"Will you ever win?"

My pharmacy just made the most brilliant mistake. I can't go into details, because I think it's illegal, but they substituted a controlled substance in my prescription. 

Though, who am I to question their wisdom in such matters. They are educated. The two chemicals are very similar, but different in one important way, to me.

Instead of getting the very popular benzodiazepine that I desperately need to control unexpected outbursts I got a substitution that I very much relish and enjoy.

I keep feeling as if the pharmacy will call and tell me that I have to come back in. You hear of these stories where the bank accidentally fills an account with cash and somebody withdraws it all and goes on a spending splurge.  They make a mad dash towards the horizon hoping that modern banking won't catch up with them.

I remember one case in particular, a kid. He claimed that he thought his grandma made the deposit for him. He had stereos and all sorts of nonsense. I never followed up on it but the bank was trying to make him pay the money back. He was understandably reluctant. 

Why should he be punished over their mistake, was his reasoning. The money was all gone. Vanished into adolescence. 

That would not make sense with this stuff, though. That would be plain silly. 

I always take them only as needed, and need them as often as I take them. 

Well, I won't bore you further with my windfall luck. 

It was Klonopin.

Tonight, of course, all of the local satanists will emerge from hiding, if they can pull themselves away from their Ouija boards long enough. I can. I am fascinated with demonic communiques, of course, every now and then an atheist wants to hear them swimming in the winds.

Yesterday I made a joke about "Satan's Something" and in the comments section somebody found it odd that an atheist would "invoke" Satan.  Atheists are forbidden from poetics as well, you see. Once you've been banished from the eternal loving kingdom then you have no further access to the fun facts of spiritual warfare, devout opposition to the principalities of darkness. I've been demoted to mere mortal.

I wish the young Stevie Nicks was here. We'd really party, her and I. That girl... She as her usual cool, witchy self, and I as a transvestite in a madhouse, makeup skewed, jumping on the bed, eyes crazed and darting about, desperately the same as always.

(... darkness, like a fine skylark)

.

Hi Dad, it's me, Sean

Uh-oh, I forgot to write a post today. 

It's too late to report anything artfully, or well. I've had my brains blown out by double-barrel work.

I was chatting amicably with my dad last night, walking around the back yard while watching little Rhys be a silly, crazy boy.... Suddenly, I found myself explaining, for reasons I still don't quite grasp, that I am an atheist and have been for about a decade. 

In the past this was simply something I reasoned that he did not need to know. At his age, why give him extra things to worry about.

But, oh no, no... now I have burdened him with this new, awful knowledge of me. In addition to the general stuff he always prays for concerning me he'll now have something really specific to chat with God about:

Then of course, Father, there's my youngest son, Sean. He has always been distant, Lord, and rebellious. Perhaps it was my fault....

Ah, forget it. I'll just explain it all when I get there.

--------------

The fallen leaves outside make a rustling sound along the stone driveway. 

In the darkness there are the winds through the trees, the leaves on the ground all moving, scraping in unison. A murmur of death.

The season has ghostly powers.

Autumn is Satan's Sunday.

.

... so few wish to return

Quick workout on my lunch break.

Going to the gym in the middle of the day seems an odd luxury, as if it's an hour of weekend. 

Who are those strange people there?

Because of this milk-and-honey sense on a workday I put a little extra into it, and seem to get a little extra out. That is the way of things, we're told.

It's silly, how the mind talks to the body, and what it chooses to say.

All of life is a vacation from the abyss.

.

That way be monsters

I've tried everything to avoid writing an entry this morning, nothing has worked. I must have fallen asleep at sundown, or just before. I awoke at 0am but couldn't sustain it. I have been having nightmares, the worst that my mind can conjure. I'll leave no record of it here. They are unrepeatable. It is a bad and black magic to invite them further into this world.

Facebook is a very curious app. I can see who is awake, calculate location, determine shared timezone, assume that they are up to trouble. I don't really spy on people, but it's impossible not to notice who is active at 2, 3, and then 4am and then stalk them. I want to reach out and joke but who knows what state of psychedelic intoxication they might be in, naked and confused, on the verge of tears.



I have been told that I need to stop writing about my failed relationship here, that I have lost a very valuable reader. This particular patron of the site says that they don't mind it so much when I'm being funny but they can't stand the attempts at seriousness. Sustained thoughtfulness is too much for them, and where they draw the line, you see. They do not care for the exploration of a certain condition outside of their own.

This news wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't agree.


Get it over with!... is their easy advice.

Other people's lives can be so burdensome and problematic.

Rhys has started telling me that he doesn't love me. He has discovered his newly found power to choose, and ways to use it. It is what we have encouraged him to do, though I did not quite predict this as a potential outcome.


Here is part of a brief conversation we had this morning:


I love you, Rhys.

I don't love you, Daddy.


Yes you do.

I know.

.

October

(the photographer)

I was browsing the social sphere this morning, looking for ideas, when I came across a post about a friend's mother who had passed away, some years ago. It occurred to me that today is the day my mother passed away, twenty or twenty-one years ago. Is it terrible that I can't remember which it was. Some would say, of course it is.

It must have been twenty-one, now that I force myself to remember all that surrounded it.

I was going to write about that here but there is very little to say without fishing for pity, and we know about that stuff, pity.


It seemed, at the time, that my mother was older, that her time to die had simply arrived. Looking at it now I realize that she was not that old and she might have wanted to live several more years. I am certain of it. She said so herself. She seemed old to me, though. I know better now.

I looked up the average age of death for a woman in America and thought that she was only robbed out of 10-12 years, if you look at the average. But that is not how it is to be looked at, at all.

My father is a secretively good Catholic and stayed with her until the end. He was dating another woman within months of my mother's passing, marrying her shortly thereafter. All of this seemed mathematically improbable at the time. If there was a wedding then I wasn't invited, or didn't go. I should ask. That is something that I probably should know, I guess.

They must have eloped, though that seems odd and somehow unlike him.

What do I really know of the private lives of others. I struggle making sense of my own.

In any event, wedding or not, he had moved on with his life and seemed prepared to do so. He must have been prepared somewhat for this new relationship, and they are still happily together. As happy as an old couple can be. It is so difficult to tell. Nobody wishes to be disgruntled concerning only themselves. It works best in pairs.

So, it was meant to be. Written in the stars that are much older than he, and she, and I.


This all seemed to bother my brother a bit. I had felt that my mother and my father were not always very content together. I wasn't quite sure what further dedication and reverence he should have to that unhappiness. I was doing so many drugs and had discovered a new family that I didn't care as much as I should have. It did seem vaguely troubling that my brother was interested in enlisting my opinions in these matters.

Now I see that he is quite reverent as well, more like my father than I am. It is a difficult lesson to learn, as he was the one who first taught me irreverence. Older brother, he.

Later, my father told me that he was not unhappy in his marriage to my mother, that I was quite wrong. He corrected me on the point of this fact but it did not greatly change how I felt about their marriage at first. To me, it seems that happiness and unhappiness were recognizable from the exterior, or should be anyway. I could be wrong about that also, happiness is no tattoo.

.

Brackish Backwaters of my Youth

I left the house in darkness. The stars are assuming their winter clarity, twinkling less in the still dryness of the colder air. Having spent several decades in Florida, too many really, I greatly prefer the cold clarity to the muggy humid twinkling of the wet Atlantic and Gulf winds. Though there are things I do miss about the state. 

I like that Rhys will grow up fascinated with alligators at a great distance. I got the other education. No lake or creek was too small to wonder if one lurked therein, especially during mating season when the males can wander and become more aggressive, just when they come out of their form of hibernation. I can't remember if it is a real hibernation or not. I don't think so. I believe it's just a slowing of the metabolic process, as cold-blooded creatures can.

I've encountered a few, fearsome creatures. 

Equally, few lakes or creeks were uninviting enough for a young, curious boy. Florida is a fascinating fresh water swamp, comprised of springs that feed the St. Johns River, mapped by floating Budweiser cans. Science suggests that I'm going to miss it more and more. They're moving the state capital to Atlanta.

There really is no apostrophe in St. Johns. This is the pedigree and ancestry of the place. Saint Johns, unknown to the history of the English language. It was named by the Spaniards, the Catholics I guess. So, there is that. 

Little matter, apostrophes very rarely clarify meaning. They are a tool of grammatical snobbery. It is only funny in that it is wrong, and humor is both useful and necessary. 

I have lived in three of the four most notorious states in the union now: Florida, New York, and California. In that order.

I've decided that I'm moving to Texas. I want to complete my tour of infamous disasters. I've never lived anywhere less than a decade though, so I have a few years to go.

Austin. 

Or, after Sonoma, Austin might seem too metropolitan. Perhaps Marfa would be more my speed by then. 53 is the new 35. Austin would be my first capital city, where I could pursue my various political aspirations. 

In Marfa, I would spiral into the art world. The photograph above is among my first sellable works. It's a collaborative piece with my son. It's called "The Big Dipper at Orion's Belt (Watch out for Scorpios... Oooh, don't go behind that door, girl...." We haven't decided if we're going to stick with the subtitle or not yet. Too much context can so burden a work.

Serious offers can be addressed to my agent. It's not quite done yet. We were going to add some crayon coloring to reference what you see below. Not an imitation, merely an influence on the final inspiration. My work is never complete, only unpurchased.

I am wary of any place where people go to become weird, or where they use the idea of weirdness as a promotional device for tourism, like Austin. It starts to feel a little Tim Burton-y when a place uses weirdness as the thematic branch of the Chamber of Commerce. 

"For the sake of weirdness" is strictly suburban.

Speaking of, I said I wanted a secret life a few months back. Well, I got one. It won't stay secret for very long. That is the danger of producing a confessional site where I am expected to produce new material daily. The cost is that nothing remains hidden, excepting how I happen to feel.

The upside is that when pictures of me doing something hideously wicked and shameful make their way online I can just shrug. I've already admitted dishonor in the meaningless ways. What harm can possibly come to me.... what more can a reader want? 

I've given you alligators to peer at safely.

If you have enough friends on Facebook, the way I do, then every day is a birthday party. If you happen to like parties, then you win! I'll spend the whole day on people's pages chatting with all of their other friends, the ones that I don't know. 

I'll eat cake all day long.

Well, I was going to list all of the things that I adore about middle-aged women this morning, to counter-balance yesterday's satire, but I've run out of time. How long do women stay middle-aged? Certainly I'll be able to catalog my many loves someday soon, before time itself escapes me.

Let's start with just this one: their sense of humor ranks very high in the qualities I most esteem. 

After that, everything else is just gravy.

.

The seemingly inevitable

(This picture is known as a "ruse")

The sound of rain in darkness. All that is missing is the scent of bacon.

When I checked my phone I got the news that two friends delivered their second baby girl early this morning, so I'll have somebody to celebrate with.

Jesus Zeus Cracker Attacker, I wrote the sentence above with sincerity. I did! When I looked at it again it was impossible not to see self-pity embedded in there. What is it about getting older... it's nearly impossible to discuss it without sensing, reflecting, or projecting something distressing about it.

Don't feel as it you need to answer that question. It's rhetorical. I know why aging is a piteous process, because the mind stays younger than the body. That's why women age more gracefully. Their minds and bodies are more closely matched in age. 

People will hate me for this, but it makes perfect sense. 

Just listen to me, now, ladies:

Females mature faster than males, right? We all know this and are reminded of it by the women who have read men's discovery of this phenomenon. Well... figure it out. What effect will this have on females?

This question is not rhetorical. 

They will take on most responsibilities earlier, fatiguing their minds and bodies with the details of procreation and attracting a suitable mate to help provide for the situation known as a family, which they are empty and useless without. This can be evidenced by their desire and denial of it. 

It places females in what is known as the persuasive position. Their task, even as they might readily see it, admit to it, or even be proud of it, will be to convince or manipulate the unformed male to mature faster for the purpose of better fulfilling the impulses of the former. This exploitative co-process is known as love.

Some men will actually "buy in" to this ordinary and hereditary deception, convincing themselves that this is "what they really want" and even what "they must have" to be happy. For a few, this seems true enough. Studies still need to be conducted to determine the source of this seemingly inborn fallacy. These poor souls appear perfectly content living out the fantasy desire of another creature.

However, some men will discover early on that they don't have to do any of this, that there's no inherent value in maturing and that their penis fits inside differently shaped places. So, they opt to instead resist this entire process, retaining a more youthful demeanor, which is what we are reminded youth really is: attitude.

These fortunate males might recognize that mating involves an increased risk. Nature doses these dear souls with a generous dash of liquid imagination, which regrettably sometimes takes the form of fear in later years. 

Fear is nothing more than this: picturing yourself just as you are, only older. 

This is where the real difference between the sexes exists and thrives. A woman might want other things in her life but she will build a life around her that, in the event of an emergency, she could easily grow old into. This is what destroys her youthfulness. It is known as "grandmothering." A man accumulates a squalidness and occasional stench that feminine decorum demands must be transmuted or entirely discarded by the sexually active female in said man's life.

Comic books left near a window in the rain will grow mold. Mold smells. That is the beautiful trajectory and circle of life.

A healthy cohabitation produces a feeling of happiness in the male which, when combined with highly effective persuasive posturing (linked above), leads to the seemingly inevitable. The male "balls" are quite sensitive to the touch. Males really have very little chance in any of this, and even less "say" if you pay close attention to the experts, but some of them do revert after a time and re-assemble the dangers and disgusts of youth around themselves again. Male "balls" also produce a noxious odor to warn off potential mates during times when they are en testrus. 

From the sociological view, the young male population is far more accepting of one of their own back into the fold than are their female counterparts. Females, after a certain age, have only one direction in which to travel. This is why you will hear them discuss how important their life choices are much more than males will. It is a compensatory reaction to knowledge of them having less options than their male counterparts. Likewise, this is why they must limit the choices of all males whenever possible. 

You can hear women discuss this "Peter Pan" problem openly, if you are privy to their private conversations or ones they happen to have while sipping white wine in any public restaurant. 

Picture a tableful of middle-aged women all discussing single men. I know, I know, but picture it anyways. An innocent man will be described in this way, "Yeah, but he'll never grow up." All the women will nod knowingly, as if it's some incurable malady. They will refer to the situation in precisely this way, "Aw, that's too bad...." as if they are reacting to a problematic toddler, which is how they best know to cure a man like this, through rigorous discipline and routine. 

It is called "tough love" and feels much like caressing beef jerky.

Hopefully, the condition of youth is incurable, in some. 

Be reminded: your reward for growing up is not even the table of middle-aged women, it's just one of them. 

Your punishment for growing up is having one pick you.  

Anybody with internet access should realize that access to information will upend this biological process more than anything else. Kids no longer need to fear not being able to meet somebody. Without that basic pubescent fear all of human society is in danger.

Don't worry folks, it's perfectly okay for me to talk about women this way. I've looked into it and found that it's a very reputable branch of science known as "gender attribute parity." It is quite the rage in all the online magazines.

Wait, how did I get here.... Let's try to start this morning's post again. I swear to Beelzebub I wanted something different this morning. I wanted bacon and a woman. 

Why can't men have it all....

Oddly, two antonyms for pity, both quite valid: cheer and hatred.

So, don't pity me, just choose.

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But it does grow on trees

(pic intentionally unrelated to post)

Love, one of the few things that will make you scared and tired at the same time. You don't want it to disappear but then it does drag on a bit.

It requires a fair amount of convincing oneself that you're no longer in it and can often creep back in when you're sleeping, or just before.

You can reason your way out of it but that doesn't feel very good, requires too much effort, the sustained ignoring of another. You want a stronger emotion to come along and save you from it. Good luck with that. Waiting doesn't always help.

This saving does happen, sometimes, but then you can lose your deposit. Always difficult not to question the hefty upfront fees in the new deal. None of the currencies transfer. It's like converting salt to Euros. If you get caught trying: guaranteed insolvency. 

Bankruptcy. Some states won't even allow it. You are marked as a writer of bad checks. There is a word for such a person: a criminal.

Maybe comparing love to money is a bad idea. Maybe not.

It does have imaginary value, symbolic in that it can represent something other than itself, can be spent variously, foolishly, or even saved. People like those who have more of it, judiciously avoiding the impoverished. Often willing to shed a little light of generosity if it doesn't require touching.  

You can go to a nice, clean place to get some but you only lose what you have when you do. Much like religion, they provide it for you by taking it from you. People too often confuse their possessing of it with the making of it. Its value against other currencies rises and drops with the market.

Okay, love is money, or just like it. Everybody deserves it though few can figure out how some accumulate so much.

There are differences, you can try and try to give love to somebody freely. Some days there just are no takers. No amount of describing its worth to another provides it with that worth. One has polarity, the other is always attractive. Love is a spinning magnet; attract and repel, ad infinitum. Money is the North Pole, special metals point to it like magic for fools but nobody can seem to get there. 

I have the whole world figured out... and just so happen to be enjoying some insider compass bearing during a period of heavy bull trading.

Ta-da!

.

On Golden Pond

The boy stayed at my house tonight. He is growing more accustomed to spending the night here, slowly. There is still so much unformed parental habit that I need to self-mold from the used ball of multicolored play-doh that is my life. I watch Rachel do it, she makes it seem nearly effortless. Mothering, it is simply something she is doing while she's also doing other things for the boy. For me, everything is an effort, nothing is practiced, too little rehearsal time put in. I haven't memorized my lines. I have forgotten to give my life completely over to it.

The boy said he didn't want to sleep in his bed. He wanted to sleep with me. As we were drifting off, after reading a little light Curious George, he started to show signs of distress, wanting to know where Mommy was and why couldn't he go home to sleep.

I explained that this was his home, too. 

He kept emphasizing that he wanted to go to his home.

After about ten difficult minutes of that it began to look like he was winding down. His started the familiar nightly pattern of pre-sleep tossing and turning. He assumed his favorite spot at the very center of the bed, with all of the possible covers lumped underneath him, arms and legs jutting out unexpectedly into my rib cage, throat, or head.

He sat up and asked where Barkley was.

All that I could muster was, "I'm sorry."

It was a fair question. Where was his puppy.

The only meaningful answer that I could give him was that I was sorry, and I was, as useless as that is, I was being honest. You're going to have to start getting used to sleeping away from your puppy, buddy. Yet another unexpected joy to spring from all of this, another senseless set of feelings in which to try to come to terms, both with and for somebody else. Born into a life of separation anxiety. Now I am somehow depriving a child of their puppy, too. 

What next?

The whole thing is irretrievably fucked, we both know it. We’re trying our best to create a space where the kid can grow up in relative normalcy, which is a laugh, considering the two authorities that combined with that publicly stated intention.

What next?

I look around and I can’t believe how monumental and commonplace was our failure. It’s the simplest thing in the world, having kids, people do it all of the time, but no, no… Every morn and every night, Some are born to sweet delight.

So, here I sit, penning this pathos in near Blakean darkness, to the whispered rhythm of miniature breathing, not knowing what else to do. When the soul slept in beams of light. 

Thinking perhaps of getting a puppy.

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The World as a Series

When the actual subject can not be approached.... I suppose there is always still the minutiae of life to explore, which some might say is the actual subject.

I might say it, even, sometimes.

I hadn't seen the boy for over a week. We "Facetime" often, but it does not quite satisfy the feeling of being a father. This seems about equal to the feeling of being a son for him, it seems. I am easily ignored when just an unshaved face on an iPad, not so much when tickling his stomach or holding him upside down by his feet, swinging him like a giggling pendulum.

So, we played last night for a bit and watched our first World Series game together. We won. 

I understand that everybody wants to see KC win, partially just because SF just won two years ago and KC hasn't seen the series since 1985... Fuck that. The best thing about Kansas City is that it's not even in Kansas, and when they won in '85 it was against St. Louis. 

Anyway.

This morning I came by to say hi again. He and his mother were still sleeping. When they did wake up, much later than normal, it took my help to get him dressed in the pajamas that he would wear to school. Today is "jammies day" at his pre-school, etc.

So, some intense negotiation went on to convince him to wear underwear, and then to change from one pair of pajamas to another. Then, on went his "Thomas the Train" Wellingtons, and off to school we went in my yellow Volkswagen Beetle. 

I sing to him in the car, often, sometimes non-stop. I make up songs up as I go. He will sing lines back to me, replacing "Daddy" with wherever he hears "Rhys." Simple songs, really, nothing worth getting money for a studio advance.

But, we were having fun on our way.

He asked a couple times if I could not go in to work today and spend the day with him. I had to let him know that I must, for reasons that I can hardly even explain to myself. Money, I guess. 

When we got to the parking lot he sang the chorus of one of our best hits. It is about him loving me and ends in a very excited, "Daddy, Daddy!"

I carried him in to the school and we chatted. I could sense that his mood was changing when I went to set him down so that he could wash his hands before joining the other kids. He wanted me to carry him for that, too. So I did. Once his hands were washed I could feel him pulling at the back of my shirt, his arms around my neck and his legs around my waste tightening their hold. I tried to talk to him but he had a middle-distance stare. This was not his normal pleading, this was the real deal. 

I explained that after school we would go to the car wash, and that I loved him very much. One of the teachers heard me tell him about the car wash and she tried to peel him off of me, telling him what she likes about the car wash. His last hand grasped on to the back of my shirt and would not let go, all the while there was that knowing stare through the pre-school walls. The daily trauma of childhood, separation. 

I loosened his fingers from my shirt, his little hand let go as she sat him down at the table with the other kids. He didn't even look at me. He just stared through the wall as she tried to win his attention. That was the last that I've seen of him, though we have big plans to watch the game tonight.

We're both all for the Giants. 

 .

The cause of much silence

प्यार में विफल रहता है

.

Taking applications for a new favorite sushi spot

(collection of mountain and fog)

Tojo's was good, but somehow not as good as I dreamed it would be. It's best not to build things up in your mind too much. That's what I have to say about expensive sushi: just enjoy it. 

Don't get me wrong, it was very good but somehow didn't live up to my imagination, or memory. Expectations too often just leave you feeling bad. Ah well... what is money but a paper mechanism for second chances?

The British Columbian weekend is upon me. The image you see above is from the balcony where I have been working in North Vancouver. It has been like that for two full days now, without a single change in the clouds. It does get darker at night.

The stationary clouds are taunting me, the murk's mocking. 

Somewhere out there in the great Pacific there is an unsuspecting scallop that is waiting to become hotate sashimi just for me. I will find you my precious little mollusk, and we will unite in the stillest fog, and a rain that never falls.

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The Germans have un-coughed Canada

Day Two in Vancouver. Nothing much to report from the near north. Last night was spent eating meatballs and cheese. Craft beers gave way to shots of Jagermeister. A bottle of the cough syrup appeared from the depths of the kitchen. 

The evening ended in a blur of friendly shouts that presumably passed as conversation. There was some sort of 80's dance party happening on a couch.

Drinking is a form of time traveling. You destroy tomorrow a day before it happens.

Apparently, I snore, among my many other imperfect vices. However, there was no reported sleep-coughing, so the Jagermeister must work on some level.

.

Jimmy Van Couver

(Free Lap Dancesters)

Well, I made it To British Columbia. The weather is grey here, which is too bad. It is a beautiful city, when placed under the lamp of the sun.

I did something that I have not done in a very long time on the flight here: I listened to a Pink Floyd album from beginning to end.

Sort of. I know a handful of friends will denounce me for what is about to unfold here, but I did not hate it.

It was Roger Waters performing "The Wall" live in Berlin with a bunch of friends, and it was okay. Bands and artists that I would not normally care for - Scorpions, Bryan Adams, Cyndi Lauper, The Hooters - sounded pretty good up against artists that I very much do care for, like Van Morrison.

Speaking of places named after the British Columbus... before I leave I am hoping to lure some Canadians into conversation about how they feel about the treatment of their indigenous people, and what do they plan on doing about it.

I kid. They are a sweet people.

I saw some denouncing Columbus on Facebook on Monday. I wondered to myself if any of them recognized the unintended irony in them denouncing a person without which they would not be in existence.

Yes, you read that right. Without Columbus then a very different genetic lineage would have been the result and none of us now enjoying life in the Western Hemisphere would be here.

None of us would be here. None of us. It is a mathematic impossibility that any single person on the earth today would be here if it wasn't for Columbus.

But the same can be said for others, as well, etc.

I don't give a shit about Columbus one way or the other, I just find most people tedious and absurd, for reasons that should seem obvious to the main offenders, but for some reason it never does.

I do like the sound of British Columbus, since everybody else has tried to stake claim over him. Why not? Let's all say he was acting on behalf of the "other" crown.

Ah well, few know how to address the past. They treat history as if it's something that needs to be changed. Study the political and social movements that really took this idea to heart. It always ends well.

But this is not my purpose here today. I am here to be agreeable.


From the moment I saw my old Chippendales dance partner at the airport it was as if not a single second had passed behind us. The old silliness bubbled up naturally, like chilled champagne that someone had just dropped some powder in.

.

Cum se moverit ad nubes

Off to Vancouver, tomorrow. Though in truth I am already off on my journey, having left the house early this morning. I will not return until time or lack of funds demands it. A full day in the office today then a dinner party at a friend's house tonight, then a northern flight, one of my favorites.

My life is charmed, though I still find reason to complain.

I tried to Facetime with the boy this morning but he was more interested in Spiderman or Curious George.

Leaving for periods of time has become increasingly difficult, though I know it is important to occasionally do. The more complicated one's life becomes the more perspective is needed. Certain perspective can only be gained by distance, upon returning.



Rachel. The final essence of romantic love has slipped from between us, leaving nothing left in which to hold, nor cling. We have ceased reflecting one another with enough warmth, compassion, or desire. What remains is both tender and perfunctory, aching without apparent end. It is crushing in ways that I do not trust myself to relay.

.

... billion year old carbon

Two fathers and two sons tried to camp in tents in the cool backyard last night. It didn't work for a number of reasons but we'll try again sometime, hopefully before it gets too cold. The boys, at least, became a little bit more familiar with the idea. Soon, we'll tackle Sugarloaf Ridge. From there, Yosemite and Yellowstone will be ours.

I took Rachel tent camping many years ago. We had driven across the country from west to east, as we drove through Nevada, Utah and Colorado we decided that we would come back to go camping. Rachel assured me that she was a true nature girl, that she had been to the Full Moon Parties in the desert outside of LA, a natural pedigree if ever there was one.

This indicator turned out to provide a false positive. A Type I and Type II error all wrapped up neatly together. 

She did not enjoy sleeping in a tent at all, nor not being able to put on makeup after a hot shower and even hotter coffee in the mornings, and then all else that goes along with being a woman in the wild. Underwear is not an option for her. It is an unstated requirement, etc.

On the other hand, I am able to let all those things go for a bit, even the makeup.

We did well when we were hiking together because the trail dictated what must be done and required little teamwork on our part, we only had to agree with the path ahead of us. As soon as we needed to work together things quickly disintegrated. It is interesting to me now - if "interesting" is the right word - because the problems we had then were the very same issues that eventually resulted in our undoing as both lovers and partners. I refused to believe it at the time, of course. Now, I have few remaining choices in the belief department.

We both remember the trip fondly, even though we were not as happy as we could have been. If only we had been truly meant for one another, and willing to put in the effort to remain meant for one another.

At the very least I will have something tangible to teach Rhys when he reaches the right age. He'll ask why Mommy and Daddy aren't married any more and I'll explain that one of the most important attributes any human can develop is to recognize when something is over. People hold on to that love for idealized romantic notions, or for fear, laziness and convenience. 

Perhaps I'll need to work on my wording a bit.

But that camping trip was great, in spite of ourselves. We went to Canyonlands, Arches, Monument Valley, The Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion, and few others. 

I planned the trip such that there was a new moon while we were at Bryce Canyon. There was a hike that the National Park conducted that took you down into the darkness of the canyon, which is already situated in one of the least light polluted areas of America, and you could still see your shadow there in the darkness against the ground, from the light of Venus alone.

This, when described here, might not sound like much, but the experience of it was memorable and left us both with a mutual sense of wonder and fascination.

The National Park had set up a series of high power telescopes. From within each of them we were able to see some of the wonders of the galaxy. Globular Clusters towards the edge of the galactic center were what I remembered most. Groups of sometimes as many as a million stars clustered together, containing the oldest known stars in the galaxy. Retirees.

The night we camped in Bryce it was just below freezing. I was okay with this, knowing how these things work and that the tent would be plenty warm enough for us and would warm up even quicker if we were naked, so that our body temperatures could heat the whole tent and not just the inside of our clothes. I was right, of course. But in the morning when we stepped out of the tent at that altitude she was not as pleased with the cold air against her skin.

I offered that we could cut our Bryce visit one day short and head to Zion where it was guaranteed to be warmer. So we did. It was about a one and a half hour drive and about 80 degrees warmer. So much so, in fact, that she had me drive straight to a grocery store so that she could stand in the beer section to cool down. It was Zion hot, truly.

In Utah they sell beer as if it is liquid damnation and they want the purchasers to know this. It's all set off in various sin zones in the grocery store, which served our purposes just fine. Sinners, her and I.

Once we were hiking in the Zion narrows, though, we were happy again. Wading upriver four miles or so, with each new bend in the canyon revealing a wonder beyond imagining. 

I'm starting to feel as if I have told this story before here. Ah well, I'll end it there, then.

I question now, knowing what I know about the ill-fated nature of our love, if I would do it again. Romantic love is in part foredoomed, we all know this after a certain age and accept it. It becomes something quite other than what interests us initially. Those changes, when managed together well, become a thing that you convince yourself you want as much as you did the other. Few would choose to give up their independence for it, if presented with that choice in full at the onset. Yet people cling to it anyway, grouped in concert by time and gravity in some remote quadrant of the galaxy, circling a super-massive black hole, clustered together in suburbs of stardust.

(Ben Cooper)

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The Power of the Pumpkin Patch Pyramid

Today will be a visual day, as I have little to say about yesterday, though pictures I did take.

We went to buy a pumpkin for the boy. He had been wanting one for some time along with a few ears of corn and a gourd whose neck was curved inward like a swan's in repose.

The boy's great-grandfather was in town, a likable fellow whose company I greatly enjoy. He is of a very different time, having retired from civil service in 1985, still enjoying his many retired years with a monthly income that humbles. It's difficult to fathom, that retirement used to work like that for some. 

He's enjoying it all though, and has been for three decades. And why not? He takes about 10 trips a year, and at 89 years old he still gets around. He just came in from Vegas on his way back home.

He and I went to the local pub yesterday where he is a favorite and I am tolerated, though rarely encouraged. No, I only kid. I am tolerated at a distance, which is a form of encouragement. That is how I misread it, anyway. I am an eccentric known by another name.

There was a pyramidal haystack in which the kids were encouraged to climb. A ribbed tube cutting through the center of it where they were meant to slide to a dismount of the hay structure, though none of them slid quite the way that they might have hoped. It seemed fun enough for them. 

There were passages cut through the faux pyramid. Considering the region, I was somewhat surprised to find no yoga-pants'd mother meditating at its base enjoying the many mystical powers to be gleaned from its ancient spiritual shape. Perhaps we were just there at a bad time.

So, there remained a touch of comedy in it all, some colorful shapes for the kids to enjoy. The strong sense of season one gets in an agricultural valley. The amusement of watching others. All that was missing from the day was a drop of romantic love. 

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The best restaurants in all of Canada

(Freelance Icebreaker)

No gym today. A bike ride instead, maybe. My life feels too congested lately, again. A bike ride will help stretch things out until they are more sensible, can be seen and felt from a distance. I need that open road feeling; my heart thumping against my chest, begging for mercy, begging for more.

Maybe a road trip would be better. Big Sur has been on my mind. There is much famed open road between here and there. 

Wednesday, I leave for Vancouver. An old friend is there, lurking along the American border, peeking over. We will go be stupid together again, to honor our days gone by.  I have been asked to bring much music from the weird, eclectic vaults. Our weekend will start at a basement after-party. We will crawl our way out of there by mid week, starved for more.

We used to be quite recognized for our excessive leisureliness. 

There is a sushi restaurant there, Tojo's, in which I am eager to return. Best that I've had anywhere in the world, Japan included. Montreal has the greatest steakhouse in the world, Queue de Cheval. There's also some place in Quebec City but I can't remember it's name, it was some sort of French bistro fusion thing. 

Toronto has nothing at all. It's as if all of the boredom of Indiana was condensed down into a single city and then placed on a lake in Canada. Miserable. Anybody that doesn't do drugs in a place like that is not to be trusted. They are to be feared. Rob Ford was right. Doug Ford will prove to be just the answer that Toronto needs.

In Vancouver, I will spend money as if it is the open road, as fast as my legs and arms can get rid of it. I drop Jacksons like beads of sweat.

What the fuck just happened to me, am I a rapper now?

Spinach is my favorite rap euphemism for money. Hilarious.

Did I ever tell you guys about the experience I had with Canadian Customs? I might have to save that story for another time, the weekend is already disappearing in front of me.

An alternate plan for this weekend: Rhys and I might just set up the tent and camp out in the backyard. I have mentioned it to him a handful of times, and I am not quite confident that he is still at the age where he forgets things so easily, and he doesn't give a titty about expensive sushi. 

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