairs, a tentative one. I loved Purple Rain, but at age 14 my bank account wasn’t so expansive that I could indulge the idea of owning 2 albums by the same artist: I would have to hear three singles before feeling it was essential to purchase <strong>Around the World in a Day</strong>. I was the only person I knew who owned this album, and had the challenge of trying to get friends on board with me: a frustrating, fruitless endeavor. When <em>Kiss</em> hit the airwaves, I didn't know what to think. Prince was putting to the forefront the falsetto I knew he employed, but felt that he succeeded in spite of. I bought <strong>Parade</strong> with much reservation, consoling myself that the cover was at least more tastefully imaginative and artistic than the previous album's mural. Over the course of these 3 albums, Prince led me from being a pop singles-loving adolescent to an (elitist?) eclectic fan of AOR. Amongst my friends, I was becoming increasingly solitary as a fan of his music, something that made the bond more sincere.<br /><br />Also over the course of these three albums, my appetite for music in general was growing. Having an artist - especially during the 80's - who put out a new album every 11 months -proved to reinforce my new addiction. Prince was unique in his prolificacy; he was also playing a dangerous game of overstaying his welcome. How were any of these songs going to become classics if people don't have the time to absorb them, create personal experiences with them? For me, it was fun: each new single, each new album, would surprise me with what he's capable of. He created an illusion of unlimited creativity. He wasn't following the normal pattern of putting out a (either repetitive or alienating) follow-up to an amazing album, then disappearing. This created an unsettling feeling: how long can someone possibly keep this up? Even if someone can keep this up forever, doesn't the audience eventually change?<br /><br />Aside from the public, radio-friendly leanings, Prince also fulfilled a need for something deeper, more esoteric. I would greedily collect the remixes and maxi-singles and legendary b-sides that would accompany them. <em>Hello, 17 days, Another Lonely Christmas, Erotic City, Love or Money, Always in My Hair, Girl, How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore, God...</em>It seemed I had to revamp my mixed-tapes with each single's release. Fan and critical consensus, in retrospect, conclude that a few of these should have been singles. This secret knowledge only served to draw me further into Prince's universe.<br /><br />I was apprehensive when I first heard the single <em>Sign O the Times</em> on the radio. It was stripped down and bare. He fired off The Revolution in 1986 (on my birthday!), and the album I was anticipating - even though I hadn't completely absorbed the underrated <strong>Parade</strong> - had all the signs of being a disaster. I tended to multiply this stripped-down song times twenty, thinking that this would be what the anticipated double-album would sound like: bandless, with nothing but Prince and studio magic and automation. A mysterious advertisement for the album in Pulse! Magazine - a black page with only a peach colored heart, peace-sign and cross - only reaffirmed my discomfort. Warner wasn't leading with the music like on the previous 2 albums; they were relying on mysterious, obfuscating advertising. This had the potential of being a double-album of demo quality, high on symbolism & self-indulgence; low on production.<br /><br />I brought home the maxi-single - not the edited 45 rpm - for <em>Sign O the Times; La La La, Hee Hee Hee </em>- the flipside - dispelled a lot of the reservation. Though the Linn Drum leads as usual, the 10:32 "Highly Explosive" extended play has one of Prince's funkiest bass guitar solos committed to vinyl (in writing this, I had to hook up 10 sq. ft. of stereo speakers, and of course - a stereo system. It was worth the trouble). It is a song as playful and whimsical as the A-side is pensive and mournful. Even before the release of the album he'd established that he has so many grooves on the shelf he needs to cast a few of them to B-sidedom and other artists. Prince also played a little gender-bending trick: on the maxi-single cover he appears to be dressed in a peach skirt and tube top, tasseled gloves and garter with an inset heart. He appears thoroughly waxed, Brazilian-like, as he holds a large black heart over his head. The reverse side shows him in full face exposure, lip-sticked with matching peach cloud guitar in hand. Only it isn’t him in drag, it is Cat – his backup dancer- dressed and hair-styled to look like him. It’s a convincing sell.<br /><br />I bought the <strong>Sign O the Times</strong> LP in late July 1987, a week & a half after its release. I missed out on some beautiful weather so I could sit cross-legged on the floor in front of my stereo, headphones on and reading through the inner sleeves on my lap. It had my full attention, and when I got to the end, I had to start it all over again. I was in awe. It was so different from the previous few albums – it felt bereft of an overseeing concept or a self-evident stylistic approach. It felt like a barrage of hits waiting to be culled out and discovered. It would be easier to list the songs that didn’t grab me on that first listen: <em>Slow Love</em> (it sounded like a typically burlesque Prince ballad), Hot Thing (a funkier retread of Girls & Boys from the previous album), <em>U Got the Look</em> (the Sheila Easton duet had something forced about it, and there’s a good explanation for this), and <em>The Cross</em> (two chords, and the only overtly religious song on the album).<br /><br />By the time <strong>Sign</strong> was released, critics had already formed a dossier on Prince as a songwriter. Sure, he could play over 30 instruments. Sure, he could write irresistible hit songs. But - and critics are always there to remind you where your ‘shortcomings’ are - Prince has this conflicting & recurring pre-occupation with god and sex. Sometimes the contradiction appears in the same song; sometimes it appears in the same line in a song. But it never seems to get resolved; it isn’t a conflict that Prince gets beyond. One of the first notable things about<strong> Sign</strong>: they are kept comfortably separate. <em>The Cross</em> is a purely religious /social observation; the same can be said for the song <em>Sign of the Times</em>. They may be kept separate, but not equal: there is a treatment given to these songs absent from the rest of the album, and they are in a very small minority…two of an offered sixteen.<br /><br />This doesn’t mean that the rest of the album is dedicated to sex. There’s preposterous strutting, heartfelt preaching, ridiculous psychedelic imagery, nightclub posturing, internal monologues, and rallying cries to celebrate life. There‘s definitely sex; there’s plenty of it. But Prince adds a new dimension to it. It seems more cognizant of its own obsession: Prince has approached it with a new maturity that at times is romantic, at times pathologically or compulsively unsettling.<br /><br />Side one can serve as the cliff notes take on the album, topically, if not musically. It opens with the title track and first single – a relaxed groove with a pulse like a clock winding down a body’s expiration; a song that reads a list of woes that threaten the world, posing the question why humanity continues to move forward in spite of them:”When the rocket ship explodes / and everybody still wants to fly / Some say a man ain’t happy truly / ‘til the man truly dies.” It directly addresses the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy, inquiring whether some of the pursuits of humanity fail to look for the value in pursuing them…particularly in light of all the social challenges we have on earth. He ends the lyrics quizzically: “Let’s fall in love / get married and have a baby / we’ll call him Nate…if it’s a boy.” He doesn’t settle for the political song that leaves the listener blaming someone else; he ends with accusing the listener with the same headlong rush towards the end of their life. It has a subdued groove, an uplifting yet – at the same time, lamenting – transition into the chorus. It ends with sporadic bursts of percussion and synth.<br /><br />It segues into <em>Play in The Sunshine</em>, a deceptive remedy. It is a strange transition; living up to the playfulness alluded to in the title: “Someway, Somehow, I’m going to have fun.” But the lyrics allude to such odd imagery, that one questions whether the voice in this tune is looking for solace in an opposite extreme (“I want to be free,” “we’re going to love our enemies ‘til the gorilla falls of the wall”, and “the big white rabbit begins to talk.”). Prince has a history of knocking on hippies, and it’s tempting to resign the lyrics to having fun with them again. Even if that’s the case, <em>Play in the Sunshine</em> is as musically diverse and dynamic as the album opener is stuck in a rut. It starts out in a frenetic rush and unrealistic declaration, breaks down for two separate guitar solos, before the background vocals that have grown increasingly complex through the song, devolve into a gospel choir hung over and deplete of energy.<br /><br />Then the funk & Camille’s sped-up voice break in:<em> Housequake</em>’s “Shut Up Already, Damn!” cuts in before Play’s celebration completely winds to a close. Uncharacteristically for Prince, <em>Housequake</em> employs horns combined with familiar ‘eerie’ background synth lines. Though inspired by James Brown, Prince brings an irreverent humor to it. It is one of the highlights of the entire album; lyrical content takes a backseat to comedic timing; the first three songs resolve in the funk being the final solution the previous two songs’ internal contradictions.<br /><br /><em>The Ballad of Dorothy Parker</em> is the earliest song recorded with the intent of being on either the <strong>Crystal Ball, Dream Factory</strong> (when Prince had a 3 album set in mind), or <strong>Sign of the Times</strong> (we’ll just call it “his next project”). Musically, it changes direction sporadically – an illusion created by vocal layers that shift and change directions frequently. It reads like an early attempt at a song focused on relationships, but it doesn’t take itself as seriously as later songs on the album: this is the fun of being seduced. Despite the line “I needed someone with a quicker wit than mine / and Dorothy’s was fast”, Prince was unfamiliar with Parker the writer. To him, it was a name pulled out of the effluvium of pop culture reference. There are many instrumental shifts and voices put on display, but it is a subdued contrast to Play in the Sunshine. The callout to Joni Mitchell’s “Help Me”, and the way he employs it, is impressive. <em>Dorothy Parker</em> ends with a wah-wah guitar groove that has little to do with the proper song, but implies doors being open to something more, depths to explore.<br /><br />When I first listened to side two, I thought it was the weakest on the double-LP. If any of the four sides have to be the weak link, I would stand by this notion – though I also believe making side two the weakest separates it from <strong>The Beatles</strong> or <strong>Songs in the Key of Life</strong>. But I’ve come to appreciate it over time. It reveals where the god/sex contradiction went: shifted to sex/love. It is book ended by <em>It</em>, an unreserved expression of sexual desire, and <em>Forever In My Life</em>, a reflective song in which the narrator confesses to himself that there is a time to settle down. They share a similar tempo. <em>It </em>progresses with a hypnotic synth melody that indicates a crescendo that will never be reached. Prince cites banal lyrics over the build, all Id in his delivery: “I wanna do you you baby all the time, alright / I’m gonna think about it all the time / fuckin’ on your mind, baby / feels so good it must be a crime”. Forever In My Life, by contrast, is lyrically pretty. Prince relegates the Linn to the background, layering his background vocals to anticipate his bluesy lead delivery. It is an honest song, sounding almost extemporaneous; there is a strange trade-off between <em>It </em>and <em>Forever</em> in musica versus lyrical complexity. Even on early listening, I questioned how Prince could be more compulsive about sex, or more sincerely honest about relationships.<br /><br />One strong point to be made for side two of <strong>Sign</strong>: it doesn’t lose momentum. The only thing making this side ‘weak’, is comparing it to the other three. Couched between <em>It</em> & <em>Forever</em>, are <em>Starfish & Coffee / Slow Love / Hot Thing. Starfish</em> is the most popular of the three, a song that would fit comfortably on <strong>The Beatles</strong>: precocious, precious, and full of sugary imagery. <em>Slow Love</em> feels like a ballad Prince has done before, though it sounds perfectly executed. <em>Hot Thing</em> pounds and drives with fiery horn lines and a danceable backbeat. All three are great songs, differing wildly from one another. It is almost as though his adept ability to handle such diverse approaches to songwriting was too hard to resist, creating the most erratic collection on the LP. It also doesn’t help that every song on sides 3 & 4 have – whether in pop culture or in cult fandom – a resounding significance.<br /><br /><em>U Got the Look</em> finds Prince using the Camille-voice in duet with Sheila Easton (the Camille project was another ancillary, and eventually absorbed project, into <strong>Sign</strong> & <strong>The Black Album</strong>). It is a song that can’t determine whether it is dance or rock, and the electric rock churnings in the background sound as though they may have given Trent Reznor an idea or two. Did I say this didn’t impress me at first? I stand corrected. <em>U Got the Look</em> was the last song written for <strong>Sign of the Times</strong>, when Prince wanted to intentionally attempt something commercial to tack on his album. In terms of requirements and deliverables, he hit the mark. It might not forward any of the psychological contradictions on the album, but it displays how Prince can nail it in spite of himself: a sped-up voice, dissonant synth-lines, and a near cabaret treating of pop-rock. He does it with catchy, memorable, simple lyrics and an unforgettable – if not absurd – bridge that finds him singing each word in the line “Well here we are” in four sequentially different keys.<br /><br /><em>If I was Your Girlfriend</em> is a masterpiece in Linn-drum and synth sequencing. It also stands as one of the creepier love songs ever written. Prince brings the same obsessive approach from <em>It</em>, refocusing from sex to the relationship itself. He strives for a possessive intimacy that leaves no room but for the person who adores. I was always surprised that it received any radio attention, since it’s descent into a sexual madness – all that was cut from the radio edit – makes the song what it is. “Would you run to me if somebody hurt you / even if that someday was me? Sometimes I trip on how happy we can be” is a haunting lyrical pairing; everything that follows - right unto the symbolic, post-coital ending of the song – sounds like the sick mental schematic from which such a statement arises. “We’ll try to imagine what silence looks like…” repeated over and over, begs a votive candle be lit to ward all the preceding demons away.<br /><br />A poppier approach to the same subject matter follows. <em>Strange Relationship</em> looks at things from the outside: “Baby I just can’t stand to see you happy / More than that, I hate to see you sad.” “The more you love me sugar, the more it makes me mad.” It propels itself with a driving, heavy drum beat and catchy synth melody…though the topic matter is overshadowed with a threat of violence. Prince, as narrator, has switched from unabashed honesty to an observation of the relationship – it’s like you see an ego emerging. He is seeing the thing – and his reaction to it – for what it is. Just like most of the songs on<strong> Sign</strong>, it quickly follows it’s predecessor, announcing itself on the scene with an urgency.<br /><br />The Freudian triptych resolves in <em>I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man</em>. Topically, it is distant from <em>Strange</em> or <em>Girlfriend</em>, but the narrator has developed a certain morality about relationships (if this were a three-song side, excluding <em>U Got the Look</em>, it would seem even more intentional…but since that isn’t the case, this is my own reading). “Honey, you might be satisfied with a one-night stand / but I could never take the place of your man.”…subjects the narrator to not getting his way, in spite of his honest assessment. And the music is pure pop, perfect for radio, relatable for its simple message: it could be the most unequivocal hit on the album, with an extended version that satisfies the faithful. <em>ICNTTPOYM</em> is a song that had been around awhile (since 1982). It takes an unusual direction for Prince, breaking down a tight pop song for a subdued groove and playing some funky delayed rhythm before re-emerging with the melody. This is the same Prince who was genius enough to leave the bass out of <em>When Doves C</em>ry; you might think he is marring a good thing. But when the melody returns, it is effective.<br /><br />Side three ends with indirect resolution, begging the question: where can one go from here? Well, god, for starters. And Dancing. And arguably, the most romantic love song Prince has recorded – among many – yet.<br /><br />Side four is where you either poot out and resign yourself to filler (<strong>The Beatles</strong>) or pack in the hits (<strong>Key of Life</strong>). Prince is somewhere in the middle.<em> It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night</em>, the longest song on the album, is closer to As or<em> Another Star</em> than it is to <em>Number 9</em>, that‘s for certain. The middle piece of the LP finale is a pastiche of his marketed Minneapolis sound, live energy, newly discovered horn lines and contemporary - though accessible - rapping. I’ve yet to see a review of the album that doesn’t qualify the song as ‘heavily overdubbed,’ and considering that Sign wasn’t meant to be a live album, this is rightfully so. It is the last relic of Prince performing with the Revolution, and the effect reminds that the parting – artistically, anyways – ended on a high note. Like the title indicates, it is positive, and for nine minutes the listener has a lot thrown at them: Oz-land chants, multiple voicings, jazzy rubato, funky rhythm guitars, playful tomfoolery. Even if it is overdubbed from the Zenith, Paris, performance, it is a postcard that makes one with they were there.<br /><br />However, it is <em>The Cross</em> that quietly launches side four with an eastern sounding, quiet guitar-lick. It is a song sung twice – once with Prince’s vocals leading over musical embellishment, a second time in a different key, with more strain, drowned out in distortion. It is the most direct addressing to Prince’s spirituality; a wiping of the slate clean following the preceding three album sides. Depending on where you are coming from, you might either appreciate the stop-gap, or wonder if…if he were to pursue the straining honesty of side three, where it might have taken him artistically.<br /><br />The last song is <em>Adore</em>.<br /><br />Though <strong>Sign O the Times</strong> has been viewed as a classic in many circles, it didn’t chart amazingly well: it achieved a high of 45 on Billboard charts. In light of what the album offered, the series of singles fall short of being representative: <em>Sign O the Times</em> was followed by <em>If I was Your Girlfriend</em>. Though the follow up had a killer b-side in <em>Shockadelica</em>, it threatened the momentum of the album. It was followed by a pair of double a-side maxi singles – <em>U Got the Look / Housequake</em> and <em>Hot Thing / I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man</em>. Considering the material discarded from the 3-album set, the direction of double-A sides is surprising. Imagine throwing <em>Dream Factory, Sexual Suicide, A Place in Heaven, </em>or<em> Possessed</em> into the mix.<em> U Got the Look & ICNTTPOYM</em> were videos taken from the <strong>Sign O the Times</strong> Concert film, garnering some video rotation on MTV….though decreasingly so. <em>Sign,</em> the single, reached #3 on Billboard’s Hot 100; <em>Girlfriend</em> made next to no impact, and <em>U Got the Look</em> went to #2. At the time, this meant very little to me. As my focus shifted towards the underground, I was pleased that I could hear Prince’s music on KJET or KCMU. As I made my own genre shift, I was validated that I wasn’t the only person who appreciated his talent or music.<br /><br /><strong>Sign </strong>also served to end a high artistic run for Prince. He would follow up the album with <strong>Lovesexy</strong> in 1988, but self-indulgently limit CD listeners to a single track representing the entire album (no track-skipping). Ironically, it was the first album that I bought on the day of its release – I remember bringing home its (obsolete) long-box along with Morrissey’s <strong>Viva Hate.</strong> <strong>Lovesexy</strong> was announced with another great single – <em>Alphabet St</em>. – a funky, playful number, that was lost in the controversy over the pulled-at-the-last-minute <strong>Black Album</strong> and the indignant response to<strong> Lovesexy</strong>’s religious overtone. It is a departure from <strong>Sign,</strong> where the synth and full-band sound at times overwhelm anyone who would’ve accused <strong>Sign</strong> of being too thin or sparse.<br /><br />And again, the release of his next album left little room for appreciating the previous one: <strong>LoveSexy </strong>may have hurt <strong>Sign</strong>, just a little bit.<br /><br />Late July of 2008. I’m still listening to <strong>Sign O The Times</strong>, and even though it sounds like the 80’s, it conveys a lyrical wisdom that reaches beyond being confined to an era. The music can be pinned, but a few of the overtones and topics are universal. Perhaps I can handle it better than others because I’m a Paisley-head. I’m caught up in the mystique of what the album could have been if Prince had his way and released <strong>Crystal Ball</strong> or <strong>Dream Factory</strong>. I’ve invested the time and money in getting each and every album like lightening might strike again; like Prince might pull off something like <strong>Sign</strong> again. I’ve made allowances and explained away shortcomings. I brought home the finally released <strong>Black Album</strong> with it’s official release, optimistic that it would provide the missing link between <strong>Sign</strong> and <strong>Lovesexy.</strong><br /><br />Late July of 2008, and really: me and <strong>Sign</strong> have only reached 21 years together. Time to have a drink to this album. It’s hard to absorb the idea that more time has passed since its release, than between it and the release of <strong>The Beatles</strong>. It might be old age, but it seems musical revolution isn’t progressing at the speed it once did.<br /><br />The horn lines slink in as the audience of <em>Its Gonna Be A Beautiful Night</em> recede into the background. <em>Adore</em> announces itself like many Prince ballads from before: “Until the end of time / Ill be there 4 u / U own my heart and mind /I truly adore u / If God one day struck me blind / Your beauty I’d still see / Love is 2 weak 2 define / Just what u mean 2 me”<br /><br /><em>Adore</em> has distinguished itself as THE definitive Prince ballad: stylistically, it has some formulaic elements, but there’s a humor and idiosyncrasy to it – making it all the more genuine. “U could burn up my clothes / Smash up my ride, well maybe not the ride / But I got 2 have your face / All up in the place.” The idiosyncrasy lies in the structure of the song. It doesn’t build up to a fantastic ending. It reaches a crescendo at mid-mark, becoming reflective about this adoration: “you own my heart, you own my mind…” In a strange turn, he revisits the sentiment of Girlfriend, but musically, it doesn’t sound possessive or obsessive. When he says that he wants to be “More than your mother / more than your brother / I wanna be / Like no other”, the music allows it to be romantic sentiment instead of guilty or sickening confession. </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><br />“Tell u what u mean 2 me / Every time u wander / Ill be your eyes so u can see / I wanna show u things.” There are 2 references to eyesight in the song; one indicating that the adored transcends the vision of the one adoring; the second to an insinuated guidance to things to be seen – a giving over to seeing things in spite of distraction or ability. However, it is ambiguous as to whether there’s possessiveness about it. Given the context of the song, it feels romantic and heartfelt – it may not have been intentional. But it is difficult to be sure. Considering how Prince wields relationship matters on <strong>Sign</strong>, it seems he would make a statement, however veiled it might be, about the positive nature of a relationship: how in a healthy partnership, sometimes you lead; sometimes you follow. It is a perfect ending to a double-LP, but like the preceding 3 sides, it ends nicely and raises some questions at the same time. </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"><br />I’ve listened to this album for 21 years, and even after a perfect ending, I’m wondering what surprise will break in to interrupt it. I want to hear what side 5 has to offer, what depths or heavens it takes me to. Prince reached his zenith with <strong>Sign O the Times</strong> – the preceding albums, many of them also considered classics in their own right - feel like a building toward this moment. All subsequent albums get compared to it. Personally, I never get tired of it. Each and ever song has grown on me over time. Sometimes it is hearing an outtake, a live rendition of it, or just the reconsideration you give an element from repeated listens. And I’ll probably only like it more and more, until the end of time.</span>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-29185212515635970892008-07-14T14:06:00.000-07:002008-07-17T14:43:43.510-07:00WS Street Fair / Carl Owens Golf Tournament<span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">Friday, I made it by the Street Fair late to do my yearly uzshe: got Henna'd and bought sunglasses. This year, I chose the symbol 'The Way' since it smacked of a distant relevence to a consistent and divine golf swing. The gal doing the work had great cleavage (since she's applying it to my inside forearm, there aren't too many other places to look). Stopped by Jen's hut and said HI. I couldn't stick around and talk to her long; she was busy running the joint while her lump of a coworker proceeded to do nothing but text away with one leg up.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">Pete & I had a blast at the Golf Tournament. I picked him up way too early for the trip. No regrets, it made for a relaxing, unhurried day. It was nice to see his family again, though Holden - now age three - kept asking "Where's Michelle? - Where's Michelle?" I thought it was funny, D'arcy looked discomfit, and I'm impressed that at his age he even remembers.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">So we were early enough to hit a bucket of balls before shotgun. My first drive was perfect. My first pitch was perfect. I left the range at Carnation feeling really good about my swing.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">I shot a 118. That's about 15 over my average. This, in a year where I <em>really</em> want to break 100. I contribute this to: a) My drives were hot or cold. When they were cold, they were 'goodbye, I'll never see that ball again' cold. So I did a lot of hitting 3 off the tee. b) The rough. The coordinator for the tourney complained about it as well: it was poorly maintained and ate up a lot of balls. Really, I shanked a couple I should have been able to find easily. More penalty strokes. c) After 5 holes, I summed up where I was at, and decided that I wasn't going to break 100 anyways, so I may as well start drinking. Which I did with gusto.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">I love chatting up the beer-cart girls.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">As horrible as my score turned out to be, it was also a day of some of my most amazing shots. For me, anyways. On a short par 4, I almost drove the green. My ball ended up dead center, ten yards shy. I don't think I've had a better drive. Also, due to the sly mechanics of the Calloway system of scoring, I managed to beat Pete (really, only the net matters to us, so I don't <em>feel</em> like I beat Pete). I walked out of there with a new golfing bag, Pete with a beverage cooler. It was a long drive back, and I resigned myself to not going to the Street Fair for the Saturday night Dance Party. I don't think I could handle getting drunk twice in a day.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">Sunday, I made 2 trips to the fair: I needed to hit the Farmer's Market in the morning (stock up on flowers), and I wanted to see Carrie Akre in the afternoon. I came back with so much more from the morning trip: an earful from Jen, still holding the fort down, and...comics! I spent about 45 minutes under the hot sun looking for Fantastic Four's I didn't already own. I bought seven, when I got home I realized I already had 5 of them. I also stopped by the Rat City Roller Girls to see if they new some of the people I remembered from the rink, and they did! But they weren't going to show up until later. I bought a RCRG shirt and made my way home.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">After playing guitar at home for a couple hours, I headed back. I was behind on time, so I quietly waved to Cali & Jen as I made my way to the North Stage. Carrie was amazing. I haven't followed her solo career fanatically, but I love the most recent album - and her band. She was behind schedule starting, so I snuck in for a quick beer and texted Juan to come join (no response). I finished up, Carrie started up and it was one of those intimate experiences because you are watching it all alone. I really enjoyed it, along with the crazy scarf hippie who danced away several feet from me. He persuaded a couple people to join him, and handed out his business cards to them (I really secretly wanted one, but I didn't want to be lulled into public dancing. I mean, what is it that he's selling?).</span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">That was the weekend, in sum. Now back to work.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-19856981192714062182008-07-08T00:01:00.000-07:002008-07-08T20:26:31.331-07:00Shrill Posturing<p><strong><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">"So...this is going to sound like an odd question", leveling my eyes at her. "How would you go about baking a cake? I don't want you to tell me how to do it, I want you to tell me how <em>you</em>...<em>you personally</em>, would go about doing it."</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I'm humoring, complicit with the look on her face, though I can see she is not going to take the question seriously. She's not in a position to question the questions: "I would go to the store. I would get a box of cake mix. I would read the side of it and figure out what ingredients I need..." And her mind wanders a little; she pauses for a moment. The moment I've been waiting to break in.</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">"No, I don't think you understand the question. A cake. How would you go about baking a cake." </span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">She gives me the look I was waiting for. A blank face, all attention and seriousness. All searching for how she could have misinterpreted such a stupid question in the first place. Absorbing her mis-step. "Okay, I think I understand. First, I would find a cookbook." I raise my palm up to signify that she should stop right there - "Really, this is what <em>you</em> would do?"</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">The cake question was never my idea. Someone asked me it when I was the interviewee, a long time ago. I never did find out the right answer, nor did I get the job. It was a mean turn I wanted to give back to the universe - some day, at some opportunity. When Rebecca arrived reeking of marijuana and sporting a relaxed confidence, I felt it was now or never. "I understand it seems like a simple process - baking a cake. Let's try this one more time." I'm a bit astounded. If I were her, I would be angry by now - but Rebecca just looks terrified. I've harshed her mellow. She collects herself, swallows deeply, and gives it another try.</span></strong><br /><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">"If I were to bake a cake. First off, I don't know if I would ever bake a cake. If, If I were, if I had to...I'd talk to someone who knows how to bake a cake from scratch...is this what you're looking for? Bake a cake from scratch?" I shrug, like it doesn't matter to me. Either way you want to play it, Rebecca. I add an expectent nod to continue. "Okay, from scratch then. So I'd do some research. Look online? Get a recipe? Then I would go to the store to buy all the things I need to bake it. Funny, I don't even have a pan for baking cakes. Not a round one. I guess I would know by now what cake I want." And her enthusiasm bottoms out, as she sees that if there were a right or wrong, she ended on the wrong end of it. "I guess I should have said that first."</span></strong><br /><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I pretend to jot a short note on my legal pad. "That'll do it for the cake question. People either get it or they don't."</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">"Don't stress too much over it - I can assure you it has little or no bearing on the outcome of the interview." Having had my fun, I feel the need to retreat a step: "It's just...there are so many directions you could go here. It has little to do with this position. But you could find yourself leading a project, or, something like that." I add, "It beats being asked where you see yourself in five years. Now <em>that...</em>makes no sense at all."</span></strong><br /><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">After escorting Rebecca out, politely shaking her hand and letting her know when I'll be making a decision (a date that usually slides, since hiring people isn't as simple as baking a cake) - my phone rings. "Hello?" </span></strong><br /><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">It is the director: "There's been a mixup with recruiting. Your 2 o'clock? Don't hire him."</span></strong><br /><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">"Can I ask why?"</span></strong><br /><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">"Sure - he came highly recommended. Internal Referral. But someone in recruiting misplaced his READ...as it turns out, he failed it." This shouldn't be a big deal. The READ is a test as inconclusive as asking cake-baking questions. It asks straight away if you've stolen from your place of work. If you've done drugs. Whether you've physically assaulted someone. Except it goes on like that for 150 questions. The end result - you've either answered all the questions honestly, and shown you're imperfect in a few areas. Or, you've answered it dishonestly and are too saintly for your own good. It has a few trippable metrics in the background, but relying on the READ as a reliable tool has been a running joke to hiring managers since it came in-house.</span></strong><br /><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">"So? We've both taken the READ test and failed! Has there been a change in policy?" My boss laughs. "Well. If I can get a copy of his, I'll show it to you. This guy failed pretty much <em>everything</em> about it."</span></strong><br /><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I hang up the phone. I need a moment to absorb how stupid this is. This test no one takes too seriously, this weak sieve that doesn't serve to weed out, concretely, the psychologically unstable or the morally crippled - except under the most extreme conditions. And what happens the single time it sets off an alarm? It gets misplaced and I have to fake an interview. What if I happen to like the candidate? I look over his resume. Saying he is over-qualified for the position I'm filling would be a gross understatement. I've never seen a more perfect resume: a logical progression of increased responsibility at two different businesses. His most recent occupation, I know for a fact, just outsourced their tech department wholly - I doubt he was fired. The number of computer languages. Multiple platform. Not just multiple platform hardware ops experience, but coding experience for them as well. When did this guy find the time to do all the bad things the READ exposes? Did he just get yes and no confused while taking the test?</span></strong><br /><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I give up trying to make any sense of it. I've received my directive. I have only a single dim bulb of inspiration - play it grim. From the get-go, from the initial handshake, make sure he knows his chances are slim...for reasons beyond either of our control. The phone rings: it is Sandy; my appointment is here. "I'll be there shortly." I'll have to imagine some creative reasons as I make my way.</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">He's African-American. As soon as I see him, I am counting how many African-Americans we have in all of our technical departments. I can't get past the number two, and quickly calculate the percentages: even if I could hire this man, we'd still be woefully below any ideal quota. His smile is warm as we shake hands; I note that this experienced expert is about to be interviewed by a man almost half his age. And Jesus. As I flash my access card to gain entry to the interior offices, I can't help noticing he's following me with a terrible limp. Like he has a club foot...the <em>second</em> notion I muster to replace <em>like he's had a gunshot wound</em>.</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">"I know, I'm overqualified. You're probably wondering why I would apply for this job - it's almost entry level. I've been at this for over a month - and it's been rough. This morning, I had a second interview for a lead position at another company - made it to the final three - but didn't get the job. It would have been perfect for my skill set." I'm wondering if other companies have READ tests. But all I can tell him is that the market is tough, and techies all around are being asked to do more with less...am I really repeating the kind of trite sayings that annoy me when I hear them? Yes I am. "Well," he tells me, "I don't want to give you the idea that this is the job of my dreams. In five years, I'd imagine I would be in a position more aligned with my experience." A small part of me wonders how I'll use this against him.</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">We arrive at conference room 7E, and I ask him to make himself comfortable. I wait for him to choose a seat, and find one opposite where we can see each other face to face.</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I make my normal introduction, iterating the values of the company. I recite the mission statement for the immediate department he is applying to (he was wrong - it wasn't <em>near</em> entry level. It <em>was</em> entry level). I ask him exactly a dozen questions, taking notes. Questions passed on to me from the previous manager; questions that I could never quite peg for what insight was to be taken from them. Usually, it comes down to either a good or bad feel for a person. In light of the other candidates, this guy is my first notch in the good side. I add a thirteenth question - where does he see himself in five years - because I believe it is a question he wants to answer. I take him on the tour of the multiple IT departments, the server lab, the computer room that he would be working in if he were hired. I show him my desk. I have used up the necessary hour to show how I treat every applicant very seriously, and we return to the conference room.</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">"Now, I know this is not your dream job. And we always want people who are working to better themselves, competing for a better position. I want to be honest with you about where this job comes in at..." I write a number on a yellow sticky. I'm never good at lying, so I pick the lowest number in the pay scale, despite his over-qualifications. He looks blankly at it for several seconds.</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">"You're joking, right?"</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">"I'm not." I need something between the lie and the truth: "Personally, I think you are over-qualified, and I would bring you in at top scale just to get you on. But for budgeting reasons...I can't bring anyone in at but the lowest pay. I'm probably telling you more than I should, but that's what is going on in the background. If I want an add to head count, which this position is, an <em>add</em> - I have to do it on the cheap."</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">It is ridiculously low, the number. I believe it will be enough to deter him - it's almost a ten dollar an hour difference - but he only sighs. I don't know what he's been through these past months. I don't know how seemingly hopeless it has been for him. And he doesn't know that the only way I can come away from this, feeling good about it - is if he is part of the decision process. But he only sighs, takes it in, and says: "Okay." This is not working.</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">"That, and we are going through a restructuring. We might lose this position." It is a complete lie. I have a fear he is going to leave this place, and stop looking because he lowered his standards so low that he couldn't possibly <em>not</em> get this job. In a way, he is correct in this assumption: in a perfect world without READ tests, he would be a shoe-in.</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">He looks at me blankly: "You could have told me that from the start." I think for a moment that he will become angry. It comes over his face, but he is professional enough to quell it. "This does amount to an afternoon of my time."</span></strong><br /></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I switch gears into my normal wrap up. We'll let you know when we come to a decision, etc. That I'll pass his resume on to other departments, etc. He is no longer making eye contact with me; I don't have his full attention. I can read it on his face: he is too busy wondering what he will do next, because he is a fighter. That he is mentally dismissing me, in my presence, is a balm to the empathy I'm feeling for him right now. I deserve to feel this small. I'm playing the part of the complete tool: not knowing for certain why I'm 'following orders,' only knowing that I'm doing the exact opposite of what, if things were up to me entirely, I would be doing right now: offering him this job outright. As we walk to the door and I see him out, he tells me thank you absent-mindedly. I want to believe he has completely written me off, by now.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">"Dean. I just interviewed a candidate you might be interested in. Daniels referred him."</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">We have about 12 open positions, all told. Most of them are only internally posted, so the public never sees them. As I'm handing the resume to Dean, I'm working on another lie. I could have handed the resume to Dean before I got the call...I can figure it all out later. I could be defiant and simply tell Roberts that I think this guy is a good hire? I don't know. Unlike my interviewee, I don't really have a plan. Part of me wants to make this somehow work for everybody. Another part of me just wants to redeem myself, even if it means making it someone else's problem.</span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Dean reads the resume, his eyes growing wider with each line.</span></strong></p>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-71486792900401241862008-07-07T18:39:00.000-07:002008-07-07T19:08:18.921-07:00At Random (A Journaling)<span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Strange; a week ago, I was <em>pissed</em> - at everything. The little things that were tripping me up, the things that were beyond my control, the things that <em>were</em> in my control, but were hanging about with a nasty importuning...because I had no desire to deal with them.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I had to rearrange some priorities. It's pretty silly, when I think about it, how easy it is to put yourself in a better frame of mind. To bolster yourself with a sense of efficacy. It all started with making some appointments. Doctors appointments, Eye Doctor appointments, get the car in to have the oil changed, etc. Of course with work, <em>meeting</em> appointments is always a challenge. But they were met. Sometimes I forget I have a knack for automating my job (but again, even that is an importuning & challenge I have to meet head on).</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I regretfully had my final doctor's appointment with my primary. I was a little agitated since I had run out of insulin and my doc was no longer covered on my plan, so I had to shell out for it. I definitely have cholesterol issues. That makes sense. I had my first appointment with my new eye doc (basically searching for the nearest to my home covered by my plan), and I'm happy to announce I've managed upon a caring, condescending, preachy, no-nonsense, in-your-face guy. It makes me wonder if what I really needed was a deserved (as opposed to irrational & drunken) pistol-whipping this entire time...</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Then the weekend came. I had plans, but I blew all of them off.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I sat down and wrote a list of things I want to do to the house. The things that could take anywhere from 2 hours to 50 hours. To hell with the fourth of July, to hell with the Long Winters show...diving into that list (only checked off 2 items by weekend's end) was more rewarding to me than relying on doing what I would <em>usually</em> do.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">I do get inspiration and motivation from being alone. I think I have to face that fact. But I've been operating on this assumption for too long, that I cannot be alone...like I'll go crazy without some nurturing company, and I'm beginning to recognize how erred that assumption was. I think it led me to mitigate my standards for friendship. I think it led me to really lower the bar and persue some superficial people. I think it didn't allow me to be myself; it led me to be, at times, someone I'm not. I should have listened to the obvious signs: if you aren't feeling good about it, you should just get away. It seems simple enough.</span>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-48870965022031176302008-07-02T09:56:00.001-07:002008-12-08T16:36:42.052-08:00A Day In Preview<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixBuWS6LBgI-FsoXJwEC89Y6S0tc0ROPmaqLl1wzo4LPhbV9qJyfaa0V073Rl3bSbtiKljt-Eo8FLMwJUGIQeR53PNloz_cM855rwwBLD6X8WVJ2ml74KI96ab6RqT_Zkm0T24nL3NYFHV/s1600-h/biogif0702.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218462021998916674" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixBuWS6LBgI-FsoXJwEC89Y6S0tc0ROPmaqLl1wzo4LPhbV9qJyfaa0V073Rl3bSbtiKljt-Eo8FLMwJUGIQeR53PNloz_cM855rwwBLD6X8WVJ2ml74KI96ab6RqT_Zkm0T24nL3NYFHV/s320/biogif0702.bmp" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxbDoa4n4pTD7tMVl0EUTEz-3-evTdWPIj1UotBcSSWHGiX-hAQ39T9mMmkedlF9i4DHnoIbLbSJZUUoUXDCZgJg_d3hd-7xIkK3WLW8m5U4l7vebozOzj8OudO8Qoxpyc6Q033g_9LWwd/s1600-h/bio0702.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218461901733306226" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxbDoa4n4pTD7tMVl0EUTEz-3-evTdWPIj1UotBcSSWHGiX-hAQ39T9mMmkedlF9i4DHnoIbLbSJZUUoUXDCZgJg_d3hd-7xIkK3WLW8m5U4l7vebozOzj8OudO8Qoxpyc6Q033g_9LWwd/s320/bio0702.bmp" border="0" /></a> </div><br /><div><br /><br /><div></div></div>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-43717465450387403572008-07-01T18:54:00.001-07:002008-07-01T19:11:39.624-07:00A Prayer for Hank<span style="font-family:arial;">Or Henry. I have about 7K worth of words scattered amongst 3 voices. It is going nowhere fast, people. Casanova was to be my big deal; my tribute to the most selfish - yet charming - person I ever met. It was supposed to be my first attempt at method acting (because I'm neither of those); my first real short story. Don't know how to stitch all of this together. Don't know if it will ever get done.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">I wanted to see if I could set about it like a task. Tell myself I'm going to write for a couple hours, and actually DO IT. I recognize the achievement is rather small, in the scope of things. But this has dragged on for so long...the initial takes that I did write, the notes I wrote in my little notebook - they've had time to simmer and get very cold. When I read them, they already look fumbling and amateurish (though I know deep down the whole effort isn't going to bowl anyone over) and only distantly relevent to things I've written over the past couple weeks.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">I dunno. Perhaps I'll attack it and write the whole thing from scratch. If I'm going to do this at all, it's unavoidable! But really, I'm hoping tomorrow-me...because today-me is getting 'meh' about the endeavor...gets a passion about Hank. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Perhaps Hank isn't as likable as he is charming. There's a certain point you get with people, when you really start to <em>see</em> them.</span>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-59664461158009116152008-06-30T20:26:00.000-07:002008-06-30T21:08:06.657-07:00Brevity<span style="font-size:85%;">He was out walking. The destination or point of embarkment is not relevant. He raised his hand, and realized there was nothing in it. But he was expecting something to be there. And it was empty. His first suspect was his addled mind, his half-absent thoughts set to roaming - along with his physical self - under an unrelenting afternoon sun. Where the kiss of a breeze was precious. Where he walked slowly across spatterings of shade on the sidewalk, only a little slower. But the hand. There was nothing in it.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">"I can tell you what was there."</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">This from a man sidling up alongside him. Only it is a strange voice: as though he were a talking animal, only here it is coming from the mouth of a human being. Is he wearing mascara? He is afraid to guess. He has no time for this; he has real, real physiological problems to contend with: he feels the exhaustion from the heat. He doesn't like the sweat stains he is leaving along the inside of his collar; not now, not ever. He doesn't like where he is right now - every face he passes appears like a walking wraith of fetal-alcohol syndrome: a walking, breathing, argument for abortion.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">"That was the question you were asking yourself, right? I can read your face. The look on your face is...obvious. It's obvious to me; it is obvious to all of us."</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">He wants the man to leave. He walks faster. He does not know what he is missing from this empty palm: he only knows that when he looked at his hand, it wasn't there. And everyone seems to be in on it; everyone knows what he is missing but him. He keeps his lips tightly pursed. He is too proud to ask. Too proud to ask any of these people what has gone missing, especially people he does not know and who have no right to know. Even if they do know. None of this makes sense.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The man grabs him by the shoulders. He is so caught in his own verbal reticence, he acquiesces with several blinks. The key might be given for free. He is not walking; he is standing now. "I don't need to know you..." The man's face rolls left and right, head over his shoulders - back and forth like a blind man in concentration: "to tell you the thing you are missing right now". The man posits a savant's reverie:</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">"You were the one who let it go."</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The man walked away. He watched the man go his way, and counted the seconds as the man got smaller and smaller. One thousand. Two thousand. Three thousand. He watched the man stop at the corner, and suspensefully awaited what would happen next. The man did not round the corner, disappearing out of sight and granting him his freedom. The man did not walk straight ahead, back-turned and torturing him with a confirmed abandonment. Neither did he cross the street, where he might walk along - keeping one eye upon him - as the two of them second-guessed at what the other was thinking.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The man saw another. Another, coming from another direction.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The man sidled up along her, and as she walked in this direction, he could tell the man was saying things to her. Things to frighten her and shove her from her bearings.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">In this direction: Oh shit.</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-50845210055968009622008-06-27T09:36:00.000-07:002008-12-08T16:36:42.207-08:00EveryOne Have A Great Pride!<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5216608653326336850" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhifso8FX8ibqR7mjGK5UWeoSC2RDXGJIgXtgbd7Dc95Wu-dAXBmF0u_3Oli8OYesewSuYa8Lt3wxqSL_zWPAw-MllWNBzHjA-FWkQEQhOX52bdkAdxcCm5wksFQfBMk5_nSCAv1_eFPmRs/s320/777px-Gay_flag_svg.bmp" border="0" /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;">Me, I'm off to golf; I'm only hoping my pride will make it to the back nine. But I did come across <a href="http://www.lovegodsway.org/">this site</a> today (warning: it's a hate-site), which answers the question...can you be mentally retarded and gay? (The answer: <em>not for long</em>)</span><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">What led me there was the breakdown of 'gay' versus 'safe bands' and the occasional parenthetical justification for the former. Asterisks lead nowhere. Elton is listed <em>twice</em>. What I really love: 2 artists that I've name-dropped on my blog made the short-list for <em>safe</em> (Cindi Lauper & Dresden Dolls). Go figure. It's good for a laugh - if you have a sense of humor about these things.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Love Everybody.</span></div><br /><br /><div><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /></div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-2076431769872892832008-06-24T19:23:00.000-07:002008-06-24T21:50:18.926-07:00bus stories<span style="font-family:verdana;">After Vikram Seth laid the 1474 page 'Suitable Boy' out to the public, before he was about to publish his 'Perfect Music', he made a boistrous promise: </span><br /><p><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"><em>I didn't particularly intend to write a shorter novel. However, I did realize that if I were to write another novel equally long, it would take up another decade of my life. I wasn't very keen to do that. I also reckon that publishers aren't intrinsically fond of long novels; they're difficult to convince people to read...or to review for that matter. So I hoped that the inspiration for my next novel could be curbed within reasonable length, 300 to 400 pages. I guess I'm lucky that it has. I did threaten to cut off a digit for every extra 10,000 words above 100,000. All of my fingers are intact</em></span></p><p><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;">I'm making the same promise: if I ever write anything that takes place on a bus again....</span></p>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-30631960196196008412008-06-24T19:07:00.000-07:002008-06-24T19:14:53.943-07:00I Didn't Join the Army, Either<span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"><strong>"Captain Lou Albana. Never heard him? You two are identical. Except he's got a rubber band in his beard."</strong></span><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">"Rubber band...?" He strokes his beard and lets out "that's some crazy shit."</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">Two weeks into college. Two weeks in, and all my senses are filled to the brim. It is two weeks of not wanting to fall behind, reading ahead in my text books, exploring where the best places are to get a clear head and study. But fascinating and ruined people keep singling me out to share their opinions of the world. To share the twists and turns by which they arrived at where they got. To share their dance moves. Normally, I wouldn't mind a wild-eyed, greasy long-haired and devil-bearded man dancing on a table in McDonald's at 6:30 a.m. Just not the table I'm already studying at.</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">"You ever heard of Cindi Lauper? He was in her music video." Since he joined me in the back of the bus, the caboose, the pit: Cap'n Lou has warned me we will be going to war with Iraq "You just watch!". He has informed me, between sips from an oil can in a brown paper bag, that he is a Viet Nam veteran: "The shit I've seen; I know what I'm talking about here." He has let loose an explosive fart: "You got to listen to your body, kid." He is not the first wrecked vet I've met who predicts the U.S. is always on the verge of going to war. Like a preacher sermons on the end days. Like the big event that will make the futile investments in your life worth it. But I don't tell him how inconceviable it is, a war in this day and age. This civilized age. Not going to happen. Kuwait sounds like a country that didn't plan ahead, and they probably got what they deserved.</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">"Heard of her. But that's not real music." The bus makes a stop on Eastlake, and Cap'n points to a tavern across the street. "You want real music? That place rocked back in the day. Saw Jimi Hendrix there." Cap'n jerks as the bus resumes, and we are joined by a third in the back. "Hendrix. There. For Real." I say it with a humoring urgency, an encouragement to tell me more. To tell me more and get him talking - even though I know it will all be lies - while I sum up our newcomer.</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">He looks white collar. Executive white collar. Perhaps in his mid-thirties. Wearing cufflinks, and the republican suit with the blood red tie. A pinned tie. I see many three-pieces on the bus, but they usually have a sense of style. A sense of flair. This newcomer is exhibiting an old-money, wall street conservative look - reserved for people who drive their own cars or who own people to drive them about in them. I feel like he deserves a name, just like Cap'n Lou, who is already drawing this polished man in.</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">"Hey Square, d'ja know Hendrix played there?" The tavern he nods towards is retreating, and Square makes no effort to look or stretch or put himself out in anyway to look at it. "I've heard of him. Not my kind of music." He does, though, seem to put himself out to make no eye contact whatsoever with the Cap'n...who is too boozy to care: "Well, what do you listen to? Everybody's got a thing."</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">I smile. I can't stop it: this promises to be entertaining. All three generations of us. The 70's loser vet, the 80's financial success, and the student with all the promise for the future. "I prefer classical. The Opera." But he says it directly to me, as though it is my turn to answer. And I try so hard to please: "I like some of it, but I like to listen to a little of everything. Mostly punk. But I like chamber music too. No opera, though."</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">"It's hotter'n Georgia asphalt!" Cap'n Lou stretches his arms over the adjoining seats as though staking territory or defining a comfort zone. I have to admit, he does look comfortable. "But its a dry heat. Not like jungle humidity. That shit makes you sick breathing it. But the worst is napalm."</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">Square quietly clears his throat. Seemingly importuned by the other, he stares intently at me. "So. Are you learning to become a biochemical engineer?" motioning to a book on my lap where only the word Calculus is predominantly displayed.</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">"Biochemical Engineer? Funny you'd get that from this..." holding the book up. "But an electrical engineer, maybe. I just started. I'm not passionate about this. Hoping by the end of the first year I'll know for sure what I want to do. And then there's the war coming, too."</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">"You just watch!"</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">"Really. I haven't been following current events; my passions rest elsewhere." And the Square says it like a thespian, with a sigh and withdrawing shoulders. "You should look into biochemical engineering. There's a future in it." I tell him I'll keep it in mind. Cap'n Lou breaks into guffaws.</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">"Look at you, in your suit. Talking big words. Ain't you burning up?"</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">Something I hadn't noticed. I feel sorry for this Square; he is obviously out of place here. And he has a heckler, already. I'm curious what put this man so far from his element, but not that curious. And my stop is coming up in a few more blocks. I give Square a sympathizing smile and a roll of my eyes: <em>crazy drunk</em>. I pull out my wallet to retrieve change, and my girlfriend's photograph is exposed.</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">He leans forward, inquisitive: "Is that your beloved?"</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">Cap'n is less interested in my photograph - but echoes in mock condescension: "beloved...!" </span></strong><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">And I show the photo to the Square: "I don't know if I would say beloved. But this is my gal. Selena."</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">He reaches towards his attache. "The Goddess of the Moon. She is very beautiful. You are a fortunate one." Cap'n Lou now wants to see; he flicks his fingers with a give it here motion. I lean towards him but do not hand over my wallet. He nods in appreciation. Square has removed a slight stack of white business cards and is motioning to hand one to me, and as he leans forward all three of us make an odd huddle.</span></strong><br /><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">"This is <em>my</em> beloved."</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">The card I hold in my hand is a business card, a grainy photo on the left and a paragraph of names - a jumble of pseudonyms - on the right: Miss 666. Wife of Baphomet. Diana. Arbitrer of the Moon. Na'amathe. The Cunt Goddess. And more. The woman looks mostly normal - perhaps forty, with a busy Ogilvie home perm and a secretary's employee of the month photo-sitting smile. The only occult thing about her is the mascara application, upward egyptian curliques where crow's feet begin their advance. Without the resume, I wouldn't have pegged her for Satan's Mistress, but apparently she is - and pretty proud about it. Square is looking excitedly at me, eager for my response. Too excitedly, though: the hand holding the remaining cards, bending the ends between thumb and forefinger, loose their hold. </span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">Dozens of cards burst blooming into the air like a firework, coming to rest over the floor of the back of the bus. Square is befuddled, a self-disappointed look of shame curtains his face. He catches himself, and is down on his knees picking up the cards. In his suit. It is a sight.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">Cap'n Lou grabs one as Square is reaching for it. As he takes it in, he stands up: "You're kidding right?" And he throws it down at the humbled Square. He walks and wobbles as far as the rear entry. "A Satan Worshipper. You're kidding, right?" And as he turns to us to say it, he is white as a sheet. Like he will be infected by either one of us. He dismounts at the next stop, only a matter of seconds, and I'm happy that his moments of discomfort are brief.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">I'm having my own conflict absorbing the moment. "So, have you been together for long?" It is all I can manage as this suited man scrambles over the floor. There might be an issue about his idol being facedown on a surface so readily tread.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-family:Courier New;font-size:85%;">The bus isn't moving. The Cap'n is outside, pointing to the back of the bus, and the bus driver is trying to interpret this commotion: the excited drunk outside and a man at the distant opposite of his vehicle, doubled-over as though he took one to the stomach. I mutter under my breath: "You don't have to answer". And I go join the Cap'n. When I join him, we have nothing to say to each other.</span></strong>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7128101587606874495.post-61595052426654057862008-06-23T15:25:00.000-07:002008-06-24T21:53:05.197-07:00Solstice & Solace<span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">A common problem with being inconsolable: as your hermetically sealed thoughts whirl about in your head, faster and faster and engraving negative revelations with accelerating revolution, the illusion is created that the pressure is coming from <em>outside</em>. You have to forgive yourself for falling into this trap. It is merely a perception, possibly an internal desire to keep phenomena at an equilibrium, a balance, between the increasingly shameful rote thoughts clanging their chains about in there - and the inspirational monuments and heroic deeds by which you have put it upon yourself to measure up.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">And that is the key; the pressure is coming from <em>inside</em>.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">There is no lynchpin but the one of your own choosing. No physical draining to relieve a pressure imagined. Sometimes, you cannot independently - logically - arrive at a solution; you need something smarter than you.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Sometimes a solstice can turn things around. And.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:85%;">Centrifugal is an <em>imaginary</em> force...</span>FreNeTichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17434724335820865047noreply@blogger.com4