Boo!

We went to a halloween costume store a few weeks ago. It was ramped up for the season with lots of popup ghouls and scary ghosts. The store was filled with faraway sounds of screams and hauntings. Not giving it enough advance thought perhaps, we showed the boy a few of the surprise skeletons and graveyard zombies. At first he seemed to like it, but then his mother and I found ourselves reminding him that it's not real, and not to worry. Then she just walked away from it all, took him over to the fairy princess wall. 

Look carefully above at the very serious countenance of concern on the boy's face, in fear for daddy's safety as I lingered back with the dark goblins that were sure to get me.

We now know where his first real nightmares were birthed.

That's the reason I wrote yesterday's post, which was slightly less successful than one of my suicide posts. I guess people aren't quite in the mood for ol' Grimm's fairy tales yet.

Or ever again.

Ah well, I had the pictures, figured that I might as well use them. The haunted house of Usher is behind us now.

I wish that I had today off from work. 

I would lounge and loaf and invite my soul.

Perhaps hike a hill with just a jug of wine and an empty notebook, rid the mind of its terror and some of its cobwebs, breathe what there is to breathe in from the top of a perfect day. Return with the story of seeing off to faraway distances, past the autumn waters, beyond the hills across the bay, to the sun. To treat observation of the world as a sort of open invocation, to feel the wind as a type of listening, to regard silence as its reply.

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Autumn, the Grimm wicked winds

I don't know why but my sleeping habits have upended themselves. I'm not waking up early enough in the morning any longer to go to the gym and to write a post here. This morning I didn't even make it to the gym. At this rate soon I will just keep sleeping. Some might wonder where I am.

I did recently split a nice, juicy apple with a farmer's wife. She ate the white innards and I was left with the glowing red skin. She was the same woman that gave me the poison comb, and the unbreathing bodice. 

Magic mirror in my hand, who is reflecting as drowned in the flood, lips as coarse as sand, and blood as red as blood?

When I awake, before I yet open my eyes, morning skin as as morning snow, I sometimes hear the sound of seven dwarves rustling around me. Each time, upon my arising, the articles in the room have grown smaller, and seven naked dwarves are scrambling for their lives. 

Now, all that awaits me is suspended animation, a nice comfortable coffin, and a princess to come save me with an agreeably kneeling kiss. 

She'll go to the ball afterwards, where the old wretched-haired witch will be forced to wear the glowing hot iron shoes and dance and dance, until... she drops, and burns.

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REI Half Dome 2 Plus

Some people don't like to sleep on the ground. They don't see the charm in it, at all. I'm not one of those. I am the other sort, a true nature boy. So, I bought a new tent. The time had come. My nearly 30 year old Eureka had given up its last semblance of dignity and order at Burning Man.


Rhys and I have made big plans to camp out in the backyard sometime soon. We have been talking about it ever since we visited the local REI.

I think I'm going to really like this whole having a son thing. He and I are great buddies and there is still much buddying to do.

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Hellhounds On My Trail

Nothing of substance to report today, as if that's ever stopped me.

I saw what I thought was the full Hunter's Moon on the drive in to work this morning, but it was not. That will be tomorrow, with a lunar eclipse to sauce it up a bit.

I will wake up all the local savages and explain to them that they will suffer my woefully fearsome wrath if they do not do exactly as I say, that I will make the moon disappear into the cold night's starry bunghole never to return unless they toil selflessly for my gain and pleasure.

We'll see. I might be sleeping, instead. Being a tyrannical cult leader must be exhausting at times. All that virginal sex, then the tossing into the volcanoes of the many used, the ceaseless drums, the still beating hearts, the drinking of the blood, the feather outfits, etc. 

It's all fine and well, at first, but one must tire of things eventually, even something as great and timeless as virgin volcano sacrifice.

It is the way of things, I suppose. 

I have more often wished to be the comptroller in a setting like that. Let somebody else do the heavy leadering. I'll just cook the books, hope for the best, prepare my various dossiers, dream up new monthly escape routes.

Spend the days conjuring various reveries; that all rivers lead to the jungle, and that all jungles might invite us.

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Hardly Strictly Stone, barely Roses

Ok, no time for nonsense today, everybody gather in, quick!... I have just this one things to say:

My son is a very happy cross-dresser. I exploit his interest in the canned beer that I'm drinking to get my friend to take a cheap snapshot of his many open and public perversions.

In his defense: he was wearing very masculine T.Rex underwear. (The science of paleontology consistently informs us that the female T.Rex had a better chance at survival. She was larger, and as such, had a more scoping and final bite. Her jaw muscles were quite prominent. The upper leg bones reflect a greater speed, and ability to negotiate chase, as well as the conclusion to chase, etc.  KILL!!!...).

So, just watch it! This kid's got a shot.

Also, as it pertains to equality between the sexes: I have long and plaintively often called for much, much softer underwear for men. 

I have Demanded it, even!

I'm on the boy's side, if you have not figured that out yet, and I will gladly berate the brute who writes otherwise. My verbals, in this regard, are scolding, like Yelp.com in Darkness, the nobel novely of our time. 

Equality starts with underwear. Or skin, at least.

I had to restart the creek of consciousness. 

Sun Kil Moon was playing. The boy just lost his little mind for it all, truly, really, funly. 

Children experience a thing called "overstimulation."

It's just another word for parenthood.

Is that so wrong, Daddy?

Is it, Daddy?

What were you like.

Meant to give her life poetry...

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Accidental Empty Nest Syndrome

(Autumn is the Catholic season)

This night went differently.

The boy fell asleep right away but then quickly made his way over to my bed where he tossed and turned at the approximate center, somehow occupying all four covers until I finally gave up. I might have slept for two hours, maybe three. I felt as if I had the corner of a washcloth to use as a sheet, one that would get pulled away from me every so often without purpose or warning. Diminishing returns.

Now, I sit here in the dark listening to the tender silence of this little sleeping human.

His mother has been texting me all night, a miscommunication about me watching the dog, Barkley. She got home to her house and the dog was gone. No ransom note, no demands, nothing. Just indignation, from her of all people, at this hour... She must have forgotten that I have the dog. I make the demands around here.

Ah well, Ooops. She just texted again, promptly at 1:52 am.

We are not the best communicators, her and I. It is odd, really, because I experience so few difficulties with anybody else in this same regard. Right?

Communication is akin to the manner of driving, nobody really believes that they are poor at it. It is as the inner-confusion of the person who believes that all animals love them. They will never be dissuaded from this affected notion. There is no cure. How many have argued senselessly about whether it was a slip of the tongue, or of the ear?

Even if you remove my many lionized wrangles, the number must still count among the countless. 

Soon enough, iPhones will record everything, rendering one person perpetually correct and the other person perpetually irretrievable.

I almost said, rendering the other person 404. My job is really getting to me. I am everywhere and too often succumbing to nerd-speak. There are worse things, one supposes. The bores keep acting as if their time has finally come. It is nauseating, but immensely entertaining. I must be a monster, to wish time upon them.

I work lightly and on the periphery of the tech-sector. As... I'm definitely on their side when they win. 

Now, I listen to my son enjoy the full opulence of sleeping in the center of the bed with every available cover. I sit here debating between the use of the word irretrievable or the numeric 404.

Numbers don't look right in italics. The slant emphasizes them differently, awkwardly, unusably. At least in this font. 

Fuck, I am losing my mind. Who emphasizes numbers? I guess they're out there: numbers advocates, integer exponents, digit defenders.

Jebediah Jehoshaphat!, what the fuck is this life doing to me. Being clever is not the same as being good or useful. That simple truth dawned on me as I typed, "integer exponents" into this endless screen, but I still couldn't stop myself. All things wish to survive, even poorly formed thoughts.

Ah well, Ooops. She just texted again, responsively at 1:59 am.

Our marriage failed, perhaps, because she and I did not spend enough time in the countryside, praying together, asking god for the wisdom and guidance that can only be found lurking in the naked creek.

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Sleeping at Dad's

(Princess Rhys)

The boy slept at my house last night. It looks as if it will be our first successful attempt. The last time we tried he awoke in the middle of the night crying for "Mommy!" and I caved, called her after about five minutes of trying to console him unsuccessfully. She came over and took him home. The experience didn't fill me with much confidence.

We've both grown quite a bit since then. We're old buddies now. I had thought that he would want to sleep in my bed, but nope... he braved it in pure Ikea kid-bed luxury. He's over there now, sawing imaginary toothpicks.

He'll wake soon and we'll make breakfast. I spent $50 on $10 worth of groceries at the most expensive market on the planet, truly. They asked me if I would like to pay their taxes for them as I was checking out. We just happened to have been meeting there, to have a little dinner with Mom, so it seemed to make sense at the time. During the "hand-off" I tricked him with the mention of ice cream, then backed it up with the actual fact. 

We sat and enjoyed cookies and cream, discussing the merits of Tarzan and what to do next about the bad guys.

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Emergency Room!

I had felt that the boy's face was nearly perfect just the way that it was - even as it changed naturally on its own - had also hoped that his first permanent scars would be many, many years distant.

Nope.

A trip to the emergency room last night, after he connected in midair with a piece of wooden furniture, playing at his friend's house.

His mother and I were tasked with "stitches or glue?" We went with glue.

The boy seemed happy enough with our decision. He is as blissfully unaware of his treasure of good looks as any true prophet of god, at least for now.


We were told that he would be too young to remember the pain of the stitches, but also might live with an irrational fear of doctors, etc.

I leaned down to kiss his head, many times when it was all over, huffing the fumes of youth.

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What remains

Each morning I awake, nearly naked. Then, write something here that is often far too personal. Almost each morning it gets scrapped. It's for the best, for now.

I exercise my right to remain silent.

I feel as if my whole body has an earache. There is a throbbing bubble growing within me, or emanating from me. Then, after those feelings pass, I'll blunder onwards in the dark with something absurd, meaningless, or worse.

So, in that same spirit, here is the remaining product of today's previous erasures:

I have decimated my readership again, Blogzilla I.

Suicide is even less popular than domestic violence, as a topic as well as mathematically. I might have guessed that, had I given it any advance thought. Though that is not really the purpose of this site, advancing in thought. Times are tough, many would rather gladly be known for holding the world back rather than ushering in presumed progress. The future does appear fearsome. 

So be it.

Imagine my surprise to find that my morning moods are not more marketable. We were just preparing to monetize around here. We bought some banner ads. Ah well, back to the scribble tablet.

Another weekend pleasantly approaching, the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, which I believe I have written about here before.

I just tried to find the post but could not. I used to be more organized, I think. Perhaps that too is only dear, fallible feeling.

I picked up Rhys along with the test prints from his first school photos yesterday. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Somehow, a photographer had convinced him to sit like a reasonable, well mannered little two and a half year old boy. I could not believe any of it. No amount of bribery on my part, not even ice-cream, can accomplish this modest task.

He loves me much more than any camera I own. He has let me know every time I try to take a picture of him. He wants me, not photography.


The photographer must of thought so much of his accomplishment he labeled the images as evidence.

The only thing missing was the exclamation: PROOF!

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Nets ask no questions

On the considerable, lighter side of suicide:

Another friend, one who is inextricably bound up with the first - at least for me - described a very different telling of a near suicide. 

A woman from another land was once a closeted homosexual. Her closest friends knew, but not her parents. You have perhaps heard this same story before.

She had begun cutting herself, in practice; the ritual patterns of self-destruction. Drink, drugs, nightclubs, etc.

No, I can't tell that story well enough today. I don't have it in me. 

The tale concludes well, in the affirmative. She sits her parents down and tells them who she is, after playing them this certain piece of music, to let them know, with a newly discovered confidence and hope for love that she is who she is and she wants them to know also.

She is loved.

Curtains....

They are putting up $72 Billion dollars worth of nets to "catch" potential suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge. This is meant to send a message to upstarts. Whether it is "hurry up" or "don't try," nobody has seemingly bothered to yet ask.

There is more on suicide, of course, but I am still trying to get a job at Reader's Digest, the Condensed Division.  Pamphlet makes Perfect!

Here is my rendering of Moby Dick:  My name is A-hole!

I have a talent that some have described as special; reducing articles of meaning down to their most abbreviated value. I get paid in inverse syllables. 

War and Peace: Needs More War!

Sophie's Choice: You Got chosed!

Most of my important work ends in exclamation points. It is the deep commitment to exclusively exclamatory emphasis. A Farewell to Arms: Bye!

The Hollow Men: Not with a Bang!

I have described myself as a 17 year old genius, to the incredulous boredom of many. 

Having repeated this egregious claim many times, some have just accepted it, like Steely Dan on FM radio. They simply can't bear to dedicate the needed energy to fight it off any longer.

I'll tell you this much, anybody that hates Steely Dan does not really deserve to like The Talking Heads. I've never bothered describing here the very deep connection between those two bands, but maybe...

Maybe Day Kenobi.

(The linked song below is not a good example. It's possibly the worst example. It happens to be the only SD song that I like, almost.)

Jaws: Teeth!

Well, I had meant to write something of hoped-for value. I don't have it in me today.


Everybody needs a day off now and then. A vacation: sipping Corona out of a Sandal's resort toilet, positioned thusly on any beach, etc., etc....

That's me!


I foresee terrible trouble, and I stay here just the same:

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Mélange

It seems as if suicide has been everywhere lately. It doesn't take much, a few mentions and one feels surrounded, though not consumed, with it. The grief of others has a persistent way of reminding, enveloping.

The close friend of a close friend. 

The images posted by her reflect the very tender affection held. Love recognizes love. 

The places visited, lost time falling backwards.

She described the hopeless search for missing pictures; there was a visit to the country with his mother and his dog. The East Midlands, Nottingham. The endless loss upon loss. Once the body is no more there is only the clinging to the articles of an ever disappearing past. Living has a way of keeping and holding memories in time and place. Death fixes its opposite, a terrible scattering of previousness.

Suicide leaves one feeling with both the impulse and the inability to say something enormous. The response of living, talking, conducting yourself afterwards is somehow vastly incommensurate with such an act of finality. The reminder that life is fleeting, silence lasting.

Emptiness as a transitive property. 

Though, nothing is equal to the feeling of the moment. Nothing greater than, nothing less.  The next moment, all things less, all things greater. Nothing ever matching, nothing ever matches. It is an equals sign that points to endlessness. An unresolvable equation, balanced with the weight and width of eternity.

As far as last words are concerned, none; it is quietness without tranquility. 

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Ginger or Mary Ann?

I survived the three hour tour, did none of the deeply-feared though often ex-post-facto-"loved!" mastodon-psychedelics that I had assumed were required for such a journey.

I did a search for the title of this post and found these pictures. They were far too good not to use. The many click-ads that you see on this site help me support my struggling family, etc.

Apparently, there is some debate that goes on, whether: Ginger, Ale, Lager, or Mary Ann?

That's just pure silly, putty. Dope.

She-Mary is a strong argument against tattoos, without ever having tried. Never even mentioned it, as far as I know. Never had to.

Ginger probably discussed it at great length in the late 80's / early 90's, and likely went on a lucrative speaker's tour, called the "Sailor's Skin" lectures.

Don't do a search for "Ginger Tattoos"  You've been warned. 

Or, definitely not, "Ginger - Hervé Vellachaize."

Fuck, I've never begged my age group to get a joke so much before. 

And yet, some wayward others insist on calling me... porpoiseless, spiteful, and a disappointing antagonizer.

You wanted pics, old sport, you got 'em.

I have a close friend that demands to see pictures of every woman I've ever had sex with.

Alternately, he sends me pictures of hundreds of women that he has not. 

The disparity does not in any way escape, or taunt, me.

But, I am a good old sport about it all.

Ignore this post. It was written only for a fiend.

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Pink Mammoth

A Mammoth is a distant ancestor of the modern elephant, recognized by its long curved tusks, is generally very hairy, and has a long sloping back. It once roamed the earth freely during the Pleistocene period.

That's me, but a Pink, wooly one.


Going on a boat party tonight, San Fran Bay. It is one of the fundraisers, I believe, which make the Pink Mammoth sound system at Burning Man possible.

In truth, I have never really understood how these things work. I know some people work very hard and tirelessly to make things possible for others. I appreciate that it doesn't just grow out of the desert playa.

I'm looking forward to it. I have very fond memories of the Pink Mammoth party at Burning Man in 2008.


I will perchance have more to report on all of this tomorrow. We'll see. I might get involved in experimental recreational intake of multiple forms of mind bending psychedelic drugs, rendering my reporting capabilities beyond meaningless, to utter nothing of what it may do to my swimming abilities, and the capacity to sleep.

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My epiPhone

Mornings arrive earlier and earlier, in the shape of evenings and just as poorly lit. I must be returning to my nocturnal nights, my wandering Batman ways.

I just checked... I wasn't yet writing on this site when I used to work the overnight shift at Apple. I was already making a recurring nuisance of myself at the Soho store by then, learning to drink more coffee than was needed. 

Time really does fuck life away.

When I first betrayed all of my closest dj friends by doing the unthinkable: getting a job... way back in 2007, I was quickly convinced to transition to the overnight team by a friend and regular reader of this site. He left shortly thereafter, but I remained on, working through the late nights. 

Few places are as cold and lonely as midtown during the winter bewitching hours. The wind removes you, without a hint of memory where you had been, where you had once stood.

I would ride my bike up the East Side River to 59th St. and 5th Ave., past the UN, across more than 50 intersections each way, up and back, four nights a week.

From the time I woke up around 9:30 at night I could be clocking in at 10, if I skipped brushing my teeth of course. I would lock my bike to the street post directly in front of the store, then fix computers, and people's problems, all night.

It was a very "content rich" environment, but I never wrote about; preferring having a job to not having one, once I developed the addictive taste for a semblance of security. A mixed, bittersweet blessing if there ever was one: a steady job. It's always felt a bit too rigid for me, even though I seem to flourish when certain external demands are placed on me. Irreverence perhaps saves me, at least that has been my hope.

In the mornings, when I would finish at 9am, I would walk outside and ride my bike down 5th Ave. with all of the commuter traffic, sometimes in the pouring rain. 

A madman with a strong taste of death, ever heading south towards the East Village.

I used to joke that nobody that had not ridden this same route at the same time gets to talk to me about terror in New York City. The memory of it makes my heart race, muscles twitching at the thought of it all.

(Was that a double-negative?)

Why am I writing all of this? It must be because I got my new iPhone yesterday. Let me find an appropriate picture. 

There, I hope the one above works.

I started working for Apple just before the phone came out. I was in training at Cupertino and saw Steve Jobs a couple times while there, he was holding a prototype in his hand each time I saw him.

I'm not what most would consider a fanboy, but I do like the products, and it was exciting to see such a luminary tech figure in person. An American legend, truly. Shortly after returning to New York and starting to work as a "genius" we were all told that everybody who works for the company would get a free iPhone. 

Hard to argue with the coolness of such a move. 

I later surmised that the phones were bought for Apple employees by AT&T. It would have been to their advantage to do so, being the only carrier, where thousands upon thousands would have switched just to have the phone. There was also a "special" plan for the new phone, with increased rates to compensate of the overwhelming data usage that it would certainly require.

Some of us even believed it.

(More on this later, maybe. The gym has opened and my bike awaits...)

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A love not unflawed

(pic by Cato)

I have to be careful. I should be careful.

Many mornings I sit down to start writing and I have no idea what will emerge. It's a way of sorting through unresolved thoughts, feelings. Often I arrive at an unformed place, some unverbalized spot, not having yet realized it myself, that it must also be a part of how I feel and what I think. But there it is. The unknown becomes the unavoidable. It is not always pleasant, but it helps.

Some mornings I just delete all of it, a failed rehearsal. The useful practice of unshared expression. 

In this same way, it is sometimes best to write certain types of emails without populating the To: field. The "Send" button is too easily clicked, the consequences too severe. The chagrin of temporarily having felt this way, or that.

We are discouraged, by some, of having or expressing any feelings of anger or disappointment. We are told to acknowledge and then dismiss the sensations. As if the experiencing of such emotions corrupts the one that endures them, reveals a terrible inner weakness, a shameful fault of self. As if the sensation of anger is equal to the act of hostility.

It isn't, except maybe through sorcery. By an inverse of that same odd magic then desire would equal intercourse. It also does not, I attest.

Anger can be dangerous, though. It lurks towards the middle, trapped in the belly of a beast, without an easy way out.


That time heals all wounds is a joke. Time also creates them; carved like canyons into the cavity of the chest.

Prolonged emotional exasperation is much closer to exhaustion than it is to conflict.

The dry lines where a river once flowed, a bed of rocks awaiting spring, and rain.

That is already far more than I had wished to say.

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Vacation Valley

Flies.

Autumn is beautiful here, no question about it. It is also harvest season, which means easy access to simple sugars for those that crave them the most.

Flies.

They will also return when the farmers put down manure to fertilize the vines. The whole valley will smell richly and deeply of cow dung. The flies simply love this.


There is a cafe where I will sometimes sit and eat lunch in the daytime. It is pleasant. They have the best Cobb Salad on the square. It is really more of an Irish pub, but there is an outside patio that is pleasant enough. The wifi is slow but sufficient.

The flies there seem to be both dumber and more aggressive than elsewhere, in greater abundance. They will perpetually run these miniature kamikaze missions into my face or hair or arms, or anywhere. It's maddening. Their buzzing is much louder than normal flies, like little rednecks in flying pickup trucks. I have caught them trying to make off with bits of my salad. One of them even bit me.

There is a bar there. Perhaps they are drunk. In fact, I hadn't thought of that before. They must be. They are getting liquored-up and flying about, trying to start fights. I at least hope that they are all males. I wouldn't wish there to be indecent females, ruining themselves on drink and song, buzzing guys off, throwing themselves pantiless at strangers.

The notorious California Appletini-fly.

That realization, the likelihood of drunkenness, irritates me almost as much as the flies themselves. I've tried to swat them out of the air and have had only intermittent success. To lose to a perfectly healthy fly, one that is trying to avoid you to stay alive and thrive for another day, is acceptable. To lose to a drunken batshit fly that is trying to start a fight, or flirt with you drunkenly... very shameful.

I'll not tell anybody else, now that I understand the full scope of what was happening.

You can draw your own conclusions. I'm pretty sure that I could take any of them in a one-on-one. But they weren't fighting fair, and had me greatly outnumbered. I wasn't going to risk accidentally swatting a female fly out of the air. That would be shamefully indelicate.


I awoke this morning to the agreeable sound of rain falling on the many leaves of the trees outside and above. The window is over the bed so there is always the sense that the rain is occurring above me when I awake, where it belongs.

Just darkness and the sound of heaven's buzzing to keep from sleeping.

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The high cost of commerce

(Autumn in the wine valley)

Ok, I had said that I wouldn't say any more about it, but I checked my UPS delivery status for my new iPhone.... They've pushed my delivery date back a full day now, until Friday by the end of day. This is unacceptable. 

How is it possible that the Waze app would have given me a better delivery prediction than UPS?

Speaking of, I enjoyed my first week of working a single day in the city yesterday. Like a fool, however, I was checking Waze and trying to determine the best time to leave the city, spending the least amount of time in the car, trying to find that golden window of opportunity...

But, I missed it. The times kept growing and growing until I realized that it was best to go meet a friend and wait unto the traffic had died down for the evening, which led to a light dinner to prepare me for my full dinner later when I got home.

I'll have to find a better way of doing this single day in the city thing. I am the shape of different habits.

Ah well, I'll be bending my new iPhone in no time. There were millions of reports of angry users who had put their iPad away in their tight front pocket and then found that it had been bending upon completion of rigorous calisthenics. 

I don't even really know why I ordered online. We have Apple stores in California, where some people still tolerate me. I could have just walked in and bought one, like any fool.

Walking to dinner last night, I explained to my friend that the new phone cost me almost $600. He was in disbelief. I went through all of the costs, starting at the base price of $200 with a contract renewal, then another $200 to upgrade to the largest memory option, then the $99 cost of Applecare Plus, then CA tax which is apparently calculated on the full imaginary cost of the phone, then the upgrade fee.

$580, approx.

What is bullshit is that AT&T charges a $40 "one-time" contract renewal fee. There was nowhere online for me to explain that I had already paid this one-time fee the last time I renewed, and also the time before that. 

They should really work on their understanding of the meanings of words: one-time, unlimited, special offer, etc. These are terms that any phone company just throws out there into the marketplace and hopes that nobody notices.

They don't call it data limiting, they call it data throttling. 

Also, my friend had me verify the veracity of my shooting story the other day. 

It's all true, folks. I swear it. I was there, almost gone.

Florida is where bullets go to retire. 

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Childhood, mine

There is nothing new under the sun.

You could not have been more right, ol' Solomon, especially at night. 

I have sat here staring at a blank page for about an hour, trying to draw inspiration from this or this. 

Nothing.

I've even tried going back to sleep. 

There is nothing new under my eyelids, either.

I went through old pictures yesterday (above). Thousands upon thousands of them. I use burst shooting perhaps too much, like a drunk sport's photographer. Though... every now and then I get very lucky with this style of shooting. 

It would take years to clean up my photo libraries, just to delete the many thousands that are out of focus, or have too little of the subject in the frame. I have three full photo libraries now, all bulging at the edges of my hard drives, spread across a few computers.

I had hoped that having a child would make me more organized.

It is a strange and wonderful sensation though, to drift back through time this way. This site and my renewed interest in photography both coincide neatly. I have greater access to the last five years of my life than any other time. I've planted little daily time capsules.

I wonder if one day Rhys will gain an interest in reading through these many pages. The thought scares me a bit. Each post requires some explanation perhaps. Maybe I should start going through and making comments, explaining that, "Daddy didn't really mean that..." Or, "This is just make believe, nobody would really do that to themselves." 

"Please don't ever try this."

Seems a bit self-involved, in a (hopefully) charming way.

Maybe the above paragraph is all that is needed. Instruct him to start here, on post 1,552, if at all. On, or around, word one million. Just dive in and find out what your father is like, sort of. 

Don't tell mother, of course. 

There was a point when I had all of these posts collected in a series of MS Word files. The word count was both enormous and meaningless.

I think about my own death too much, I guess. I'm not sure how much is too much, but the thought recurs often. How does one know if they're being excessive or merely honest about such things?

There should be a known standard that can be used to gauge. Since having a son I want to live longer, yet I don't know how long. I just want more life.

There was a time when I was afraid my own father would find this blog. I wondered if he would read it, if he could bear the many heresies. I wondered also if I would read his journals, if I had found them somewhere. Perhaps when I was younger. It is hard to say. What if they weren't very good. That might be crushing.

Knowing he was reading mine might prevent me from writing honestly. I don't need another voice in my head, particularly another Irish-Catholic one. It's already a murmur of backlit ghosts in here, ever fighting off the papacy.

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A Mortadella Daydream

Well, I missed the Folsom Street Fair. I went many years ago, with a friend who has since passed away. We leathered it up, but managed to keep our cocks in for most of the day.

No, we did not wear any leather, except possibly on our shoes. 

I've never had a fascination for leather, or male on male sado-masochism for that matter, but that is perhaps a post for another time.

I start my new work schedule this week, which means coming into the city one less day a week, which means not having to spend the night in the city, which means more sleep at home, if I so choose.

Sleeping at home is over-rated until you don't get enough of it, then there is nothing else that quite compares. Your own room with a door that can be closed and the reasonable expectation of quiet and privacy. That is all that is needed to re-gain strength. 

Books help.

I stood behind a woman in line at the grocery store whose face appeared battered by time and life. It was as if strain had melted the outer husk. When it was her turn to buy her items I noticed a cheap loaf of white bread, a package of marked down bologna, and a 40 oz. beer. Miller. 

She questioned the cost of each of the items and seemed genuinely pissed that the beer was more than the bologna, though she showed no signs of reversing her decision.

I wanted her to go away, forever, to disappear from the universe with a barely perceptible popping sound. 

Normally I have more empathy, but I couldn't draw it. The reservoir has run dry.  I tried not to think about her, or her life, but I couldn't stop myself.

I found myself wishing her out of existence. Thankfully, that is not among the super-powers that I was granted at birth. 

The phrase "Monster Truck" kept repeating in my mind.

Then, I realized that I wanted to take a few pictures of her face hanging there, and then for her to disappear after that. I might have used one of those pictures here today.

I am an asshole. I must be. What else explains these feelings, these awful impulses. 

All day long we remind Rhys to be gentle, to use "gentle hands" and his "nice voice" when asking for things.

Maybe it is all taking its toll on me, trying to find a reasonable path to raise a child. Even just half the responsibility of it seems overwhelming, to me. Sometimes.

Perhaps I just want less ugliness and desperation in front of me in line, with the faded saggy eyes of decades of disappointment; as if at its long end the price of beer and bologna comes as an insult, and one worth voicing.

They really should post the price of things up front, so that one need not be angry when they finally face the cash register at the old bowling alley on the far end of the road.

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Non-Symbolic Interactions

("Tipper")

I keep trying to write a post but I'm listening to Cheap Trick in the background here, which makes it nearly impossible.

Nothing of any value has ever been done while Cheap Trick was playing, their own recording catalogue included.

They seemed like a rock band that had an unnecessarily ostentatious sweater collection. It must have been hell on the roadies, keeping the moths out.

Cedar chips, lots of cedar chips. That would be my advice. Alert the wardrobe manager, right away! 

MTV ruined many things for many people but the dangerous message that it sent - via proxy through the feminist movement to young women - that they shouldn't wear super-tiny dresses and "fuck me" pumps is perhaps the most long lasting and damaging.

Go back and watch those videos through the 80's. Only Latinas dress like that now, as if they stepped out of a ZZ Top video and right on to the cover of Hot Rod magazine.

I had better stop. I'm going to get myself in trouble, again. 

A friend's site was recently marked as "deviant," which is both absurd and truthful. The reviewer somehow overlooked the more important characteristics of the content, visual and otherwise.

This particular critic only seemed interested in varying levels of what he perceived to be "deviance." He has a meter that he measures with, you see.

This is how his site was self-described:

This site is for the fair and reasonable exchange of ideas, opinions, and research about the human body as it is publicly displayed. Emphasis is on what constitutes deviant and normal presentations of self, especially through clothes or lack thereof.

What a tosser. 

I would go so far as to even say a "dangerous" tosser, possibly "very dangerous," a kitten drowner.

I would have said, "... the fair exchange of unreasonable ideas" but that's just me. How the fuck is a site with no comments section the exchange of anything?  (Check out his picture. Priceless.)

It's the very simple exchange of pride for decency. 

I wish I were making this up, but I swear that it's true... The writer of the site pontificates laconically on any number of subjects, taking pieces written by others and then boxing off a little area underneath where he provides his "insight"...

This is what he has to say about Mark Zuckerberg:

An overnight young billionaire now

Devastating perception, that. Journalists globally must be clamoring to get an interview, just to claw at his pithy wisdom.

Most of his "insights" amount to a "You go, girl!" whenever some actress is bold enough to discuss body image issues, or yoga, or if she happens to have developed hips in full womanhood.

In his world, belly-dancing is healthy and good, while negligees are wicked and evil. 

Ah well, I'm just being defensive. I have very little tolerance for closet moralists cloaked as scientists.

I'm usually not wrong when I suspect those people of having some furious sexual addiction. I mean, what sort of perverse fanatic holds themselves up as the arbiter of deviant imaging, and then ends up on the wrong side of the line? 

A total fucking Nancy, that's who.

No one needs to be instructed in what is or is not accepted. Informally, that might be known as begging the question. 

It's like being a crossing guard for an open doorway. I bet he dreams of having an orange belt-sash and little shiny badge that's engraved with the word "filth!" He turns violators over the the principal where he can sit outside and hear them all getting spanked.

Not a bad job though, I guess, if you can get it.

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