Perception

Went out to a buffet restaurant for dinner tonight with a friend. We have known each other for ten years this month so it was kind of like an anniversary celebration. He and I met at a buffet. We were sixteen year old bus boys. Now we meet up at a buffet every couple weeks. We eat three plates of food starting with salad and going on to meat, potatoes, shrimp and finally, icecream. After the eating we walk out to the parking lot holding our guts and breathing strenously through our mouths, and after chit-chating by our cars, say good bye. We speed away.

Those coming of age years were spent inside a buffet restaurant! We were socialized in a glutton hut--grew up there. Went on dates with coffee server girls who wore pleated lap aprons and floral print skirts. Collected paychecks and then blew them on car wax and fast food. Were promoted from bus boys to dishwashers, cooks to managers.

And I wonder how I would perceive life if I were socialized somewhere else, like the Gap or a malt shop--where there weren't four hundred pound guest reeking of sweat and farts demanding more roast beef.

What MTV could be

Where I'd like to go for vacation

The Sun

Boulavard Park at sunset. Dark purple clouds. The Sun, blinding, falling, obliterating the west. And people. People are watching the sun. A girl sits Indian style on a park bench smoking a cigarette, watching the sun. Couples leisurely stroll, arm and arm down the board walk, squinting watching the the sun. An old man with fishing lures glued to his hat, a photographer, a gang of teenage fashion bugs, all, watching the sun. I, bundled up in my pea coat, smoke coming from my fingers, am enthralled by the sun.

An older gentleman, walking past me, stops, looks at me, gestures at the sun, "There is hope after all, the sun is shinning." He's smiling

I'm walking back to my car and pass a young girl with curly hair. She is in her car. I notice her eyes: blue, translucent, deep, teary, her pupils black specks. Sun light is filling her eyes and spilling down her cheeks.

Eyes. Eyes and the sun, at the park.

Happy Valentines Day!

My brother is the best guy I know. I sure do love him.

He's a nice guy, an innocent guy. Treats women like gold and so far they've stomped on him. He's kind of seeing this girl lately. I ask him what he's doing for Valentines day. He looks at me blankly. "Dude you better do something!" I say. "I'm telling you as your older brother, make a card, something." He agrees.

An hour later he comes out of his room with this card he's been making, a painting of a woman on the ground with a chest full of arrows, bloodied, and cupid flitting in the air with an empty quiver. It is precious. A thing of genius. Should be hung in the Guggenheim. And I know right then, he's going to get his heart trampled again.

"No, no, this won't do. You need flowers. You need canned mushrooms and a hallmark card with a 19th century love poem printed in an exaggerated feminine flowing script font. You have to take her in your arms and pretend that your an old time movie star. Give her all those fantasies she was raised on as a girl. Be an asshole, be an intellectual assf@#*, but don't be nice, don't be innocent! Get a cheap hotel room and bring a video camera. That is what women want."

He looks worried. "But Jaleena is a nice girl."

"Well now there is a question for philosophical inquiry," I say. "How can you be certain of anything? Everyone projects niceness at first but underneath, aren't we all seething pools of lusts, desires, and lies?" I smile, "Don't listen to your bro, I'm just kidding around. Just be honest."

I love my bro. He is a nice guy. He is going to get destroyed.

Hag Betty at the Video Store

I am at the video store, strolling the aisle, already with two videos in my hand. There is this shrill valley girl voice booming from the middle of the store. I move in that direction to investigate. A girl about twenty, wearing make up, a college logo hoodie, and tight stylish jeans is scolding her boyfriend. "What would make you think that, Jimmy? Why would you say that. Why would he wear a black trench coat? Do you know?"

Jimmy looked dumb founded, pawing at the girl with pleading eyes.

"You don't know, do you. That was so offensive. Your so judgemental. Oh my God, a black trench coat. Your so judgemental!"

With calculation, she walked off. He followed her, grasping at her hands.

I'm looking at Jimmy, sending him psychic vibes, "get out Jimmy. For the love of God, get out while you can.

Drifting Away on Chuckanut Drive at Sun Set

I finished a great book a couple of days ago called A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genious. It was kind of a sad book about a self absorbed kid coming of age. The major theme was death. I just loved the pace of the book though.

So today I went to Barnes and Noble to find a new book. I went to the fiction section hopeing to find an exciting novel by someone young that would have the same pace and edge that AHBWSG had but with a bit more cheer.

I realize that I'd have to read every book in the book store and probably all the ones that don't even make it to the book store for what I am about to say to be true. But I haven't and I'm gonna speculate anyway. See, it seems to me that most of the literature and art that makes it to market these days all have similar themes, mostly of death and sex and race and, well, overcoming adversity through diverstity.

I took a senior writing seminar in college. The theme was "death and sex". That is what we spent nine weeks writing about and discussing. Death and sex.

What about life and love?

Long internal story short, I went to the fantasy section and found a couple good books about faerie land.

So I am driving home up Chuckanut drive and the sun is out and I am digging everything about the landscape and the light and Drift Away by Dobie Gray comes on the radio. This is what I'm talking about Dobie! I roll down the window and sing as loud as I can, drumming the steering wheel. Keep your self conscious modern art which highlights what is wrong with the world instead of what is right. Give me some of that old time rock and roll...speak to my soul!

Drift Away
DOBIE GRAY

Day after day I'm more confused
So I look for the light in the pouring rain
You know that's a game that I hate to lose
I'm feelin' the strain, ain't it a shame

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away

Beginning to think that I'm wastin' time
I don't understand the things I do
The world outside looks so unkind
I'm countin' on you to carry me through

And when my mind is free
You know a melody can move me
And when I'm feelin' blue
The guitar's comin' through to soothe me
Thanks for the joy that you've given me
I want you to know I believe in your song
Rhythm and rhyme and harmony
You help me along makin' me strong

The People on the Porch

I get out of the car with a bag of McDonald's in my hand. I see people on the porch. They look dim, almost green under the porch lamp. I clutch my bag of McDondald's with a clear resolve, to get inside, to devour my tasteless, oh so greasy quarter pounders. This is my secret, my guilty little secret. Junk food. And I know, I just know that they will say something negative about McDonald's, about multi-national corporations, my support of western capitalism. Greed, they'll say. Death and greed...and deforestation. I just want to eat, no inhale, my junk food in peace. This is my reward. I deserve this. I work.

I get up on the porch. They start singing happy birthday. I grin bashfully. Aw, thanks, I say. I say hello and thanks. They smile, give me a gift even--a book about Narnia.

"What's that in your hand?" Here it comes, yep, I knew it. "Is that McDonald's?"

"Yes. Yes, it is."

"You want to see your next birthday?"

"..."

"You won't if you keep eating that stuff!" After watching Super Size Me, they are convinced that french fries can't be digested, that they just sit there in your bowls leaking saturated fat directly into the blood stream.

"You son of a beep," I say, beeping out the bitch part, laughing, "you have to have a cause, don't you."

I make my way into the lobby, to my front door. Freedom. I hear thier voices receding, talking about, sure enough, the rain forests.

Generation Y

We're all of us sitting in the hot tub, skin wrinkled, pruned. Conversation hasn't stopped for three hours which amazes me, how being submerged in hot water together can inspire this much talking in people who talk to each other everyday. Are we saying anything new? A new girl shows up, a friend of a friend, wearing a cast on her right arm from her fingers to her shoulder. She gets in, hanging her arm over the edge.

Beth, having had a bit to much wine, says something that scares me if only because I have thought it before, that our house, is like a sitcom and we are the main characters. We laugh. A familiar group laugh. A laugh track.

This is the last season. We are all moving away next year. The show isn't exciting anymore. We've tackled all the cliche struggles of youth. The drugs, the breakups, the political activism, demonstrating in the streets, discovering our sexuality. We are getting to old. The ratings are down. I imagine getting the script for the series finale. The apartment will be empty. No furniture. White patches on the walls where the pictures used to be. And at the very end, I'll be the last one out, I'll pause before hitting the light switch. I'll turn around, look at the emptiness. It will be real serious. No laugh track. No music. And then I'll turn back around and step through the door, locking it behind me.

I look up, through the steam at the new girl. Why is she new? She's just a person. But maybe she's like the ensigns on Star Trek, who die at the end on the away mission to the planet. I've met countless characters like her over the years but they don't last long. Whether a minor character down at the Reagal Beagle (from Three's company) or a love interest that lasts two seasons, they've all been written off the show. Just us main characters left. In a hot tub. Job promotions, marriages, inheritance money, sick uncles, just waiting to call us away, out that door, our series canceled.

Improvisation

The old men at work call me The Writer. They call my partner Improve because he is a improve actor on the weekends. The temp, who proudly refers to himself as The Reverend, they call Meatloaf.

Building ideas with other people in conversation is what I crave. When they say yes, and in addition..., instead of, yeah, yep, uh huh.

I haven't fully gotten over eating frozen Lasagna for Christmas dinner. A man on the radio last night added something substantial to my sullen feeling. He said that intention has a physical impact on food. That every culture, religious or secular, has a ritual, they bless their meal, say a prayer, give a toast. Mom's chicken soup heals the heart unlike a can of Campbell’s soup. It's true. There is much joy at a potluck but a lot less at the China Buffet.

My friend yesterday, greeted me on the porch after work. Have a beer, some pizza. I told her about the soup thing and she said, yes and in addition have you read Like Water for Chocolate? I have. Remember in that book, the main character is in love with the man who is to marry her sister, and she has to bake the wedding cake and she cries the whole time and her tears mix with the batter? When the cake is served at the reception it brings violent sadness upon the whole party.

Yes! Thank you.

For some inexplicable reason my brother and I are very poor. I made a meat loaf the other night, when the poverty situation called for creativity not utter starvation. I found a bag of freezer-burned hamburger patties in the freezer and a bottle of ketchup in the fridge. I microwaved the patties to thaw them out and kneaded the whole lump in an attempt to create ground beef. It didn't work like I dreamed but I baked it non the less, with ketchup on top. How would that meal effect a wedding party?

I reminisced with my brother the other night, "A year ago I was living the fat life of a college student. Long walks on the beach in the middle of the day, my only job writing fanciful stories to share with my classmates, a beautiful girlfriend, financial aide!." He said, "Yeah, yep, dude, I have been poor and single for four years! Curse this city!" We laughed...actually...we were eating that meatloaf.

Like Sand Through the Hour Glass...

Soul, Man

Most of the time I feel that language is a feeble way of expressing anything meaningful. To fully express one moment of feeling I would have to write a volume of poetry bound in a book to heavy to lift, construct a strand of DNA as wide as the galaxy and as complex as a rainforest and all the creatures there in. Or perhaps it is best to maximize the economy of language. Efficiency. Concision. Minimalism. A haiku that encapsulates the universe.

E=MC2

Today at work, my workmates and I were subjected to this thing that I can't begin to explain. It seemed wrong on so many levels. It would be better to just leave it alone, print out a resume on thick pulpy paper filled with catch phrases like "team builder", strut down to Seattle wearing kakis from Banana Republic, hand the resume to a cute receptionist behind a large glass desk, smile big--get a new job. Play softball on the weekends with my professional co-workers. But I can't leave it alone. It can't be written about or run away from, only widdled at from the edges with a pen.

A position for "Project Manager" came up in the agency I work for. Today, like I began to say, my workmates and I attended a company wide new age interview. Six applicants sat before our entire company at the front of a conference room we reserved at the public library. These six people nervously and almost with shame told of their heroic pasts and brilliant accomplishments. Self shaped commodities, they packaged themselves for our consumption. There was even a banquet table offering little palm size chicken salad sandwiches and platters of soft chewy cookies. There's nothing wrong with free food and I am not even going to say this subversive job interviewing technique was wrong but it defiantly lacked harmony--soul.

When I got back to the shop at the end of the day my coworkers, all good working men in their mid fifties, had a good deal to say about the whole episode. Most of it involved laughter and pity for the poor saps paraded in front of us as we ate our sandwiches, like popcorn at the cinema.

I'm trying to figure out a proper analogy for the forces I see at work here. It might be something like this. My job has a function. Everyone else's job in my company has a function. We all satisfy a need in the agency. We are support beams in a structure. The agency is the structure. Other agencies might be shaped like a symphony hall or a palace or even the Jimmy Hendrix Museum but ours, as far as I can tell, like most government agencies, is bloated and boring. A box structure made out of aluminum siding. But this new age interview was an attempt to cover up the aluminum siding with a facade. A Lattice covered with climbing flowering vines. The disharmony I felt in the room was that shadowy creature of superficiality, the world of appearance, of catch phrases.Like I said, I can only widdle away from the edges.

Driving home from work, passing by the harbor, the paper mill and the refineries, past all those tin warehouses, I felt like I was moving through a Pink Floyd album cover. Wish you Were Here. Animals. I was driving through Detroit in the 70's. The sun was setting creating blue shadows next to orange patches of light. I felt a hope swell in my heart under my dirty work clothes and stocking cap as this song played on the radio: “Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together try to love one another right now.”

I pulled off the road, got out of the car with my camera and pointed it towards harmony.

Mistaken Identity

"I'm terribly sorry, Miss," he said, "I've mistaken you for someone else."

Porchin'

I go out onto the porch for a smoke before bed. I'm wearing my pajama bottoms and a pea coat. It is cold and foggy out--silent. Across the street on the adjacent porch a kid with dreadlocks is talking on the phone. I listen to his conversation though I'm pretending not to. He is almost gleeful, talking about nostalgia and hope. His tone is somewhere between a laugh and a song. He is talking about love and peace. I smile, not pretending not to listen anymore. He mentions the fog to the person in the phone. My smile widens. It's a nice night out. I am gonna go to bed.

Coming Back to Life

What a beautiful morning! Thought I'd share some pictures I took of the fog over Lake Whatcom and this David Gilmore song.





Where were you when I was burned and broken
While the days slipped by from my window watching
Where were you when I was hurt and I was helpless
Because the things you say and the things you do surround me
While you were hanging yourself on someone else's words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun

Lost in thought and lost in time
While the seeds of life and the seeds of change were planted
Outside the rain fell dark and slow
While I pondered on this dangerous but irresistible pastime
I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life

I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the waiting had begun
And headed straight . . . into the shining sun

Dr. Matt

There is this term I have heard thrown around: serial monogamy. I guess the term applies to all those people getting in short long-term relationships, playing like a postmodern blend of Ward and June Cleaver and Dillon and Brenda from 90210, and then breaking it off when the real work of a relationship begins, moving on to the next partner and the next and the next. This goes on and on perhaps ending happily when one finally grows up, or, like all those grey bearded men you see walking their dogs down by the docks by themselves, in failure.

I can't tell you how many of the people I know will introduce their new boyfriend or girlfriend to me at a pub table and then moments later make these "cute" little jokes about their sex life. "But wait a minute, weren't you just with ______?" And so no one ever gets attached, no one ever really commits or works or plans, it is just this free flowing "post-modern" nightmare.

A guy I work with, a self proclaimed pagan high priest--a very cool guy--told me that he wants his women to be with other men, to experience and draw energy from others because then he gets to experience in a way, all this love and energy from all of her partners. Ah, no thank you. It is one thing to say something profound like that but completely different when implemented in the real world. See I think people are leaving bits of themselves scattered all over the place until gradually they thin out into shadow. I'm aching to live in a more traditional time.

Six

This just in, six from Battlestar Galactica is in this month's playboy.

Flattened Pennies

There has been some contention about these tracks, about where exactly they lead. I have walked them a good length. There were a number of human and natural dramas to be seen. A family of nudist picnicking. Hobos cooking dinners in tins over a fire. Seagulls cracking shells on the steel.

But the really interesting section of track is where it meets the edge of the world and curls out, into the heavens. You know you're approaching the end of the line when the rose colored fog carrying a smell of lavender and sea salt rolls in off the ocean. The tracks wind into a wood with moss for carpet, vacuumed twice a day by Sonia, a glowing Mexican housekeeper. There are bearded fairies there who roll the rails out like bread and get off work at dinner time. I've seen them walking home, covered in dough, eastward into the foothills, each one carrying a flower home to his wife. Squirrels carry umbrellas through the paths in the branches hanging over the tracks. They love to talk about the weather but not the actual weather, that moving living art piece in the sky that pervades our every experience, but the weather reports. And then there are the Mermaids who giggle, flopping away from the tracks, back to the water to watch and wait for the trains to come and flatten their pennies.

Blossoming

There is so much on my heart, I feel that years and years of heartache and joy can flow out of me, bleed out uncontrollably until I am left dry and cold. But part of me dares not go there, chooses instead to smile, to not take things so seriously; there is a sense of humor built into the cosmos.

I went to church this morning, something I have not done in a very long time. I went to church by myself this morning, something I have never done. I hit the snooze button on my alarm for an hour and almost talked myself into not going at all. "Just get up and get a shower to start," I told myself. And so I got out of the shower and almost put on my robe. "Get dressed, and see what happens from there." And so I was dressed and the next step was getting in my car. I almost convinced myself to just take a Sunday morning drive. "Just drive in the direction of church, you don't have to get out of the car." And so I found myself circling the church--a beard half grown on my face, circles under my eyes, smoking cigarettes. I saw people filtering into the church, all very wholesome looking, families with great cheerful smiles greeting the ushers on the front steps. And so I drove around the block some more, feeling almost to defiled to enter the house of the Lord. But I just had to commune with God, had to be with others communing with God. And I forced myself to park and then to walk to the front door, and then finally to sit down. Here I am. I don't know why I am here but here I am.

This woman spoke during the service, said 2006 had been a nightmare, that she had been reading from the book of Job but had recently started reading from the Song of Songs. She read chapter 2 verse 10:

10 My lover spoke and said to me,
"Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, and come with me.

11 See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.

12 Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
is heard in our land.

13 The fig tree forms its early fruit;
the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.
Arise, come, my darling;
my beautiful one, come with me."

Oh man, I have to say, I almost cried. That Jesus would think of me as his darling, that he wants me to come with him, ragged and bearded as I am...!

And then last night I read this man, Ravi Zacharias who I wanted to share with you. He can say more eloquently than I, the hope I have for the world. He also wrote this great essay about the dying art of thinking.

The season of singing has come! Everyday truly is an adventure, even if it means just taking one step at a time, out of bed to who knows where. Peace.

Photoscribing

Here are some pictures of my day. It started out early, at sunrise, with a cup of hot coffee.



I then made a twenty egg omlette and traded eggs for bacon with the neighbors upstairs. We basked in the sun and ate a huge breakfast. This is my kitchen after cooking. What a mess!



Here is the omlette cooking in the frying pan. I have this habbit of cooking enough food for an army. I guess that is because one of my favorite things to do is share meals with other people.



I then went for a walk up Sehome hill. It was such a beautiful, quite day. A much needed break from the rain. I read from Psalms at the top of the hill. This picture here is of a cross roads. It made me think of Frodo and Sam from The Lord of the Rings.
After all of that walking I cleaned up that messy kitchen and had more coffee on the porch. I went for a walk this evening and watched the sun set at the park. All in all a great sunshining day.

Running

I'm running through the jungle, my long beard unfurling behind me. I'm red and naked and I am running. In the jungle. A tribe of natives dance around a fire and burn incense. They have painted naked bodies covered in ash. I pass them at a tremendous speed. Also, there are bongo drums there. There are bongo drums in my head. Throbbing. I am running through the jungle, not away from something but towards something. A great big hippy love revolution--minus the hippies. Freedom. Paradise restored. I am running to the garden of Eden. My heart throbs. Everything throbs. Hey--ha. Hey-ha. Drums. Smoke. Light up ahead. Hey--ha. I am running through a jungle red and naked towards something big.

"Oh man. What happened to my music (Shpongle)? Battery dead?" I look at my iPod. "Yep batteries dead." I slow down my pace.

I am jogging on a treadmill. My whiskers itch. I'm in sweatpants at the YMCA, jogging, like a hamster in his wheel. In a cage. A group of people resolute on losing weight for the new year are walking like hamsters all around me. I hear a dull hum of machinery in motion. I look out the window in front of me and see the evening commute four stories below. I'm jogging on a conveyer belt and my iPod is out of juice.

"F#@! the music." I push the up arrow on the treadmill and build speed. 7 point eight. Point nine. Eight point one. Two. Three. I am running. I am running towards something big. Eight point four. Point five. I am running through a jungle. There are bongos. I am running through a jungle and there is a light up ahead. Hey--ha! Towards something big.

Aqua

After months, or maybe it's been years now, of floating through the cold depths of interstellar space alone, Dobbs has by some inexplicable miracle been drawn, that is how it feels to him, to this planet. For some time he had heard the faint song of a siren beckoning to him, to his ship, haunting the silence of his cabin. The voice, at first thought only imagined, had become more and more distinct until it was quite unmistakable that it was actually real, emanating from a tiny speck gradually growing to an all encompassing force beneath his ship. Gravity, to feel it again...he could understand how man had once deified the natural forces.

And if I were to paint a picture of Dobbs and his encounter with the siren I'd compose it so that a weary man stands in the foreground, cold--half mad. His right hand rests on a console made of silver steel, and buttons, like the tips of crayons, blink--talking to a man distracted. With his left hand Dobbs is pushing the frozen metal door outward to the world beyond. And what lays out there, painted in sharp contrast to the cool blues, grays and shadows in the foreground, is a field of green, red, and yellow brush strokes sighing in the breeze. A wooded meadow. In summer. With sky. And grass. And smells that bring tears to the eyes I'd paint for Dobbs. And in the white speckled glen, a woman dancing in slow motion in an airy white dress beckons the vagrant Dobbs. Come.

Inspiration and community

Some one just made my night and I feel so good right now. My audience has dwendle here on blogger and I hope to remedy that by posting more. It is my new goal to post at least one meaningful thing a day. I have many new goals of late. But over on blog ladder there is a real sense of community as we read and write and share our thoughts. Well I posted the White Fields post from yesterday over on blog ladder and got this wonderfully unexpected reply from my blogging friend, Grego. He played along with me perfectly. He writes:

But as he falls far behind the chariot, his breath becomes more labored as it frosts from the frigid cold. He is pumping his arms and legs harder and harder, but the snow relentlessly deepens and slows him down, pulls him down. As his face sinks into the rising snow, the light begins. Slowly, in the far corner of his eye, the pinpoint of light expands and he is riveted by the sight. Is this what heaven is? Then, the smell approaches; the wonderful smell of the scent that reminds him of pleasures past, the hint of a smile forms on his blue lips, his chattering teeth begin to slow as his smiling face begins to glow. This must be heaven! The cold recedes as warmth suffuses his body, the snow turns into brilliant crystals of light until his senses are filled with the moment. He suddenly realizes that she is there! She is next to him now, holding him in a tight embrace. The candle she lit in the dark room shines brightly upon them.

She is his heaven!

and I respond:

Yes! bnonman, that is beautiful! and I'm smiling ear to ear because of your wonderful words. thank you so very much for that!

and he says:

Couldn't have done it without your great starting point - you inspired me and gave me the story, the mind picture, the images I needed. I have never before written anything even approaching that type of prose.

How great to inspire! and what a fun game! Thanks Grego.

White Fields

He’s startled from sleep. The sound of galloping horses recede away from him and when he looks to the sound he sees a fading after image of red and shadow, a dark rider upon a chariot retreating over white fields. He rolls over to see his beloved sleeping heavily. He tries to stir her but she will not wake. A spell has been put on her. He is quite calm. As calm as the falling snow which is falling all around them, on her hair, in the bed, on his eye lashes. The air is quiet, muffled. The snow falls faster and more furiously, piling deeper, muting the landscape around him, covering his beloved under a great chill blanket. He must hurry. He must follow the chariot and rider-- defeat the shadow before all is white and cold.

Great Message

Went to church this morning and just got blessed. The pastor read from the fourth chapter of Philippians. This passage particularly seemed pertinate to my life right now.

11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Spring

I love you. And I too look forward to spring.

Thank you for not smoking

I was sitting outside in the plaza having a cup of coffee and cigarette. All the tables and chairs around me were empty. It was snowing and a few people carrying shopping bags walked quickly towards tbe mall door, to the heat. So I was alone in the open air enjoying a guilty pleasure, watching the people walk by. Two security guards approached me cautiously, as if I were a criminal.

"Sir," the short one said, "your gonna have to put that cigarette out or go smoke it out in the parking lot."

I raised the cigarette to my mouth and inhaled deeply, my face I can only imagine was cast in shadow and glowed for a moment in the red light of my glowing tobbacco cherry. I looked up into the eyes of the mall security officers and exhaled a cloud of warm smoke. At that moment, a pack of ninjas decended on ropes, from the rafters of the open air canopy, each one into an empty chair. They all pulled from thier belts cigarettes and lit them with matches.

The security officers made a move for the tazer on thier belts but stopped short when the leader of then ninjas spoke up.

"Sir," he said. "You treat this man as if he were a criminal or the scum of the earth for enjoying a cigarette out of doors. Perhaps you believe he is unhealthy, which he is, but so are the people on the other side of this door who are wolfing down big macs and cinnabons. Perhaps you think this man is polluting the environment with his smoke, which he is. But so are the factories who produce the useless trinkets and sweat shop sneakers that are sold at your fine establishment. Perhaps you think that by smoking he is supporting the evil tobacco corporations who are bent on killing people for profit, and he is but are not also all those that mindlessly shop also supporting a system of greed and waste. You sir are a hypocrite. Leave now or die."

Needless to say they left. And the ninjas and I laughed and then began playing cards. Girls came by and said hello and pawed at me.

River

My brother showed me his work site out in the woods. He works for the Washington Conservation Corp. They plant trees and clean up streams and fields. At this particular site, his crew is working with environmental engineers, constructing natural habitat for salmon, using earth and living things as building materials. What I think particularly interesting is how they use steel cables to secure logs at certain points along the stream to create log jams. These natural log jams then become cozy little pools for salmon to play in.

And I think about my own thinking. I have a terrible habit of thinking too much. My thoughts are like a raging river, often rushing off--strait to the ocean. And the ocean is so big. I get lost. I need log jams. I need calm pools to paddle around in. I try to make sense out of where I’ve been--where I’m going and inevitably end up in places too deep. Why do relationships fail? Why is there pain in the world? So off I swim. I swim and swim and pretty soon I’m swimming out loud in the kitchen to my brother about Costco Lasagna, big box stores, modern art, and finally and always God.

Tim-ber! A tree falls into my river. A living memory. Of her hands in soapy water. She’s standing over the sink doing dishes. Her skin is freckled. I want to live--to grok that place where her freckles disappear under the straps of that white tank top. And I’m sitting there, behind her, on a stool and I’m watching her hands. Her red freckled hands meander in and out of the hot sudsy water. Not saying much of anything. So relaxed. Steam condensing on the chapel windows above the sink. The little bubbles on her hands, popping into tiny rainbows. A fizzing sound. A swishing sound. It’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen. So simple. So innocent. So right. Contained. Lovely. Homey.

And I paddle. I want to paddle in that pool of memory for ages. But the foam comes in with the current and pulls me out down stream to places too big for this fish.

Coffee's on

It's early morning and it's snowing outside my kitchen window. My cat woke me up this morning before dawn, scratching on my bedroom door. I filled his bowl full of food but he hasn't touched it yet. He is sitting on the window's ledge watching the snow fall. I think he just wanted a companion to snow watch.

Coffee's on. Christmas cards are still displayed above the kitchen sink. One has doves fluttering in front of a pastel background; the other a picture of a cozy country church and steeple in a pre-dawn snow covered landscape.

I wonder what are Christmas cards, why do we send them? I think maybe they are symbolic portals, a gateway linking this kitchen to a larger network of family, friends-- humanity. What is the internet, this blog? I guess it has always been a door, a thing to scratch at. Come watch the snow fall with me. Coffee's on.

Extended Forecast

I had a dream last night that I checked the weather forecast on weather dot com and it called for snow this weekend. Lots of it. The little cloud icon for the snow was something else. It didn't just have three flakes coming out of it. Not even four. But Hundreds of flakes, all alive and unique.

!Look!

It is tiresome always being the strong one. I am weary from all the insecurity and pain in peoples life. I am sick of war, of greed, of cheating, of jealousy, of fear.

I am fed up with giving sound advice to people wandering about in the desert. I am grieved by sudden and pointless death. I am embarrassed by some of the so called wisdom people wear as flamboyant floppy jester hats.

I give to others and don’t expect anything in return but sometimes it would be nice to receive.

I am frustrated by people who build their own worlds and don’t stop to see the natural one. I don’t have time for mockers. I am heart broken by the lost, the sick, the dependent, the down trodden . I can’t live in a world with out genuine love and understanding.

I hate self-righteousness. I fight against evil and am burdened by it’s influence in my own heart. I want to be a warrior. I want to be a priest. I don’t want to want and am ashamed of my own soiled garments. I am exhausted by myself and try to avoid ranting though I always fail to write beauty.

I know that the answer will not be found in the world, in man, in the fruit of tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I know, to well, the rocky, meandering foot paths that lie in the midst of the brambles. I don’t understand how one can argue that peace can be ushered in by means of war. We can not build when we destroy. We can not move forward when we live in the past.

I see God working in the world. I see beauty. I see little children searching for acceptance and love when I look into peoples eyes and I also see the film over their eyes as they try to hide it. My heart opens up so big it feels like it will burst.
I wish we could walk barefoot together down the straight earthy path as the sun rises.

I see the saints marching in. I see the world as it could be, as it should be, as it will be. I want to tell everyone, “Look! Look at how beautiful the world is! And isn’t this all just so curious. Look, we are angels, some of us have broken wings.”

I'm so glad that I don’t have to save the world; that God loves me inspite of my rants and frustrations. I am glad that though I am weak, He is strong. Hey, guys, isn’t this a curious and wonderful world. Look up. Look!

Yuppy Chain Mail '06

Seasons greetings my friends,

Thought I’d get you all up to date on the exciting things going on in my busy life. It was the other day after feeding the homeless women down at the shelter but before reading to the under privileged Hispanic kids--no--wait. Yeah it wasn’t before the Spanish kids it was before volunteer gift wrapping down at the orphanage. The point is I am a busy man. But for a moment, on my way to the kitchen to whip up a frappacino in my new espresso machine, I caught a glimpse of myself in the ceiling mirrors and I have to tell you, it lead into this really trippy slow motion movie that was playing inside my head. I was the main character of the movie and the plot line was pretty much just me shaking hands with important people and winking.

So this has been a long year but they go by so fast don’t they? Don’t they though? I kicked off the year with a New Years resolution to work out more. I went down to the Puma emporium outlet and bought myself a striped mauve sweat suit with a very airy fiber. It’s the latest fiber. All the big shots are wearing it. At the gym I lift really heavy weight and grunt a ton. I’ve seen some real results and I think my love life has improved because of it. Oh but I have to tell you this story. Back in May, like may second I think, this girl at the gym looked like she may have been a bit under privileged if you take my meaning. Cute girl just needed to do a little something with her hair and maybe put on a Puma jump suit. Well I get to chatting with her about a fantastic recipe she was reading in Readers Digest. She was on the bike I was doing squat thrust on the mat next to her. Well long story short. She didn’t have much money so I made her the recipe and invited her whole family, Husband, kids, grand parents. Her grand parents were Philipino. I rented out the YMCA dinning hall for the event and well I got my picture in the paper. Again. I just can’t stand to see class and ethnic minorities suffering. I am big into diversity.

Another thing I managed to accomplish this year is graduating from college. It was a pretty big day in my life as you can imagine. I mean I hated to leave the dean like that but I felt the real world calling to me. And you know I thought about getting a job in a big office with computers all over and a fax machine in corner but I felt like my heart was being lead like always towards the underprivileged. That is why I had to accept the job the housing authorities here in Whatcom County offered me on the grounds crew. I landscape the projects. I think of it as painting really. The apartment complexes are my canvas and I work with the textures of nature, spreading them on the canvas. Basically I bring culture to people in the ghetto, giving them confidence and dignity through art.

Also just thought I’d throw this in real quick. I am a regular at Star Bucks. I go in and the girls have my drink ready for me. I don’t even have to order. In the autumn I drink a tall double shot pumpkin spice latte with fat free soy milk. This month I’ve really enjoyed both the peppermint mocha and the chai-egg-nog.

Jessi and I celebrated our one year anniversary back in October. I mean I think we are in the perfect relationship. Our many friends say that we are adorable and we do cuddle quite a bit. For Christmas I bought her an amulet with my picture inside. Our child, Frodo, is the smartest and just most interesting cat I have ever seen. When I took him to the vet, the doctor wouldn’t even neuter him, saying that his little furry balls were like precious gems.

All of these things were in that movie in my head and I thought how blessed I am. Seriously guys, Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Love you all,
Matt, Frodo, and Peter

A hip cat

This is Frodo, sometimes called Love-Love.

Mary

I had just gotten off work from the golf course a few months after graduation. I was on my way home, stopped at a red light at a busy intersection downtown. I saw a familiar face floating in front of the car in the cross walk. It was my favorite writing professor, a vibrant, beautiful grey haired woman. She looked over my way and her face lit up as she recognized my dirty face behind the wheel of my beat up station wagon. She ran up to my drivers side window which was down and with a big warm smile and a singing voice, said "hello!". This happened so fast it caught me off guard: she moved to kiss my cheek and as she did, at that exact moment, I turned my head a little to the left and unexpectedly planted one on her lips. It was like being European except awkward. We chatted for a few moments before the light turned green and I drove off day dreaming about log cabins and chimney smoke.

I had forgotten about that funny little moment until this morning when I saw her picture in the paper and the news that she just published her book.

Update

I have not been able to publish anything here in nearly a month. I finally decided today that I would have to trouble shoot myself. It turns out I just had too many posts on my main page. I knocked it down,the number of post, to my last ninety and wal--LA. Here I am.

I hurt my back. Yeah. Just started a new job in August and already I'm out for two weeks with pinched nerves in my back. It isn't fun, I know that. The thing about pain, especially a constant pulsating pain, is that only you can feel it. Nobody else can. Other than the fact that I've been walking like a ninety-year-old man, I probably seem pretty normal. And so I feel guilty that I can't do normal stuff like say, go to work and earn a living.

Also, I read this article in Wired magazine a few days ago and have noticed it getting a lot of publicity recently. Give it a read. These atheist sound pretty fanatical do they not? Kinda like the religious fundamentalist they attack.

Drew

I put the truck in park and push in the parking break. My temp, Drew, is licking his lips and shifting around in the passengers seat. He’s occupied with his phone; writing lusty love letters with his thumbs to all three of his girlfriends. It’s Friday morning and I don’t much feel like working.

I’ve been working with Drew nearly two full weeks and he is wearing on my last nerve. He isn’t a bad guy, he’s just interested in different things than I am. Mostly sex. He talks about it incessantly. Especially pornography and how girlfriend number one, or GF1 as I’ve come to know her, sends him videos of herself stripping in her bedroom. A few days ago while we were driving back to the shop he said, “hmmm, penises.” Those hmmm’s, those quick mutterings in his throat come from his side of the cab every time we pass a girl. He uses them to communicate his desire to bend them. I’m repulsed by those hmmms. The penis thing though was new. I kept my eyes fixed on the road and pushed down on the gas pedal. “Penises. Did you see those bushes?” he ask. “They looked like three penises.”

He isn’t a bad guy. He’s just absolutely creepy.

It has started to rain outside so I decide we should take a break. I turn up the AM radio and slouch in my seat. They are talking about politics and sex scandals on the radio program. Seems like the whole world has gone mad on sex. Drew looks up from his phone with a shit-eating grin on his face. I can feel his look on my cheek. It feel’s slimy. “I think GF2 might have givin’ me something. I’ve had rash for a few days and now GF3 just texted me saying she has pelvic pain.” I want so desperately to turn into black robe and smote this man with my staff. “oh yeah?” I say, not looking him in the eye, “that’s no good.”

Why is he telling me this? I can’t handle it any more. “Let’s get to work.”

I open the door and the cool air has the smell of rain in it and I feel baptized by how clean it is. I put my ear-plugs in and grab a blower. Drew does the same. I love blowing fall leaves while it‘s raining. It is like painting, methodically sweeping the ground with stokes of air, herding dead leaves into piles, being in my own thoughts with the droll hum of the blower vibrating the hairs on the back of my neck. We make our way to high ground, working our way downhill and around the cars in the parking lot.

It is essential as a leaf shepherd not to fight the wind and the terrain but work with them. I start in a good spot and walk back and forth, pushing the line of debris towards its’ destiny. It is important not to break that line. If you get ahead of the line you’ll have to blow the same spot twice. I look up from my painting and see Drew fighting the hill, fighting the wind, even breaking the line. He’s blowing debris all over the place. I gesture to him to keep the line and give him a nod of encouragement. Minutes, maybe hours later, I look up again to see where my partner is. He’s still fighting the leaves. I can’t handle it anymore.
I turn off my blower and walk over to Drew and he takes his ear plugs out and stands nervously smiling.

“Drew,” I say, “you can’t get ahead of yourself.” I tell him about the line. “I’m not trying to stifle your creativity here but I can tell you from experience that your blowing strategy makes you work twice as hard. Do what works, keep it simple.”

This look takes over his face; he’s having an epiphany. “No, your right,” he says. “Hmmm, I’m blowing these leaves just like I’m living my life. I’m making a mess. I’ll work on it. Strait line?”

“Strait line,” I nod.

In the next room

I never bothered with a cell phone until recently. Maybe I was to poor to own one. Maybe I didn't want to be like all those people yacking on their phones in line at the supermarket. But what it really was, I think, is snobbery. I quit being a snob two weeks ago at a Verizon kiosk at the mall.

A minute ago I was sitting on the couch surfing the internet when I felt the vibration of my phone buzzing in my coat pocket. I picked it up and saw my brother Andy's name come up on the screen. Andy is in the bathroom not ten feet away. In the phone I heard his voice echoing off linoleum and porcelain but I also heard his muffled voice from behind the bathroom door. "Dude," he said, "are Diana and Gavin coming over?"

"Yeah, they'll be by in a few minutes."

"Cool. Bye."

I laughed. I could have been having conversations like this for years.

Engsoc

I worked with a new guy today. The temp agency sent him over to finish out the season with us. He's young. Younger than me. A Nice guy. The guys on my crew refer to the temporary employees sent over from Express as temps. "Where's your temp?" My co-worker asked me this afternoon. They aren't Human but Temps.

I have to tell my temp what to do. "Rake the leaves out of that bed," I'll say, or "mow these lawns." I'd rather not give orders. My job isn't that hard. I noticed though that out of nervousness or maybe in an attempt to put up a positive front, each time I told him what to do he'd nod his head and say, "awesome". Not okay, not you bet, not even Roger that, sir, but awesome.

How far has the English language slipped when awesome means okay? Cleaning up yard waste isn't awesome. God is awesome. The trees that bear twelve varieties of fruit and grow on the banks of the river flowing from Christ thrown are awesome. The Grand canyon is pretty awesome. It filled me with awe anyway.

Playing around with my girlfriend I laughed , "I hate you." "Hate is a strong word, honey," she said back. "But don't you know," I said, "there are no strong words anymore."

Language has become parody.

Every time we say hate when we mean love, when we say fuckin' to modify an adverb, we are obliterating our ability to describe reality in a meaningful way. Some pretty smart men have said that man touches reality through language. What kind of reality is it when God and pizza share the same over-arching characteristic?

"Hey temp, how would you like to cut out of here a few minutes early today?"

"Fuckin' awesome, man."

Flavor

I want a Coffee flavor to stimulate parts of me other than my tongue. A curiousity of language is how it allows talk about flavors that have nothing to do with taste buds. There is the flavor of a city. Of fashion. Of personalities. Of moments. Seattle has a tec/grunge flavor. Put that in a drink.


I want a mocha that tastes like Saturday mornings in Bellingham. The tastes of sleeping in. Of morning delivery trucks driving past my porch. Of morning dew on spider webs. Of dandelions opening up for the sun. Of being young and full of potential.

Lunch Break

I was watching the children play tennis on this, their last day of summer vacation. I was nibbling on my chicken salad sandwich while Ubed sat next to me in the cab of the truck eating a microwaveable chimichunga. We were sitting in our work truck parked under a shade tree at the park. The AM radio was on quietly. A man was talking about Iran; about terrorist; about illegal immigration. After eating my sandwich I dug through my bag for my cigarettes and then after finding one, struck a match, lit it and plopped down in the dry grass beside the truck. I blew out smoke and looked up at the sky.

Ubed, he's my partner, a very likeable guy; quick to laugh. Very sharp. He's from the Ivory Coast. I hear him open and close the passenger side door and then make his way around the back of the truck, whistling as he walks. He appears in front of me with a bright grin on his face. He looks up at the sky and then looks at me. He has something to say. He starts, "I want a boat. I think I am going to buy a boat."

"You're gonna buy a boat?"

"Yes. I think I would very much like a boat. Oh it would be so great to go sailing on a day like today. To have my own boat." He's looking up at the sky and the trees. "All this talk about war and natural disasters--I believe good will come out of it in the end. God said to expect this. That before he come there will be wars and rumors of wars. I see in your face happiness. You want to be a happy person. Jehovah likes it when man is happy. It makes him happy. Don't worry. Can you even imagine...no war, no sickness, no death? Oh man. It will be great. That time is very near. And when it comes I want a boat and I will sail all over the sea. I will have my own sea and my own boat. Don't worry so much about what you hear on the radio, Matt. Everything will be okay."

I look around the park again. The children are playing. Two men are taking their bikes off their bike racks. Five women are standing in a circle each with a new born baby in their arms talking about baby stuff. The birds on the wind and the leaves in the trees starting to turn. Ubed says that lions will lay down with lambs. "Can you imagine a lion in the park?!" He says he'll still eat meat but only the meat God says is okay to eat. It will be alright. Yeah, it will.

Step Aside

Those cartoon fights where the brawlers leap at each other and all you can see is a ball whirling furiously, every now and then a limb or a head pops out in a puff of dust--that image is in my mind. What I like about those fights is that Bugs Bunny has the power to step out of the mess, bat his eye lashes and leave Elmer Fudd to fight himself.

With all the mess in the news today, thats what I'd like to do. Step back.

May 14, 2004

I watched a documentary about the choice Amish teenagers must make: join the church or play on the Devils Playground.
I want to be Amish.

I watched a film about Jackson Pollock and his rise to the top of the American modern art movement. He abolished form and content from his work.
I want to be a painter.

I watched a television special--an interview with a young Chinese-American poet. He had good things to say about his father and the Bible.
I want to write poetry.

I watched so much TV today that I wanted to be somebody else.

To Every Season

A long time ago, in a forgotten history, Man walked naked among the trees and the grass. Those men didn't think of themselves as primitive like today’s Men think of themselves as Modern; they didn’t have cinema or the printing press to tell him how to think.

I like to imagine that those forgotten men abided by a nobler law then we live by. The same law that the trees and the mountains and the wild animals abide by. They adapted to adversity by recognizing an immutable divinity.

The four seasons occur because of the Earth’s revolution around the sun. What about the revolution of our sun around the galactic center and our galaxy round the rim of the universe? Oh the colors of the slow cosmic seasons!

One could say that spring evolves into to summer. It does--and summer evolves into fall and fall into winter. But it would be wrong to say that summer is modern and winter primitive. Maybe too it is foolish to talk about the progress of Man. Maybe He too blooms and withers like the plants around him only to rise from the ashes another season.

This is all a long way of saying that I am amazed by the pliability of our law. Something illegal today can be legal tomorrow, one just has to convince everyone that it should be. In this way law is like fashion. It changes with popular attitude. It is free flowing, like the moods of a mad people. Yesterday gay marriage was illegal meaning, however subtly, that a majority of the people believed it wrong. A vote in Washington State yesterday could have reversed that ban on gay marriage. I’m not here to be a lawyer or a moralist. It just strikes me as odd how something considered a taboo--a high sin a generation ago could be celebrated the next. Is it progress? Is it fashion? Do we live by a natural law? A divine law? Are we evolving towards a singularity or simply growing cyclically?

A consensus among a majority has nothing to do with truth.

Ultimate Island

My brother and I were watching TV when a commercial for a new BBC America island reality Television show came on. Images of beautiful people engaging in dramatic social interactions were flashing on the sceen at a furious clip when Andy exclaimed, "Dude, get this: I have an idea for a TV show. It would be called Ultimate Island. We'd invite all the people in the world that are interested in being on one of these island shows and once they were all gathered there on the Island we'd loose the nukes on 'em."

Cosmic Religious Feeling

We were sitting out of doors on the balcony at our local brewery enjoying dinner. My girlfriend and her friend excused themselves to use the restroom, leaving me alone with her friend’s boy friend, a stranger. He had said he was a high school biology teacher. That’s interesting, I thought. I couldn’t resist, “So being a biology teacher, tell me, do you have any doubts about evolution?”

He looked at me for a moment, studying my expression and began, “It is a theory and there are questions still to be answered but no, I think the theory is a solid one. Why do you?”

Oh man, here it came.

“Yes, I guess I do. I have a hard time swallowing the idea.”

He threw his huge bearded head back and started laughing from his gut. “I’m sorry. Really, I’m not laughing at you. I just didn’t think people like you existed anymore. What gives you trouble?”

“I’m not going to pretend to be an expert. It’s just that it seems so far fetched, I mean first there’s nothing and then the nothing turns into something and after enough time passes there are single-cell organisms and then after more time passes there are mult-cellular organisms and now here we are eating dinner in a beer garden discussing it. It seems a little far fetched to me.”

He nodded and began about proteins. I nodded but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was sitting in a small desk in a high school class room. He knew his text book very well. And as he told me about this stuff called DNA, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. I gazed off at the pink and violet clouds and the band of orange on the horizon as the sun sank behind the bay. I wanted to fly away to a different world. A magical world.

Someone asked me what happiness is. It’s hard to define. But so is that feeling I get when I watch the sunset in summer at the park while kids play catch with their fathers and young lovers walk together with their arms wrapped around each other. Maybe that is happiness.

Ask anyone what makes them happy and they’ll probably describe something like a park or a pet or something big and colorful like love. I’ve never heard anyone say that science makes them happy because science is a different kind of thing than a sunset or the buzz of restaurant. It’s a tool to describe the world not the world itself. Science and technology are wonderful things but they aren't happiness itself only a vehicle. It isn’t the internet that will bring joy to a poor child in Africa but the poetry he reads on it.

People do not need to be “educated” which to often these days means indoctrinated. They only need to be watered and nurtured and their curiosity encouraged. I think we are creatures created to experience happiness like flowers are creatures created to bloom.

The Progressive Element

In an effort to generate more posts I will try and post a video with commentary on Mondays. Enjoy.

The internet and a modern digital society empowers the little man. Robots and Indians are taking our jobs, yes, but this frees people to focus on their own inner creativity. No longer will men slave all day at the plant or the office. We will be able to sleep in, working sometimes as little as nine minutes a week filling out online surveys and selling recycled goods on eBay. Man as an individual is brimming with passions and creativity that for ages have been repressed--squelched by the need to survive. Man no longer works to survive--he lives to express. With a digital video camera and access to the internet a sole individual becomes as powerful as a broadcasting corporation. Let the Revolution begin!

Send Her to Boot Camp

I wrote a very philosophical post that touched on mortality, truth, the problem of knowledge. I erased it because I may want to run for political office someday. The short of that now erased post is this: this girl challenges my entire idea about human beings and in all honesty, I don't think I could love a person like her. What a horrible thing to say!

Tell Me Who I Am

This morning, driving home in my station wagon, the sun was out bright and just low enough in the sky that the trees and the roof tops were golden. I had such a strong urge to lay in grass at that moment--to look up at the sky and listen to the birds. I almost forgot I was rushing from one job to the next trying to make extra money. And cruising down my street, nearing my home, the last four years of college flashed through my memory. People that'd visited my porch to talk, the hammock I'd laid in during lazy summer afternoons, frustration with ideas.

Then came a song on the radio at that exact time that fit my mood perfectly. Logically. I didn't know the name of it at the time and I've literally spent the entire day trying to find it, but finally now, two minutes before midnight, I've found it. It encapsulates my sentiments exactly and here it is: The Logical Song by Super Tramp.

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well theyd be singing so happily,
Joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible,
Logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
Clinical, intellectual, cynical.

There are times when all the worlds asleep,
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man.
Wont you please, please tell me what weve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am.

Now watch what you say or theyll be calling you a radical,
Liberal, fanatical, criminal.
Wont you sign up your name, wed like to feel youre
Acceptable, respecable, presentable, a vegtable!

At night, when all the worlds asleep,
The questions run so deep
For such a simple man.
Wont you please, please tell me what weve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am.

MMM hmmm.

Yes. Oh yes, your seeing with your third eye. That spirit with the flaming beard and the piercing eyes that look like a hurricane of love--that is the Arch Angel Zadkiel,the mecazaian spirit talked about in the Vedas. Now, brother, I want you to do something for me. I want you to go to the mirror and look into it. Stare into your own eyes and say, "I am worth it, I am strong." Say it again. And again. Good. Feel the energy around you. Do you feel that? Good.

If you really want to ascend you have to do this for me: Don't think, just feel. Your life might be spinning out of control. Confusion clouds your shakra. Shrug off confusion. Cast away all rational thought. It is about energy and subjectivity. You are a light being. Light can only bend and expand and touch. Blend with the light. For all is light and thou are light, brother.

You may feel guilt. Abandon it. There is no evil only divine perfection. All is perfect for you see, all is God. The most important thing is to question reality. Through questions we find the path. It doesn't matter what path your on or what answers you find, only that you do not judge others. For their paths are their own and as viable as any. Truth is much like light, it vibrates on multiple frequencies.

I can see your aura and it is the color of God, my brother.

Ramandu's Proverb of the Day

Filthy language from the lips of a pretty woman makes her instantly repulsive. Listen women: accessorize with fair language and you won't have to spend money on jewelry.

Take Me On Board

I came across an article at RedNova pertaining to the rumors that the new Superman is going to be a homosexual. I laughed out loud while reading this passage:

After weeks of Internet buzzing that the new Superman movie portrays the Man of Steel as gay, the director of the film issued a strong denial on Friday and said it was the most heterosexual character he has filmed.

In other news, I find myself longing for space aliens to abduct me. I want to be an extraterrestrial's pet--to curl up on it's chest and nap.

No War for Cake

I'm frustrated with the job market so I walked to the store and bought myself a carrot cake to feel better. At the cross-road, that mad house of an intersection where Lakeway meets Holly, waiting for the crossing signal, I was marooned. To my dismay there were other people on the corner with me though they weren't waiting to cross the street. They did have a giant sign that required three men to hold which read, "IMPEACH THE WHOLE ADMINISTRATION". Other signs read, "BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT EVER", "BUSH IS A PUPPET" and "HONK FOR IMPEACHMENT".

Drivers were honking and waving.

Not wanting to be mistaken for part of the demonstration, I stood quietly, focusing my thought on the red light. Maybe I could use the force to change the red light to green putting myself closer to the task I'd created for myself: inhaling sugary baked goods.

Traffic is unending. The city empties in the morning and then fills again in the evening. Suburu Outbacks, Land Rovers, Toyota 4runners--vehicles made for north westerners. Tools to take REI shoppers high into the Cascades, into the mud and snow where they can pitch their gortex tents and before nodding off, do a bit of office work on their laptop computers. I ponder, why are cars made for urban combat and the back country necessary when driving the best paved roads in the world?

I see another sign held by a retired gentleman that reads, "OIL WAR".

What do these people want? We live a complex world. Unfortunately people demand cheap goods, big homes, bullet proof cars, fast food, carrot cake on demand. It takes roads, rails, and sea ways to bring us these things. When our goods are threatened, we go to war to secure them. It has always been like that, yes even B.W. (Before Dubbya). Every time someone makes a comment about the dieing children in Iraq or the young soldiers dieing at the hands of Bush the imbecile and Cheney, Satan incarnate, I wonder if they aren't legally retarded. Do they really have that poor of an understanding of how reality works?

I pretend to be a wizard sometimes. I also wish there was world peace and that we could all lay in a field with docile lions and smoke weed all day. (I don't say that mockingly. I really do wish that.) Though I'd love to be a lion tamer in a world covered by rain forests, I also know that we have to work towards that vision. I work towards it by eating; others as members of congress, as teachers and inventors, builders and doctors.

Maybe Bush has done something wrong. I don't know. The signs didn't say anything about it--only that everyone should be fired.

Then what?

The signal flashed a light picture of a man walking and so I started walking. Half way through the intersection the signal started a countdown of how much time I could expect to live if I stayed in the intersection. Four...Three...Two...One. I just stepped onto the adjacent curb when another line of cars roared by me, honking and waving.

The Adventures of BR part Duex

I wake up in my cave under the mountain. My tongue is dry and ashy from all the smoke rings I blew last night at the casino and the three plates of buffet food are like a brick in my bowels. Naturally my first thought is, Sunday breakfast: Biscuits, gravy, grease, black coffee. I rouse my girlfriend, "Dear lets go get breakfast." I don't want to make a production out of it. I'm thinking truck stop. A place where a run down middle age waitresses will refill my coffee every minute. But no. Jessi calls her girlfriends and they decide we're going to eat at a trendy, expensive, artsy hippy restaurant in the intellectual district of town.

I attempt a fight for my manhood. I stand up, cast aside my rags and reveal my black robe underneath. Damn it female! I am a powerful wizard. I raise my staff and shoot lightening at her head. She cowers and says, "oh baby, you are buff and wise and we will do whatever you want. In fact why don't I make you breakfast--naked."

That's better, I approve with fire still smoldering in my eyes. My falcon lands on my shoulder.

Yep, Sunday Breakfast.

The New Adventures of Black Robe: Episode One

I walked out of the restaurant happy. My stomach was filled with fish tacos and the pungent taste of humus still lingered on the back of my tongue. The air was warm and the sky, clear. The sound of banjos and laughter snuck over the fence enclosing the beer garden and broke softly on my ears. The embroidered stars in my black robe caught and reflected the soft blue light of the moon. In night I wear living constellations. I kicked a stone that lay in the street and lifting my head to the heavens, whistled.

"Ah," I sighed, "Tis good to be a wizard."

"You better have life insurance, walking in the street like that you sonovabitch wizard-guy," a spiteful voice proclaimed from an open drivers side window. Turning my head slightly to the right, I spied my foe. A hippy with golden shoulder length locks and rosy cheeks. A bumper sticker, like his own personal national flag, read "One less SUV". I nodded, "I can only assure you of one thing, my fine fellow: it is a fine spring evening full of sound and smell. Breath deeply with me and let us love together."

"What the hell? Are you some kind of fairy?" He turned to his car companions, three trendy intellectual girls with brown legs and black rimmed glasses, "Look at this fruit. What a douche!" The women laughed at me and pawed at my foes chest and ran their fingers through his thick hair. "Later loser!” he jeered as he prepared to spin his tires in the dust.

A fury burned then, not only in my loins but in my eyes. A gust of wind blew through the parking lot and a banjo string over yonder twanged and broke. My own hair drank of the wind and unfurled, whitening and tripling in length. With my staff (which I was carrying the whole time) I smote the pavement and roared, "Great fool, I offer you friendship, my fellow man, as we share both time and place in history on this a pleasant city night, and you repay me with mockery. You are in league with the dark lord and I will exercise his spirit from your lips!!!" Lightening flickered while colors of all kinds issued forth out of my robe. Then a great cloud enveloped my foes car and screams could be heard--then giggling and then laughter. I turned my foe into a mule and his car into a cart--a love cart decorated with flowers and moss. Seagulls, my underlings, flew a short distance above the cart with lengths of silk and lace in their beaks. The three women, I turned in to fine maids, lovely to look at and absolutely submissive to my will.

I climbed into the cart and the three women groped at me. Striking the mule, my former foe, with my staff, we rode into the night.

Choose Your Own Adventure

Sitting on my porch having a beer and talking about God with my nieghbor, he says, "I've told you this before, I think life is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. You Fuck up, turn the page and go to hell. But it's more like: your faced with a decision and even if you make the wrong one you try to hold on and make it a few more pages. Maybe God will send you back to an earlier page to start a new adventure."

Fatherhood

What reason can be given for ordering a large pizza, garlic bread sticks, and two sodas at eleven o'clock at night and after handing the pizza boy a twenty dollar bill, devouring the whole lot in less than three minutes?

I have a son. Have I mentioned that before? His name is Frodo and he is about a month old. He is a cat. How envious I am of his body. You can bend his spine like an acordian then launch him across the room. He'll spring up, prancing back for more.

I went and got a hair cut a few days ago at a beauty salon. A young woman cut my hair. She was very stylish. She asked me what I did. I said that I was on the greens crew at the golf club. For the last five years I have answered that question like this: I am a student. Most people find that interesting. I would see this look come over them as they imagined their life as a student--wondering how their lives would have turned out if they had gone to college. Instead of working ten hours a day at the salon maybe they would have been a lawyer, like Ally McBeal. Day dreams about wearing power mini-skirts to court and having sex with boy toys. That look always made me a little bit sad.

I'm sick of people asking what other people do.

And what do you do?

I sit in my kitchen and whistle the entire Braveheart sound track. I pretend that the trees at the golf course are Ents. I shake my foot at a wicked pace when my legs are crossed. I am a creature of routine. I wish I had more faith.

My parent's grandson is sleeping on my shoulders and my stomach is kneading seven pieces of pizza in acidic juices.

Gardens

I visited the faculty art show at the Western Gallery this weekend. Having spent countless thousands of greenbacks studying under these guys and in then dropping out discouraged and disenchanted by their philosophies, I came to the show with a tinge of bitterness in my heart.

The gallery walls were filled with undecipherable pieces of political, abstract, and experimental pieces. Oh what a stagnant philosophy, unconscious expressionism. Walking home, we passed some of the sculptures on campus which for the most part are masturbatory pieces made out of steal I-beams by egomaniacs.

I also noticed the unkempt state of the grounds. I applied for a job on the grounds crew a few months ago but didn’t even get an interview. The gardens were overgrown and weeds were sprouting and thriving there. The sloppy sculptures and “organic” gardens reflect the laziness rampant in the institution itself.

If I would have gotten that interview I would have told the men sitting in the shadows at the outer edge of the conference table my vision to revitalize the school. Detail would be a priority. Hard edges separating short grass from unblemished black soiled flowerbeds. Hanging gardens. Fruit trees. Ivory towers looking over the bay. I’d rip out the steam sculpture and replace it with Self-Made Man. I wouldn’t allow thistles to creep into the beds but rather strive for Eden.

The shadowy men would laugh. A nice vision, they’d say, but we take long coffee breaks mid morning and afternoon. We talk about beer and sex and watch the wild things grow.

When we got home, Jessi showed me an online gallery that made me feel so much better. Please, look at it and read this blurb at the bottom of the page by Bryon Larson. These artist, a lot of them inspired by the works of Ayn Rand, believe as I do, that man is an awesome creature capable of beautiful and ingenious feats. We have free agency. We are not withering reeds blown this way and that by gusts of psychic wind and oppressive men. We are all gardeners with a utility belt filled with magic beans and hoes forged out of blazing hot fires.

This is a Joke, Right?

Driving home after an early shift at the golf course, a crew of elfs shoveled my days wage, a short stack of one dollar bills, into the coal fires of my gas tank. A chime and jingle blended with song marked the top of the hour on National Public Radio. A woman's voice welcomed the ears of listeners who, like me, didn't have the fortune of being unconscious (or consciously dream, depending on your perspective) on this gray Saturday morning. Her voice rang with excitement her vocal cords warmed and lubricated by fruit mocha. "Good morning. Today is May 20th 2006. Scientist now believe that humans may have diverged from the apes two million years later than previously thought. Breeding between the two species is still thought to have been common before the two species split for good about five-point-four million years ago. And in Iraq, delegates..."

She said that with such joy. I nearly swerved into on-coming traffic, distracted by the flexing of those deep tissues in my brain. Straying backwards through the ages, I saw man and his computers, his factories, his plows; I saw kings and priests bent over scrolls with feather pens in their hand and candle light flickering off their searching faces; I saw fire and water and wind lapping at the earth, shaping it. I traveled down through the ages of the world--six million years--and I saw there a caveman fucking an ape. Then at the speed of thought, I traveled forward again through history, back to my station wagon and the hot coffee spilled in my lap.

I would expect such a revelation about human origins to come from a voice from heaven in the midst of a terrible thunder cloud sizzling at the edges with flaming plasma, not glazed over by a mortal anchor woman. When the question of Man's being, a topic that has given philosphers trouble for thousands and thousands of years is announced on morning radio with such casualness, beware!

Man was created full of magic and spirit. People drive around in cars filling themselves with things and thoughts that make them forget this. It seems they get all to excited when the media confirms their suspicions: they're already dead.

What Would Beethoven do?

Here is a good reason not to send your child to college.

NPR

I'm in the car with my brother. We're driving to the ball field to watch a game. The sun is going down and the oil stained pavement is releasing the day's captured heat. We're sunburned. He's wearing Carhart work pants and I'm in flimsy athletic shorts and a Nintendo T-shirt. I point out an androgynous guy prancing down the sidewalk in tight black jeans. My brother says, "Dude. You think that's bad? You should have seen this guy I saw today. He was one of those Emo guys who's listened to NPR since birth."

Pixels

I love going on dates with myself. Especially on long walks downtown at dusk when young people are standing in doorways drinking beers out of plastic cans, smoking cigarettes, talking about music and poverty.

I took myself to see a movie at the mall tonight before my walk. Lucky Number Sleven. The movie received good reviews because it had an unexpected ending. I’d haven’t given it good reviews at all. In fact, I don’t. It isn’t the cheap fooleries of art but the familiarities that rapture people.

Hollywood is dieing.

The mall is dead. A carcass in which flies and worms and other bugs (Verizon, Clearwire, Sprint) are laying eggs in the rotting flesh. When everyone has picture phones people will walk with their fingers through pictures of the mall wasting money on ring-tones and emoticons: creating identities out of sound and mega pixels instead of denim and jewelry.

After the movie I walked outside, happy to see a full moon climbing in the sky. I walked downtown which was alive for a Wednesday night. This jolly kid pumped his fist in my face shouting something about Irish pride. He slapped me on the back and told me a long tale about the newly open Hawiian restaruant. All the while Bob Marly was blasting from the speakers pointed out towards the street.

The Fifth of May

WOO HOO! I’m drinkin Corona and gettin drunk! Uno mas Cervesesa por favor!

I’m deathly ill of party holidays. I’m not a partier. I just want to wear knickers and play golf. Maybe sword fight with the geeks in the park.

When will we toast something other than the day of the month or our belligerent youthful tendencies. Where are the generals and the men of honor? Why must I drive by college kids drinking keg beer in their front yard wearing sombreros and wife beater tank tops? And aviator sun glasses.

I need a holiday to Perelandra.

On Jeans

A small treaties on fashion:
The particular function of dress is to prevent one from being arrested for indecent exposure where such laws exist and/or protect the body from the elements. If an outfit speaks louder than the person wearing it it is a bad outfit. The perfect dress would go unnoticed by those that interact with the wearer of it. Particular articles of clothing that blend utility with fashion to a high degree are the tunic, the cape, the hood, and the straight legged hardy jean. Perfect colors are brown, gray, forest green, navy blue, and in summer months, white.

I went to the mall to buy a new pair of jeans but I couldn't find any in my size or that didn't have holes or bleached out patches on the legs and crotch. Why don't fashion designers design a jean with a balanced blend of utility and fashion that last a long time and fit a tall thin guy like me correctly? Are there really that many short fat guys out there with a fetish for thrashed denim?

People at the mall all look alike. They dress in the same clothes and the same food court junk food is slowly being turned into shit in their intestines. It's depressing.

Going into more than one store is more than I can usually bare but today I went into at least six trying on jean after jean. Looking in the mirror, I thought how silly I looked in clothes designed for a guy ten years younger, six inches shorter, and fifty pounds heavier than myself. I felt like myself again when I changed back into my old beat up work clothes. I though about becoming a nudist.

I saw three deer at work today. They weren't wearing any clothes and they were eating bushes. I stopped working and just stared up at the clouds fantasizing about being a wild man in a loin cloth and gathering berries and nuts; having squirrels for pets and eating wild honey. What would John the Baptist or Beorn from The Hobbit think about faded jeans and thread bare shirts with brand names printed on the chest?

Tell Me, Where is Gandolf?

What did you say?

Bad Dinner Conversation

I don't write this to make myself sound spiritual, if anything, this post only reveals my weakness: staying quite when I shouldn't.

A couple nights ago we had a small potluck with my housemates upstairs. Nothing fancy--nachos and tamales for four. But others came and while I was cutting the tomatoes for the salsa, I heard twelve people clamoring onto my porch and they sounded hungry and jolly. Don't get me wrong I love it when my friends come over and I especially love cooking for people but I was worried that we wouldn’t have enough food to feed everybody. I am poor. Beth and Andy and I agreed though that if Jesus could feed the masses with a few fish and bread loafs then surely we could scrape enough food together to feed a few of our friends.

The mountain of nachos came out of the oven colorful and wonderful and Beth ended up cutting the tamales into little pieces of finger food so everyone could help themselves to a taste. I ate my food and watched these people, my college friends, dig into the feast we'd prepared and it made me happy. Their attitudes though made me sad. A girl visiting from England was there, on holiday to Bellingham. For the sake of our foreign guest I'd hoped we would have been honorable representatives of our country. But sure enough my liberal dinner companions began the Bush bashing and American self loathing. When Americans call Americans evil, who are they talking about? Surely not themselves.

The thing that really got me upset though, the thing I should have opened my mouth about, was the Christian bashing. Every other word was god-damn and Jesus Christ. And then there was the jokes about Christians. I just stayed silent and ate my nachos telling myself that I'm a watcher not a speaker. I should have said something to these people: hey, you guys, your hosts are Christians. We cooked you this food. God has never allowed us to be hungry and even though we are poor, has allowed us to share this food with you, our friends. Please, show some respect. They know Andy, the neighbors upstairs and me are Christians and they don’t even care. Ugg. After dinner I thought I heard a rooster crow for a third time.

Yogi the Peacock Man

I was at the park yesterday laying on a blanket under the sun among a hundred other people doing the same thing. The park in spring is very much like theater. There are performers and audience members. The park itself, crawling with actors vying for the lead roll, is a grand play. There is the main story line of community in spring but there are also sub-plots happening everywhere simultaneously; from the seagulls gliding above to the cute little girl getting her kite tangle in a tree's branches. The mating dance, both a comedy and a tragedy, is the loudest of the narrative strings.

I heard Andy who was sitting beside me and Jessi say, "Duuuude, check that guy out." I looked in the direction he was nodding and understand his tone immediately.

Enter Yogi, the Peacock Man, A hippy looking guy wearing nothing but loose butt-boy running shorts and a beard sprinkled with granola crumbs. The guy could rock the shorts, I'm not denying him that, but he knew it. There is only one reason to come to the park looking like that, I thought, to be the star of the show.

He started his performance by walking barefoot to a patch of park visible to the most people and then I can only guess, in the calm before the storm, said a prayer to Buddha. What happen next almost made my face turn red. He did a hand-stand. Now it was a pretty great hand-stand, I won't deny him that. It was clear this guy's hobby was gymnastics...but those shorts!!! And from the hand-stand position he split his legs and started doing rotating scissor kicks. His groin was like a signaling beacon sending out ultra high frequency mating calls to all the young college girls in the park. The twisting and kicking lasted some minutes and I had to turn my head more than once out of embarrassment. When that fine display was over, he started his stretching routine which looked something like this: with his back to the ground and his hands and feet planted in the grass, he made his body into a hill, his groin region the pinnacle, where there stationed a radio tower broadcasting again his virility to the college girls.

I tried and am still trying to figure out how a man decides in the morning to put on baggy butt-huggers and go to the park to do stretching exercises. That seems to me like an activity that could easily be done at home, or in a gym wearing sweat pants. It wasn't about the stretching though. It was about mating strategy. I imagine his forefathers bagged women through similar tactics: medieval knights stopping in villages, polishing their jousting sticks in not but a helmet and loin cloth as maidens giggled in doorways.

Act I: The Stretch was finally concluded but Act II: Seduction was about to begin. He Walked to the waters edge and stood firm, gazing out over small waves splashing on the rocks of the shore. He appeared to be meditating or pondering chaos and order but it was obvious what he was really doing. For the very spot he stood to pray was also conveniently the very spot where three giggly school girls were braiding each others hair. I looked away for a moment and when I glanced back to Yogi, he was massaging one of the girls necks. Playing with her hair. Rubbing her back. Whispering in her ear.

Within minutes Yogi had the girl on his back showing her how to stretch, for he, you see, claimed to be a student of yoga. The girls ate it up. Not long after that he had her upside down with her head in his groin. "Grab my ankles and really feel the stretch."

Puke. This stuff was really working?

Well I could go on and on about the park and Yogi. But as it turns out Yogi eventually left the girls alone but perhaps had planted a seed that would flower later at a bar or a poetry reading. It is still early in spring. There are many acts yet to come before our actors turn into middle aged parents who drink away their lives and beat their children.

Connect the Dots

I opened the opinion section of the Bellingham Herald this morning and was perplexed by the following letter: (Here is the link for the online version: Letter to Editor)


Aghast at bid to repeal gay rights

I somewhat doubted the real need for legislation banning discrimination in housing and employment based on sexual orientation. It seemed a formality in our tolerant society.

We have many admired gay and lesbian icons and "Brokeback Mountain" nearly won the Best Picture Oscar.

I was aghast to be proved wrong when the day after such legislation was passed an effort was initiated by Tim Eyman to put back in place the ability to deny a home or fire a person who loved others of the same sex.
Why would anyone fight for the right to discriminate? I'm still flabbergasted.
I'm not sure that the supporters of this effort to repeal the anti-discrimination law are aware of the large numbers of their friends and family who are gay or bisexual and hiding this fact (with just cause, it seems).

I'm very glad to be a homeowner and employee of a tolerant company so that I can openly admit that I am bisexual.

Charles Dawson

Everson



I know I sound like a broken record when continually writing my own opinions on the gay issue but I can’t keep my fingers off the keyboard after reading Mr. Dawson’s letter. I am “flabbergasted” by his reasoning.

The problem with the language used in this letter is that it is absolutely weightless.
It is pure rhetoric, the flowery mantra of an ever increasing population of the willingly ignorant.

If this were an argument for continued support for legislation making it illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation it would look something like this:

I. We live in a tolerant society
II. A lot of popular people are gay
III. A movie depicting gays won an award
IV. There are gay people (the fact that there are large numbers of them is unsupported here)

Conclusion: People who would repeal legislation making it illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation are intolerant.

I think I have that right. Now in this form you can see that Mr. Dawson is just a raving mad man. Everything about this is fouled up. But lets work with it anyway. If you boil away the argument further, throwing out premise two and three on account of being absolutely ridiculous and premise four for being irrelevant you get this:

I. We live in a tolerant society
II. People who would repeal legislation making it illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation are intolerant.

Conclusion: Therefore, we live in a tolerant society if and only if people vote for legislation making it illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation


I think it is pretty clear here that Mr. Dawson as a man who likes to have sex with both women AND men would like to live in a society where he can openly admit this fact with out being discriminated against. Or another way of putting it is that Mr. Dawson does not want to be punished for his sexual behavior, he wants society to be tolerant of it. Tolerance, I can only guess, means that Mr. Dawson will be rewarded (since he is not being punished) for openly proclaiming his sexual behavior.

With this added piece of information I would like to again make adjustments to his argument.

People who reward me for my sexual behavior are tolerant.
People who do not reward me for my sexual are intolerant.

or further simplified:

If you agree with me you are tolerant
If you do not agree with me are intolerant.

This to me does not sound very tolerant Mr. Dawson.

Now for my own commentary. Mr. Dawson the fact that you like to have sex with both men and women is your business. Personally I think being devoted in love to one person and being monogamous is nobler still but that is my own view, one that you can or can not be tolerant towards. Concerning your letter to the Herald though I will say this. I a surprised that a newspaper would reward you by publishing such ramblings.