My first "weekend" here

(spotted on the way to Point Reyes Seashore)

Yesterday I had the day off from work. It's my first "weekend" off from work since I've been here. It flew by as if I wasn't even there, as if it was trying to get away from me. I slept in far past when I ever sleep in, almost to 10:30, even after being woken up early by repeating car alarms right outside our bedroom window at 6:20. They were going off so much that I went out to the parking lot to try to help the neighbor that was having all the problems. I don't know why I didn't just call the police and report that my neighbor's car was getting stolen. The police would have, at least, got her to stop trying and subsequently setting off the alarm, something that my visit most decidedly did NOT accomplish, though not for lack of trying.

The neighbor is a nut.  This was my first interaction with her but my wife had a previous interaction that set the tone for how our relationship with her will unfold.  Perhaps I will go into more detail on it some other time. I don't have it in me to write a screed again on my California experiences.

One funny thing has emerged from going back to work: a fellow employee there told me that his sister works in California's premier sex shop, Good Vibrations.  Hilarious.

This morning I read an article in Wired magazine that says that studies on the female orgasm are still inconclusive, that they make little evolutionary sense.  They are apparently not elusive enough to limit studying, but more that they serve no apparent evolutionary purpose, that they exist merely because women and men share so much biology.  It would be nice to finally get some clarity on this matter... No, I jest.  It is merely an area of concentrated curiosity.

Each day here seems more beautiful than the day before, or at least is its equal.  There is nothing but perfectly clear blue sky from horizon to horizon, or what would be horizon if there were not beautiful golden hills rolling in all directions, peppered with lush green trees and occasional vineyards.  It's as if I walked into a dream.  Even when it is hot, which it was yesterday, it is not humid and unpleasant.  Yesterday it got up to 93 degrees but we never even noticed, we had the windows open, there was a nice breeze all day. Not once did we even consider turning on the air conditioning, at home or in the car.  Perfect.

Each night for the last few nights I've watched the growing moon move further and further across a crystalline sky towards fullness.  After living in New York for so many years it is quite a novelty to be able to just look up and see the moon without impediment of any kind.  Even being close to sea level it is clear in a way that I had almost forgotten it could be.  It is as beautiful and untouchable as I remember it.

Here is a song I love that equates the moon with a lover that can not be held.

We love it here, but there are adjustments to be made.

California is like a dream, but filled with people that you don't want in your dreams.  Or, so I claimed a few days ago.  It has been a little bit of a culture shock moving here.  I had thought that once we got out of New York we wouldn't be subjected to such a high degree of aggressive self-importance any more. Nope.  It's projected in a slightly different way here but the result is the same. It's almost as if a handful of NYC subway commuters were set free in paradise, then given cars.  Each individual is further away from you, so you don't feel as cramped, but any one of them could potentially do much more damage, and they've figured that out.  They've also figured out that they are not only dangerous in their cars but that they are also protected. So a slight sense of selfishness quickly grows into an unwieldy attitude.

I have felt more in danger riding my bike here than I ever felt in NYC.  The people here drive like NY taxi drivers, with very little regard for the life of a bicycle rider.  More than once already I've had somebody pull over to the side of the road while I was between their car and the side.  I suppose it's just a given that I will seek to preserve my life and move out of their way by doing so. 

I'm trying not to develop ride-rage, but it is a struggle at times.  The angry head of a New Yorker emerges and I see blood-visions, find my animal spirit, etc.

   (Point Reyes National Seashore)

Meatball

Yesterday I went to get a sandwich at the Safeway deli for lunch. Harmless, I thought. 

If I had not just sent a text to a friend as I was ordering I would have had no way of verifying what was about to happen. But as it was I had time-stamped the beginning of one of the strangest experiences of my life. 

I wasn't even sure of what I wanted but when the woman seemed to indicate that she was ready to take my order I glanced up and picked the easiest and quickest thing on the menu, a meatball sub.  So I told her and she scurried over to a drawer where she pulled out a roll which she then cut in half, and then again started to slice one half of that down the center.  I asked if she could slice just one side to make the sub more of a sub sandwich, rather than cutting it in two pieces. She seemed perplexed.  It was at this point that I surmised that English was not her first language.  In fact it might not be her language at all.  

No problem, I thought.  

I held my hands up and made a slicing motion on one side of my hand and then held them together almost prayer-like opening them to make a V-formation to simulate a single piece of bread and how it might be used to make a sandwich, with meatballs and cheese.

Nope.

She took out a fresh piece of bread and cut it exactly as she had cut the other one, directly down the middle and in two pieces. I nodded approvingly, that would be fine.  Onwards.  She then took off through a doorway on the opposite side of the deli counter.  Another Safeway employee came up and took the order of the next person in line and he started working on their sandwich.  Progress.  After a couple of minutes I thought that maybe something had gone wrong.  Just as I was starting to wonder, and to genuinely consider the amount of free time I have to enjoy my lunch, the guy finished the sandwich he was making and came back over.  As I was getting ready to ask him what might have happened she appeared in the doorway holding something and rushing towards me happily with her find.  He helped the next person in line without much apparent thought.

Sure enough, she had found some meatballs.  They looked as if at one time they might have been in some sort of red sauce but that would have been some time ago.  She proceeded to slice them in half, all the while looking up at me to seek my approval.  I had to admit it, she was thorough and seemed to be enjoying it all.  We were well on our way to making a meatball sub. Almost as soon as I had this thought she put the other piece of bread on top of the dry meatballs and started to wrap it up.  I eagerly indicated that we weren't quite done.  She looked at me quizzically.  I said one word: cheese.  Her face lit up and she smiled and laughed.  I had tapped into a word that must transcend all languages.  I believe it's called a cognate, many languages have them, though I wasn't aware of many existed between English and Cantonese. 

I said, "Provolone, please."  Not a clue... This was clearly a language hurdle to be traversed at another time. She pointed at the cheese container and together we went through a few examples with her holding them up for my satisfaction or dismissal.  Finally we agreed on provolone.  She peeled off two slices and placed them on top of the sandwich, then with a little afterthought she placed a third slice.  It was at this point that I became genuinely suspicious of the meatballs. I pointed to the meatballs and asked, "needs heat?" with just the right omission of syntax when there is a mutually shared ignorance of the other's language. She looked perplexed.  Luckily there was a cardboard ad there on the countertop that had several sandwiches displayed, one side was for hot and the other for cold. The hot sandwiches had a red star that sensibly said "hot" in the center, next to the picture of the sandwich. I pointed at it and a wave of realization came over the woman that was both touching and encouraging. 

I began to become more and more aware of exactly how much time this was taking because the other guy had begun to help yet a 3rd person.  They were ordering sandwiches, tailor made, from start to finish, hot and cold, with their choice of condiments and add-ons, and so far all I had was dry bread, cold meatballs, and unmelted cheese.  We were a good team though and I was going to stick with it.  There is a sacred bond that forms, etc. 

As she put the entire sandwich in the microwave I gesticulated wildly that the bread perhaps should go in the toaster and the meatballs in the microwave, without the cheese for now, maybe.  None of this came across and my sign language skills were beginning to show signs of weakness with the added complexity of multiple process-oriented tasks to be communicated and performed. 

The other guy seemed completely oblivious to the fact that I was having to train his fellow employee on the intricacies and simplicity of making a meatball sub, a job for which she was presumably pre-qualified.  This guy could have made my meatball sub without even blinking, but he was just letting nature and international relations take their course. I was about to go hungry, perhaps even starved for the day, at this rate.  

A meatball sub, the way that I was trying to order it has 3 elements: bread, meatballs, cheese.  That is, assuming that the meatballs had already been prepared in a sauce.  So, I suppose the route we had taken we were going to be forced to make a 4 ingredient meatball sub. But I hadn't quite been able to figure out how to communicate the idea of "sauce" to this woman, though my mind was enjoying a flurry of possibilities.  

I was starting to get visibly frustrated and our fragile communications were beginning to fail altogether. People were walking around me with their multi-component and well-made subs already completed, picking out their chips, pouring their sodas at the fountain.  It was then that she really started to try to talk to me, to help move things along.  What emerged was a continuos miasma of the letter "r" and a combination of various vowel sounds, usually in tandem.  I'm not being bigoted here, I simply couldn't understand a single word that was being said.  She wasn't speaking any version of the English language that I'm familiar with.  It was a Cantonese-English hybrid of some sort, of which I understood precisely nothing.

I'm not sure why this didn't dawn on me sooner, as it was right there, and it already played a part in our sandwich dance, but the sign, the one with the red "hot" stars. I picked it up and pointed to a meatball sub, completed with red sauce and melted cheese.

She found a kitchen spoon, dipped it into some pre-made chicken pan, possibly chicken parmigiana, and covered the meatballs with it, put the cheese on top, folded it all together and then put it in the sandwich press machine.  Not perfect, but we were really getting closer. I would have preferred to have the cold meatballs in the microwave for about 30 seconds, but I knew that I just might luck out here, if she leaves it in there long enough, and if I let the sandwich sit for a minute or two, then it just might be edible.

After what seemed like an eternity at the end of several other eternities, the sandwich emerged, steaming, golden-brown, pressed, with red sauce gingerly dripping over the side.  I was amazed.  It actually looked delicious.  With the extra time spent there being hungry, looking at all of the other food, smelling other people's sandwiches as they walked by (Not actually sniffing them, but getting a waft of sandwich goodness as they passed), and with the clock ticking on my hunger, I was starved.

Thank the stars that it was the other guy who happened to be at the register, ringing up his 4th customer from the same time period, who was ready to finalize this incident. He had a laser in his hand, never even touched the sandwich, I swiped my card, all was paid. I was ready for lunch....

In my decades of witnessing the inept slowly take over the world this day marks the occasion of one of their greatest individual victories. For too long I have bemoaned the increasing automation of the world, thinking that it de-humanizes everybody involved....  I was wrong, very wrong. I take back everything I've ever said.  No more sandwiches made by hand. From now on I will only buy my sandwiches from a machine, chosen through glass, where they belong, the way the gods intended.


17 minutes.  

Blue Velveteen

I ride my bike about 4-5 days a week now, about an hour each time.  The valley here is beautiful and there are just enough slow inclines to make the ride challenging. Each day as I am riding I feel as if I'm encountering more and more of what might be described as the Sonoma underground.

Once I had found out that there was a healthy crystal meth scene here I started noticing people wandering around in the daytime, mostly men, always alone, usually somewhat frazzled.  They don't exactly stumble along but you can detect and inner-stumbling as they walk, they seem to be leaning slightly too far forward, so as to almost offset their balance, or at least to give them a sense of inertia, but not always of their own, as if they're being pulled steadily forward by a hook at the top of their heads, though their legs seem to have somewhat less ambition. They are always looking straight forward, a destination clearly in mind, and a glazed intent to get there.  They wear button down shirts but there is usually a t-shirt underneath those as well, both not exactly dirty, but definitely worn. The outer shirt buttoned about halfway up and not tucked in.

I could be imagining all of this, of course.  Not actually imagining the people walking the streets but their atrributes. Perhaps I am animating them beyond the reality of it.  They could be perfectly normal people walking to work, ignoring me, just wanting to get there on time.  But I doubt it.

There is a strange surreality to this place.  It's as if I am riding through outtakes from Blue Velvet.  It is an immensely beautiful place to be but I sense that around every corner there just might be somebody huffing on a gas mask, obsessed with some sadomasochistic desire, addicted to the ghost of delight, indulging in vapors. I keep hurrying around corners and looking to see if it is really there, to capture just a glimpse, to confirm my suspicions.  But alas, no Frank Booth's yet.  I'm not entirely sure if it is my curiosity or voyeuristic sensibilities that are being triggered here.  I'll let you know if I catch anybody in some strange pursuit, and what the result was... pleasure, preference, revulsion, or otherwise.

More on local drug addiction and sadomasochism later.

I was riding up the gradual hill to the tasting room at Gundlach Bundschu, pumping along at a pretty good pace, when out of the vineyard came a large rabbit, a jackrabbit I assumed.  This thing was really trucking.  He and I were at a full pace trot.  He on the left side of the road, prevented from entering the vineyard on that side by a drainage ditch, I just watching in amazement.  Clearly the creature was avoiding me, but watching him tear along the road like that was too fascinating for me stop.  Its strides were impressive and this bunny was huge, 3-4 times the size of my dog, and sprinting as fast as I could ride my bike.  Eventually it decided that outrunning me was not an option and it had to leap across the ditch. It stopped and hesitated for a split second then leapt about 8 feet from one bank to the other, then off into the vineyard, little bits of dirt going airborne with each gallop of his distant sprint.

It reminded me of Willem Dafoe's character in "Wild at Heart", another Lynch film from around that time.  When he is talking to Laura Dern's character and he says, "Like a big 'ol jackrabbit bunny, jump all around that hole."

I think that's where I got the Blue Velvet thing today.  Riding the bike does strange things to the mind. It exhausts the body and the mind escapes, trying to save itself.

I hear the train a comin'....

Transition fatigue.  There is so much to re-learn and adjust to.  Little things.  I know how to do what I'm doing but I don't know where I put the parts, either in boxes or in a new and different drawer.  I look, I look again, it's been moved, again.  

Each day I drive to and from work through some of the most beautiful country there is.  I'm sure that soon I will tire of the commute but for now it is beautiful and I love driving with the windows down, music blasting or not.  Once I enter Sonoma there are two ways to get home, basically.  One is a little longer but it is perhaps the best part of the drive.  It is through vineyards framed by beautiful golden hills,  peppered with green trees. As the sun sets the color temperature brings out the most amazing colors and shadows of the rolling mounds.  It is a delicious place to live.

I work across the bay from San Quentin State Prison. It is almost all that can be seen from across the bay, that and the mountains and clouds behind it.  It is a very serious building and one clearly not to be trifled with. Scott Peterson is there for having killed his pregnant wife just before Christmas.  He is in like-minded company, presumably.  There are many infamous inmates there: the "Dating Game" killer, the "Night Stalker", Charles Manson was once imprisoned there. 

Art Pepper, troubled jazz musician and drug addict, a former resident.  Merle Haggard was also once an inmate there.  He wrote a song about it,  "Mama Tried"...  Two of California's best.

Black Bart, celebrated "old-west" outlaw, stage-coach robber, and poet.

The last execution by hanging was done there in 1942. The most recent execution by lethal injection was Stanley Tookie Wiliams, leader of the "Crips" street gang (formerly), and celebrity author of children's books concerning San Quentin (written once imprisoned).  Barbara Graham, whose story was fictionalized in the movie, "I Want To Live!", and also met her end there in 1955.

It boasts the largest death row in the country. Take that, Texas....  Well, sort of.  The Texas death row system is fully functioning, they've recently added an express lane.  It is a very pro-death state. One might assume that they'd be happy to take the Gitmo transfers. Who knows, perhaps ol' Gov. Perry will solve at least one problem, Texas style.  I'm with Selavy on this one. If they elect that fuckwit into the presidency then I  don't just tremble for the future, I grand mal for it.  Didn't Bush do enough damage in his 8 years?  How could the country so soon be ready for even more of that?  It doesn't seem possible. Yes, we did.

It is a grim place, that prison across the water, in great contrast to the beautiful weather that surrounds it nearly perpetually. Yesterday I looked across the bay at it as I was getting in my car and I imagined the Johnny Cash concert there in 1969.  Those guys must have raped each other for weeks after getting a glimpse of June Carter, an actual woman, in the flesh.

"In this here cell you're gonna be June for a year...."

Ok, more on rape and land and Texas later.

b-low profile

I have been riding my bike all around Sonoma.  After 25-30 full pedal strokes I am in a different city.  When I tell you that I live in a small town I mean that Google offered to pay us if we'd simply never mention the name to anybody again.  We don't own property here yet, so they haven't actually offered us any money.  But, they've reached out and telegraphed their intentions, if we have intentions, etc.

Wait. I've been moonlighting on another blog, so my senses are dulled, my wits twisted.

ok, Let's start over, ok?

I ride my bike as far and as wide as the land and my legs will take me.  It feels so good to push my heart around like I'm just another high-school bully, demanding lunch money from people who stupidly live in my feet, I tell my calves they're fat because they come from cows.

Jesus,  that's not what I'm doing at all. That can't be true. I'm not a monster, it's just that monsters have leased the televisions that tell me where to turn, they whisper my directions, they know things I don't want to hear.

Manstra!!!!  Where is all of this negative energy coming from?  It must be Burning Man.

All they're burning, man is my karmic vibes out there.  Some young-ish-neo-hippies are getting ass and getting high, and doing who knows what-else, with what used to be called "my drugs."

It's almost as if they've completely forgotten that I too am very pro-symbolic-human-scarifice-art-festival-desert-history-culture-etc.-event.

Well, I suppose that is the natural way of things.

Passing out on the torch and what-not. 

Ok, I have a great story to tell, but tonight is not the night, clearly.  I am weary and tired, some would say old, or worse.  Some have said even worse than age.  But, fuck 'em, they're getting older too.

Sssshhh.....


Sssssshhhhhhh.......

I have only the strength of this next crescent moon to guide me... 

never new, never full, never shared, always cold.

The moon is the greatest bullshitter, and fighter.

I want to pray, but in the darkness I'm so afraid that somebody will hear me, find me.


In the light I wouldn't dare, in the sun I shouldn't care.


In your arms let's pretend , let's

let's see, where let's.

Prince is an idiot

(A witness of Jehovah)

I am a Prince fan, much to many of my friends' dismay.  I still go back and listen to his old albums every now and then as well as keeping up with most of his new ones. There are only a couple Prince albums I don't have. I have a few friends who can not understand owning even one Prince album.  This post should make them happy were they to ever read it.

I'm not sure what it is that makes some people detest Prince so much. The music is good, very good.  But his persona is perhaps what bothers some of them. He seems to exist somewhere between black and white, between male and female, between gay and straight, between bondage and submission, between fashionable and absurd, between sex and rape, etc.  Some of his lyrical content might be too sexually suggestive.  Combine that with the previous observations and we begin to tap into what I believe are most peoples' objections to him. They have unsettled feelings about interacting with, or receiving through media, the sexuality of a person who projects such a strong and unambiguous sexual message while his persona seems so foreign and questionable. He stirs feelings of uncertainty in some, strong feelings of certainty in others.  It is part of his success, to ride a balance between definitions.

But his sexuality, or inconsistent sexual projections, is not the purpose of my post today.


I was driving from Sonoma to Napa yesterday.  I had some errands to run.  I put a 3 disc live album known as "One Night Alone Live" in the car's cd changer.  On the trip there and back I made it through about half of the set.  If I were to just listen to the music and ignore much of the political, social and religious content then I would be mostly happy.  The music is good and performed exceedingly well.  But the nearly non-stop stream of gibberish that comes out of his mouth finally got the best of me.

Most of the time I'm able to ignore Prince's odd take on religious dogma and his sometimes senseless tag-line proclamations about faith and identity. But this time it was just too much for me. Below are just two examples:

"The opposite of NATO is monotheism."

"I'm talking about theocratic order here. How many of ya'll are with me? (crowd cheers)..."


None of us, I hope.

Here is a man proselytizing for theocratic order?  Prince is famously now a Jehovah's Witness.  It should come as no surprise.  His entire career has seemed to be in search of some higher power, guiding light, redemptive force, penetrating godhood, flowered paisley god guitar, etc.  That he finally found an organization prepared and quite willing to take him in and embrace him is no big surprise. Fringe sects often seek out celebrity, thinking that it will make them seem less weird to the world at large.  It always fails.  I'm sure that there are a few Prince fans out there that have checked into the Jehovah's Witness message but I doubt he's been converting people over in droves.   Having Prince on your side of a religious mission does not exactly bolster up any additional support for said mission.

This assertion partially assumes, of course, that Prince has no will of his own and that he is incapable of making his own choices.  Clearly he demands that he makes his own choices in some ways.  Alternately he seems to argue for the universal submission to some unstated divine law. He is notoriously one of the most infamous control-freaks in the music industry.  I've heard several people tell of different incidents in which Prince shows up at a nightclub with an extensive entourage, as many as 50 people, and they all just sit and dispassionately watch the goings-on around them, none of them will ever order a drink.  Because Prince doesn't drink he doesn't want anybody in his group to drink.  Very Jim Jones of him... consider this when reading the last portion of today's post...

I've also read that the only music Prince listens to is his own.  It is all that you will hear in his home, in his car, at his studio, anywhere that he goes.  On one level I can understand an artist being so committed to the thing that they do.  But musicians are often their best when they are exposed to the ideas of others. I guess when you are the very penis-pump of god those trivial considerations no longer come into play.

The opposite of NATO is not monotheism, for those still wondering. He seems to be against national order and for the idea of a single god.  That's the most I can gather from the statement.  Beyond that it is pure twaddle.

It wouldn't bother me so much if every time he spoke he didn't do so with a "knowing condescension", as if he's tapped into a universal truth that he was put on the earth to reveal to mortals through funk and soul.  Prince isn't perfect.  Remember "Chaos and Disorder"...?  Remember when he adopted an un-pronouncable symbol as a name? People began to refer to him as "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince"... more like "The Artist Formerly Known As Relevant."

Some people have told me that they don't like Prince because they find him to be "perverse" and even "repulsive."  Until now none of that ever affected me. I found most of his sexual overtones to be funny, harmless.  I do, however, find the idea of "theocratic order" to be deeply perverse.  In fact I find it to be indecent, depraved and corrupt.  Who would have ever guessed that's what would finally turn my stomach about the artist, formerly known of.


When I got home I flipped through the liner notes for the box set...

In them he grossly misquotes Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Below is the quote as it was originally written:

"The virtue in most request is conformity.  Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.  He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind." -Ralph Waldo Emerson 

I won't bore you with his misquote but the main feature is that he removes these sentences: "He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness." and "Self-reliance is its aversion."  He gives no indication that he has removed any sentences, nor does he stick to the idea that a quote should be printed word-for-word as it was written and without further modification by others, or without indication of any change.  In one way he is embodying the spirit of the quote itself.  In another way he is just misquoting a famous piece of American literature.


I suppose it's just harmless though.  I don't look to Prince for spiritual guidance any more than I look to John Lennon for politics, or David Bowie for relationship advice. Those who do will get precisely what they've earned and deserve from the experience.  I am past basing my opinions on the opinions of rock and roll stars, though that was not always the case, as some of you will likely remember and remind me...

The only thing I ever based on Prince was cocaine.

.

New Moon

(Burning Man, aerial view)

Tonight is the new moon.  It actually occurred a few hours ago, so I guess that makes it last night, though only by pure definition. It occurs mostly over the course of this night. Different definitions of what constitutes the "new moon" have existed that would also include tomorrow night, but there really is no point in being fussy about it. For my purposes it occurs tonight and it is when the moon is entirely dark, not when it begins to emerge from the darkness a "day" after conjunction with the sun.

Living on the west coast has already started to have an effect on my perception of time.  It is an interesting way to see America, especially after living in NYC for so long.  It is easier to see now why people from the west coast dismiss the very NYC-centric view of America.  

The people going to Burning Man this year will enjoy a waxing crescent moon in the late evenings and early night for the next week, ending in a quarter moon (approx.) on the 5th when the festival wraps up and people pull themselves and others together, clean up, then head homewards.  It will be a particularly dark few nights to begin with, tonight being the darkest of all of them, for those going out a day early. 

Many of my friends go each year. I have considered trying to relay my Burning Man experiences here though perhaps I will wait for another time for that.  It is late and I want to go to sleep soon.   It is best not to excite the mind when trying to retire. 

I don't give much credence to these things (moon phases) but it is uncanny how many significant events between Rachel and I have occurred on nights of a new moon.  I always try to point out to her when they are happening.  This gives some credit to the credence, I know. It is the same phenomenon that encourages people to think that bizarre things happen on full moons, because the moon being full gives events added significance, makes it memorable in a way that seems repetitive, predictive. 

  

So we drift on, the moon ever returning, convincing ourselves of either this or that, whatever aligns the heavenly bodies with our wishes, whatever gives our impulses flight.

.

Meth, CA

I often overly romanticize things, I always have.  I have convinced myself that we are moving to a peaceful place where no crime exists, or very little anyway, and that our old fears and reactions are out-of-place and perhaps even amplified here.  I've told myself that we should relax, that we are living in Mayberry R.F.D., or a similar city that also has lots of great wines and rolling vineyards.  Maybe I was wrong.  

Yesterday morning while I was walking our dog, on the front lawn of our condo, I saw a young guy getting arrested by undercover cops.  

I had been told that there was a problem with crystal meth and that one of the historic houses here is now known for also being one of the bigger meth lab busts in the area, they were doing their sinister deeds in the basement.  Well, good, I thought, at least it's not crack.... Nancy Reagan would be proud. She really hated crack.

None of the people involved, not the kid being arrested nor the two undercover cops arresting him, looked at me as they walked by.  Well, the kid looked at me very briefly but then looked away, he looked down, as so many arrestees do. I wanted to take a picture of the undercover cops but thought of it too late.  They hate having their pictures taken as secrecy plays such a large part in what they do.  But they were in public and as such I have the legal right to take their picture.  I didn't though.  I wonder what sort of trouble I would get in for trying to trade them back their pictures for getting me out of the Oakland bridge fine.  

The whole experience made me worry about break-ins and theft.  Having lived in the same small apartment in the East Village for 12 years now I suddenly feel more exposed to danger, the various crimes of youth.  I'm afraid my bike will get stolen. It is just sitting on a back porch without being locked up.  There is nothing to lock it to.  Somebody would have to jump the wall to steal it, but it could be easily done. 

I imagine somebody in the grips of crystal meth addiction might want to steal my bike.  Or, perhaps somebody who had lost their license from drunk driving. Who knows what dangers lurk under these sunny skies.  Who knows what hidden crimes await to be committed. 

.

Mormons in the sun

(Oakland Mormon Temple)

My fears about the computer getting stolen were relieved when I picked the computer up from UPS three days ago.  When I got the computer home it boots only to a black screen and then after about a minute the fans run on high.  Nothing else.  I won't bore you with the details but it will need to be checked in for a repair.  It is very likely just a cable that has come undone.  This would explain both symptoms.  I won't bore you further with it.

I had bought a desk for the computer after picking it up from UPS. Thinking that I will need a desk now that it has arrived and the box is undamaged and all looks good with it.  Nope.  It is always something. Life is an unending effort.  No, that is not true at all.  Life ceases becoming an unending effort at some point distant.  But for now I just want my computer working again.  It is a new one, one that I rely on heavily. 

I have been almost completely cut off from electronic communications in Sonoma. It feels like I am on a camping trip inside of our condo. My phone only works here and there and in certain places around town, practically not at all inside. You will get a ticket if you use your phone while driving so there is really very little time for communicating with others.  The rest of the world is beginning to fade from sight, from mind. 

Speaking of tickets... We were returning from a bbq in Oakland yesterday and when we got to the end of bridge connecting Oakland to Marin County there was a $5 fee, which we were happy and willing to pay.  They only accepted cash, however. So there was a $25 fine for not having cash ready. What kind of freakin' hillbilly state have we moved to?  I will fight the fine, of course, though I question when I will have the time to do so.  Soon I will return to work and much of my time will be spent there or in transit to and from there.  My desire to fight iniquities in the California road system remains strong, my anger unabated. 

New York got hit by a media frenzy last night.  Apparently they were evacuating parts of the city, moving people to safer / higher ground, where their cell phones might work.  I know the feeling.

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Handy Wacks

I have killed off what few readers I had by not posting.  Moving is difficult, nearly impossible, and a long time yet until it is over.  By then we will have hopefully found a place to buy and the whole process will start over again.

Yesterday we went into San Francisco.  I drove all over the city.  From North Beach to Golden Gate Park and back again, meandering along as I went.  I drove by City Lights Bookstore, through Chinatown, along Mission, and Market.  I stopped by to chat with a few friends here and there then drove back to Sonoma with the wife to walk the dog, Barkley.  Ah, domesticity, bliss.  

I've been falling asleep and waking up on NYC time still.  By 9:30 last night I was completely under the spell of the Eastern Standard Time.  By 5am this morning it was the same, rising like a zombie at the appointed hour.  It has been almost a week, one might assume that my body would start adjusting.  Not yet.

I got hit by a truck yesterday.  I was riding my bike in the downtown square and he pulled into a parking spot that I could not see approaching ahead of me on the right.  As he did he knocked the bike down, my phone went flying, but I remained on my feet, stepping off the bike as it went down and underneath the truck.  There was no serious damage though, to either the bike or the phone, so all was agreed upon and forgiven. We were both partially at fault.  

As I wrote in response to a friend yesterday:  I am okay.  Shaken, not stirred.

The experience has me thinking about getting a bike helmet.  Some of the shoulders on the roads around here are too thin to ride on, which puts the bike partially in the lane of traffic.  There is much danger both in the road and off the side, near certain doom at times.  I suppose there also might be an increased number of people drinking and driving here, though I've heard nothing concrete in support of that assertion.

Well, I'll leave you with the image below. It was posted on a community board.  I stood and stared at the image, and wondered, for perhaps a minute or more.   

What? I thought.

  

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Saturday night in Sonoma

The transition from New York to Sonoma has been made.  Now the months of unpacking boxes ensue, not knowing where anything is, having to ask Rachel for everything I've ever owned, her only knowing where about half of it is.  Within the next month or two most all of that stuff will get moved at least once, so there will be yet another learning curve, one that just keeps curving.

But the wine is nice and the weather is beautiful.  We went to a fundraiser for education in Sonoma square last night.  It was never made clear why tax dollars were not being used for education, but so be it. My exploration into California politics is off to a good start.  People danced and drank wine and ate food, each at little picnic areas of their own, some wandering from one site to another.  It was a festive and lovely night under the stars.  The dance floor was sectioned off with Guantanamo style fences but people filed in anyway when the music began and boogied-down as if there will always be another tomorrow.  

Red wine sure is delicious.  I have already begun to take myself more seriously when it comes to the things that I will know.  I have been exercising my adjectives to describe wines: parsimonious, precocious, poised... bawdy, blushing and boundless.  I will study adjectives and shock people with my unexpected descriptions of flavor.  As long as I never laugh out loud it should be great fun.  

I considered writing another blog, one that tracks my development from being a manhattanite hillbilly to my becoming a professional sommelier.  I might need new things to do out here in the hills, under the moon, studying adjectives will only get you so far...

I read that Tom Waits lives in Sonoma county.  I expect that he and I will become great friends once he discovers this site...  kindred spirits, etc.  Once we get past our first album together it should be smooth sailing from there on out.

Ok, much to do around here and little time to do it.  I was lucky to have even found this computer. The image above is from Sonoma but from last October. I haven't found my camera boxes yet to transfer any pictures from the camera to a computer.  I foolishly shipped my brand new computer UPS ground... I will not sleep fully until it arrives safely and undamaged. To add to the poor decision of shipping it such a way I packed my hard drive with my entire music collection inside the computer box.  If the box "gets lost" en route I will be destroyed... I will have to start all over again, re-accumluating a music library.  I suppose I could just start with Tom Waits and then see what happens...

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Russian-Turkish Baths

(Jabba, the psychic)

I went to the Russian-Turkish Baths yesterday.  It was horrific. I thought I was going to die.  I kept telling myself how good it was for me, but the entire time I kept thinking that some types of death must also be pleasurable, as the body begins to accept that death is imminent and the endorphins are released in abundance.  But it wasn't like that at all, it wasn't pleasurable in the slightest. It was awful.

I'm told that it's good to sit in these heated rooms and let the mind-bending heat open the pores of your skin so that the toxins will be sweated out. If that is actually what is happening then I must be near the verge of death, or just past it.  It forced me to acknowledge, to a very specific degree, what a horribly unhealthy life I live.  I had psychic-visions and went on an inward spiritual journey and found my "animal-spirit" there in the darkness... It turned out to be a honey-badger.

It might only be that it has been too long since I've seen my wife, and the unhealthy lifestyle of a man left to his own devices is beginning to catch up with me, and show.  She has been in California, preparing for our new life there.  It didn't take very long at all for my personal habits to slip back towards complete and total squalor.  I thought that it would be kind of nice to have some time to myself, that I would catch up on a bunch of things that I wanted to do, that I would have even more time to myself rather than less...

Nope.  I just ended up trying to see as many people as I possibly could before leaving for California. So I've been running around like a madman, pretending that I'm still in my 30's, and with people that actually still are in their 30's, pretending to be in their 20's.  It is all catching up with me now.

I have stopped writing because I've had many regular readers encourage me not to "lose my edge..."  Perhaps I haven't been as clear as I had hoped.  It is precisely my "edge" that I am hoping to lose by moving to California.  The last few days in NYC have been quite typical. I've had a bus driver try to attack a friend and myself when getting into a cab. I had a cab driver drive me around lower Manhattan in circles late at night pretending not to know how to get from there to the East Village, which is about a thousand yards away. I got into an argument with a "psychic" about what constitutes acceptable civil behavior concerning walking on the sidewalk.  I got into another conversation with diverging views with my pharmacist about whether 30 Xanax prescribed at "up to 3 times a day as needed" is a one month supply or a 10 day supply.

In all of these altercations I considered myself to have "won." Any of them could likely have been expanded into an entire post of its own but I've been trying unsuccessfully to decompress, in anticipation of the differently paced lifestyle that I'm hoping to enjoy in California.

Perhaps I'm only fooling myself.  It would not be the first time.  Perhaps life will not be as different in California as I imagine it to be.  Maybe there will be an entirely new set of maddeningly behavioral   protocols there that will drive me nuts.  Or maybe I'll join a hippy commune, or a satanic cult, and spend the remainder of my days either growing pumpkins in a dolphin commune or making the overlord of darkness happy by listening to non-stop heavy metal music.

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Slut-Walk

(a woman being raped by your eyes) 

There is a parade today.  It is mostly women, marching in vague opposition to the comments of a Canadian police officer who said that, to avoid rape women should avoid dressing like sluts... (approx.)

Poor choice of words.  He could have said, "To help prevent being the victim of a crime you should be aware of your surroundings at all times and avoid entering situations where a crime might likely occur.  When getting out of your car don't leave valuables out in the open where they can be seen. Keep your money and credit cards concealed. Be aware of your surroundings. There are some people out there that seek to hurt you, those that look for opportunities to take from you. There are many tactics that can help prevent you from being a victim."

Women have the right to dress however they choose, we all know this.  But by doing so it does not automatically eliminate the crime of rape from the face of the earth, nor does it stop people from fighting that crime and working towards goodness, even if a few misguided Canadian illiterates are a part of that same struggle.

It is bizarre to me. I certainly don't have all the necessary perspective to resolve any of it.  But it seems that by forever defining themselves as victims they defeat any notion of personal liberation that I've ever understood.  Imaginary victimhood, or real victimhood, is a status that it seems one would hope to avoid, or free oneself from, or struggle against.

Some of them definitely are victims, and rape is very real.  Any caring and sentient human would resist it both in concept, and actuality, and law. But it's as if they refute the very idea of being careful, that rape is actually real, and it is foolhardy to not avoid it in whatever ways you can.  They, of course, shout that they are the victims and not the perpetrators.  In what other instance are we forced to stop protecting people from inviting harm to themselves so that they can re-issue their identities as eternal victims?  Perhaps only in Israel.  There is a big difference between consequence and blame. If your actions bring harm to yourself or others, intentionally or otherwise, then you must reconsider those actions.  A parade has never prevented a single rape as far as I know. 

A victim never has to morally evaluate themselves.  

To even suggest that a person could have acted with a stronger sense of self-safety is yet a rape of another kind.

Not true, at all.

Soon they will tell us that trying to protect children from harm is just another way of assuring our male dominance over all things. That the children have the RIGHT to play with known child molesters after school, that it is the MOLESTERS that have done something wrong, letting your child go to their house in the early-to-mid evening for butterscotch pudding and tummy-tingle-time is perfectly NORMAL behavior.  Why must men always dictate what is safe for us?

I am VICTIM, hear me ROAR.

Many of you are screaming in your minds right now that I have made a corollary between women and children, both assumably helpless and in need of male dominance.  This was very intentional. I am only referencing the feminists that currently act and speak like children, though dressed in lingerie in the streets of NYC and elsewhere, not all of the others.  It is infantilism of the mind only that I seek to resist.

It is my genuine wish that one day all feminists could just be quiet.  I mean, they would have nothing left to fight for, that true equality would have already been achieved, and enjoyed by all.  

The parade is ostensibly against the brutally injurious acts and thoughts of individual men, and on a larger scale, against the very "male-ness" of society, and that society was perhaps not rightfully based on women's undergarments, but instead on men's phallic ideas.  They are fighting sky-rise architecture with flying and buttressed girdles.

Good luck. Try boiling oils when they storm the walls of your sagging ideas.

No parade will ever stop rape, and certainly not one that involves women asserting that they have no responsibility at all to protect themselves from crime, that it is their right to wander into parking lots dressed in sheer satin panties, maybe even take a drunken nap there, in the backseat of an unlocked car, and that anybody who denies them that right is in league with rapists.  

There is one thing that I am sure of:  No woman should ever be raped.  There is another certainty.... It is all of society's responsibility to try and help prevent rape whenever and wherever possible.

There are lots of other things I could say also... No child should go hungry, there should be accessible health care for all, every individual human has rights and value, constitutional government is the best example of government thus far created, the scientific process is highly effective at determining cause and effect, etc.

But it's as if they are just petulant children demanding that they can act however they wish and there will be no consequence whatsoever for how they act.  That they are victims alone, and anybody suggesting that they should be "careful" is maybe an even greater crime than rape itself.  That suggesting civil and social moderation, and traveling in groups, along well-lit avenues at night, is just another way that men are raping the minds and souls of women everywhere...  

...because sensibility is not what is needed in creating a safe society. What is needed is women marching in the streets in their underwear to ward off the evils of men's sexual ideas of them. Men should be forced to acknowledge the vaginas of all women, bow to them as earth-goddesses on command.  Men should start wearing pink lipstick to appease the angry, moist, source of all life.

It's like fighting alcoholism with whiskey, empty bottles, a Bic lighter, kerosene, and hand guns.   

No, it is not.   Everybody should be careful. Why can't this be said without people taking to the streets  and demanding equality before the ghastly gazing eye of man....  Why is safety not the message being sent?  

The subject is rape, why is the reaction not safety? 

These women are sending the very uncertain message to young women that the tides of history are rapidly rolling and soon they'll be able to go to bars dressed only in multiple-penetration double-sided battery operated dildos, lathered from anus to artifice to oracular in gallons of freshly applied ky-jelly, if they choose to do so.  And...!!!!!  That anybody who even notices they left a little ky smudge on the bar stool next to them is a godless savage rapist, and don't ever forget it.  

If a man EVER gets an erection, or if he turns his head to notice you, or... ugggh..., crime of all crimes, talks to you......

If you see something, say something, ladies.  if you hear something, mace that fucker into the parking lot and wait for INTERPOL to whisk him away.

Don't worry, the revolution is slipping along splendidly.... 

Yes, you are still victims, and your expansion of the terms of victimhood is moving along just swimmingly. But you're venturing into the otherwise unprotected waters of abject stupidity.  Stupid victims are still victims though....  So, don't worry... soon you'll be marching for all people's inherent rights to endless naked irresponsibility.  Oh, you'll get there, you will get there.... One day we will all be free.

Consequences are the sole domain of perpetrators.

Yikes.

I support the gay-pride parades because I genuinely feel that these people have nothing at all to be ashamed about.  Having been socially subjugated for many years they now march in strong support of their newly found social expressions.  So be it.  I have often wondered how a "straight-shame parade", conducted on the same day, but in the east village instead, would unfold...  

Sometimes to see a concept clearly it is useful to look at its opposite.  It is all too easy to overburden one concept without deference to the other.  I wonder how many of these people would come out in support of a straight-shame parade, or even a straight-pride parade, or how many would come out to angrily throw tomatoes.  

Very few people actually seek equality.  They seek power.  Because life is unequal.  People want more than they have. Rape is the act of violently taking something from another, without permission or consent. 

It's as if the fight for equality should include power to walk through neighborhoods alone, dressed in lingerie, and be able to fight off any potential pursuer by sheer virtue of their dogma.  They're presumably reclaiming the word "slut", we are told.  I never knew it was their word to reclaim. I'm eager to give it back to them if it was taken without permission, though.   

As many of you know I am a strong supporter of the concept of words being the exclusive property of one group, and one group only.  

White men still own most of them, right?  Oh, good....

The current concepts of social equality that we all enjoy were primarily created by and advanced by men.  I wonder if maybe they should start charging usage fees to others. Aren't women really bad at making up new words?  It's silly.

Ultimately it is a way of indicting the entire male gender for the crimes of individual males, or the thoughtless comments of an average police officer.  Nobody seems to notice or care that this is part of what is happening.  It is a way of indicting everybody and asserting their agenda without question.  It is not at all dissimilar from the very crimes they claim to be victim of.  All are guilty.

Ok....

I am going outside now and marching along only dressed in pink satin thong underwear, lipstick written across my chest that says, "All of my many drunken ugly latino bitches prefer to be raped from behind... Don't worry, it's just because they're dumb. Yo' Freedom....."  

Some of you might warn me not to do such a thing.

How fucking dare you....

I am marching for all men, everywhere. To fight for a day in which we might all hold our heads high and  not have to feel as if it was our behavior that made women act the way that they have towards us, to have committed the indiscretions against us that we never invited, that we are not to be held responsible for, for anything.

Never again.

We'll all have a big giggle together afterwards and the resulting world will be a far better place.

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The best way to rob a bank...

The financial world is falling apart again.  Everybody acts surprised.   The longer I have a job and look carefully at what every single financial institution does to me, with my own money, every chance they get, and the government acting as their accomplice in the thing... well, nothing surprises me any more.   I don't blame the people in London for rioting. People get pissed off.

I've watched my 401k drop about $2500 in value in a week.  My wife tells me to just relax that it will spring back. But nobody's ever really sure if it will.  We assume that it will, but sometimes it doesn't.  Major institutions collapse and if you happened to have your money tied up in them then you are fucked.  $2500 will one day buy a lot of dog food, I had hoped...

People just get tired of it and before you know it they're throwing bricks through windows.  It's rarely ever just one thing that causes it. It's years of eating piles of shit, amicably served by every institution,  that finally rises to the surface and comes back in the form of vomit and fire. I wish I had a brick in my hand almost every time I've ever walked by a bank.   Or rather I should say that I wish I had just watched a brick leave my hand every time I walk by a bank.  

In America bankers are not afraid of going to jail, or being flogged.  It very rarely ever happens.  The biggest crimes go mostly undetected, mainly unpunished.  

The best way to rob a bank is to own one, etc.

Ah, but what am I to do...  I will just sit back and relax, wait for the markets to bounce back, watch my piles of money rise around me in inflammable walls.  My money is in good hands, with people who have my best interests in mind when they are making their decisions. These people want me to one day also be wealthy, just like them.  They send me emails telling me so.  They tell me not to panic, not to pull out.  

Idiots.  I'm not the one that the rioters are after.

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Lost days

Lost days, one after another after another.  I don't know why I do it.  I never know.

I haven't left my apartment in two days. I've just sat, nearly catatonic, staring at the wall, unable to read, bored witless, but without the desire to leave, without any desire. 

Without anything, when will I learn.

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I Want To Know What Love Is

(Werner-Branz)

I don't know precisely what it is about riding home from work on a bicycle in the rain that is so depressing, but it is.  The subway isn't

No, not that.  Let me try a different start. A few of my friends have commented that my posts lately seem principally negative, too cynical.  I had thought a few of them were funny, but perhaps that is just me.  I always laugh at the wrong time.

Isn't karaoke just fun?  

I was going to try to write about karaoke but I guess I don't have as much to say about it as I had initially hoped.  I have a fantasy about one-day absolutely owning a karaoke bar with Foreigner's "I Want To Know What Love Is".... It's a secret sort of, in hushed and rushed tones I'll tell anybody that'll listen.  

I picture the place singing along with the choruses, joining me, not a dry eye in the house...

I want to grow up.  I want to run around in the yard until my head turns purple and pull cork off of the wall until my parents scream at me.  I want all of the neighbors to have fish tanks and swimming pools, and gardens.  I want to go to steakhouses where there is a salad bar towards the center and only about 4 tables in each satellite room to make it seem very exclusive.  I want a garage.  I want a boomerang.  I want a porch.  I want to watch rain in the dark, with lightning.  I want to watch the rain in the morning and not have to get out of bed.  I want a bed.  I want lightning.  I want lightning bugs.

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Get over here....

(lovely a girl as there ever was)

To give you an idea of how sad my life is right now..... I came home from work tonight and tried to jog a mile.  I've gotten so fat that my back hurt from the start, so I couldn't quite finish.  My back gave out only shortly before my lungs and legs did.   I had thought enough of my pain in advance to bring beer money with me jogging.  I stopped at the corner deli.  My friends there, surprised that I was wet with sweat, asked if everything was ok.  I waved my hand, breathless, that all was fine... etc.  This is normal.

(I have been in immense back pain lately, though oddly it does not seem to bother me to jog, or to ride a bike, or walk... I know this seems unlikely, but bear with me here.... it is a different part of my back/leg that hurts tremendously. The part that hurts from jogging is moderately manageable with normal life-dullers like beer. The other pain-part is eternal and from the center of iniquity, the evil of unknown distant stars. I have begged and cursed everyone for morphine to relieve the pain, but nobody in my miniature shrinking universe has any sympathy for me, or power.... more on that later....)

So, I come home from work... In solitude. The very thing that I had thought that I had wanted for so long.  Nope.  I must be out of my mind.  I didn't really want solitude. I only wanted Rachel to leave me alone for a few minutes each night, but to always be there to leave me alone, etc.  I am so fucked up I don't know what I want.  Except that I very much do want morphine.  

Solitude is fucking horrendous, it is for idiots and assholes and other idiots.  I can't read, I can't write, I cant sleep, I don't want to shower.  I haunt the house that I live in.  I have eaten mostly philly-cheesesteaks for three days straight.  Even my clean clothes smell funny and don't look right in the daylight.  Though they are folded and stacked, they look weird, off. 

Daylight looks yellow, not golden, just yellow.  It is too hot.

So, let me get back to the point:  I have been listening to Led Zeppelin, and lots of it.  When I say lots, I mean LOTS.  When I was much younger I was your standard Led Zeppelin pot-head fuck-brained fanatic.  I eagerly overlooked all of The Hobbit bullshit, and the dopey myth about satan cults, and hotel eels.  I loved the mysterious dark power to their music, to their production, to the very idea that cool stupid people could easily outgrasp the very uncool smart people that I knew.  

It was primal, you see.  Hey, hey what can I do...?

Anyway, I'm trying to give you insight into my life at home now.  My studio speakers have been shipped out by migrant hobos on a midnight train to places unknown, so I can't even reasonably break any laws with the speakers on my computer, but I try and try.   I come home, sort-of-jog, return defeated, drink some cold beer, jam some LED FUCKIGN ZEPPELIN, MAN... as loud as it will go on an iMac's built-in speaker, kick my feet up as high as they'll go, and start texting my pregnant wife.  

Such is the tremendous sweep of my danger...... I am my own doppeldanger.  God-dang it, man.

I have a much damaged lower spine, a bone that is the shape of a boxer's nose growing out of the heel of my right foot, I'm 42, currently living alone, listening to Zep, late at night, drinking beer, Coors, in fact... By any societal standards I should probably be quarantined.  I'm about to give somebody rabies. 

My wife laughs along with all of it.  She thinks it is a great joke.  She remembers the dangerous years....

I probably shouldn't be writing this:  Once when her and I were still playfully/sexually toppling towards real love.... I had fallen under some new misery of the misfortune of aging.  She was standing at the foot of the bed, luminous, barely dressed in some iridescent cotton-fuck-tissue, scent from heavens...  I likely had a pillow under my knees to elevate the throbbing ailment. But she stood there and looked both good and great and fresh and redeeming and fertile and wonderfully innocently pornographic, but also just nude enough to be scenic, floating above me, lovely a girl as there ever was....  We were drinking wine, of course, talking in the open ways of comfort and ease, as lovers, with the ease of lovers, each of us quite pleased, charmed magnets, suddenly on the verge of recapturing the sense of seduction that grants it all, that makes it all, holds it all, the force that binds togethers.... the force from which there is no turning, sense and sensuality, unexpected suction and then action and undertow, some visions, some darkness, some light, and then the sudden warm underwater joy of flight.  

She looked at me, asked if I would be okay ?  If I was sure that I was, up for it...

I stared back at her thin body, her glowing delicious smiling eyes... and her lips, so soon to be had, and held out my hand there for her... 

"Get over here and break my hip..."

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Only children

My mother was an only child.  I trace some of my sensibilities back to her, sensibly.  I sometimes wonder if perhaps I was born to exclusively love persons of this pattern, of this singular frame of mind, of this lone scaffold.  Many of my girlfriends have been only-children.  My mentor since my teen years, also an only-child.  My lifelong best friend, Z, the only-oldest-child in her family.... which, by her standards, qualifies as "only"...  her sisters seem to concur.  Her husband, a dj, the onliest there ever was.  Being a dj is akin to being a comic-book superhero, orphaned and supernaturally destined for two dimensional fame: a vague narrative and strictly serialized life.  I want to do a VH-1 series on 90's "rave dj's" called, "Where Were They Then?"

All dj's are only-children.  It is science.

Everybody I've ever loved has acted as an only child, me most of all.

Only Catholics, perhaps, have acted otherwise, or Jews.  Jesus, him too.  Bono. Bonaroo. Coachella. Lollapalooza.  Iggy Pop, does he have siblings?  Dear god... no, please no....

All famous people act like only-children, and all only-children act as if they're famous.  Another of my best friends is also a dj.  Of all of the children I know, born among many, he is the most only-child there is, or ever was, or will be.    

Our dog, Barkley, surely must consider himself an only child.  If not one step beyond that... somewhere between only-child and lone offspring of man.  I know that he looks at me with deep and lasting suspicion. He dreams of chewing my eyeballs from their sockets while they make squeaky sounds.  I know this... 

Right now I have an only-child wife, sometimes acting like an only-child-child, carrying an actual soon-to-be only-child.  Some conundrum...


I've read that it's all myth though... the only-child syndrome, that there's no truth to it.  It's like bizarre behavior on full-moons, it's only anecdotal. They've tested a variety of traits and found that only-children rank no higher or lower than others.  It's difficult to believe, but again, it's science... so, who am I to question?  It's not as if I form relationships once I've found out their family history.


It is my suspicion that we are all only children, connected by cosmic need, that many mistake for a universal "one-ness"...

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"Oh, the ringer was turned down."

(Rachel, dreaming of a world w/out phones)

Waking up alone is strange. Once you have gotten used to the other, the wife and puppy, well.... the spirit does not jump so easily back towards solitude. The wife is gone to the west coast.  I was left here to facilitate a hopeful transfer with my job.  It seemed a sensible solution at the time.  Now I feel slightly deserted.  This is partially because my wife's phone only seems to work when I'm not the one calling.  I won't bore you with the details but it is a perennial frustration of mine.  I am never able to get her on the phone by calling the appropriate number, hers.  There is always some reason why but never any solution for it.  

So last night I ignored her texts as I was going to sleep.  I thought that this would send the needed message.  Nope.  I just felt guilty and stupid.  There is no winning. Pregnant women get to act however they want, anything you do in retaliation just ends in dismal, shameful failure.  The most inane excuses are expected to be accepted for their behavior :  "Oh, it was locked in the trunk of the car.".... "I was walking through a doorway.", "There's something wrong with my ringtones.", "I was chatting with a toll-booth attendant.", "Does this thing have an antenna on it?", "Your picture didn't come up when you called.", "I wasn't sure which Sean Cusick you were."... It is endless.

You end up just sounding like a lunatic examining the obvious, so you stop.  It's the right thing to do, to just shut up. When wanting your pregnant wife to be accessible by phone begins to sound unreasonable it's best to just withdraw, rethink, re-plan. 

So, that's what I'm working on....

Next item of business: 

(Rachel, w/out phone)

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