You realize you are pushing your cycles and cams and pistons and engraved toothsets of finished brass over to force change so the person who loves you can see your moss and lichened belly clearly.
AUTHOR.CALHO: If I didn't write it, I would be hitch hiking cross country to Maine and then Alaska in that order. While taking frequent breaks to spread leaflets. And sit in diners. And write on things because I wasn't at a computer. I may still do that in a few years. Writing this also helps me forget about and better understand the limitations of being human, and keeps me busy enough to allow me no free time to burn the world down.
THEMATIC.ABOUT : Collapse often. The things that hold people together and hold them apart and scatter brains. The things that make thoughts go boom. The things that ooh and aah and [expletive deleted]. Sometimes poking around the margins where responsibility ends and the only one to look to is the Original Equipment Manufacturer and say "but, I already pressed 9 for more options and the menus are exactly the same. Can you just replace it?" The answer will be: "please hold." Sometimes hanging out in dark corners. Sometimes following the train tracks. Looking for ways out and ways in and all the while sharing the things seen and heard and done and drawn and written and scorched and healed and teased and caged and dreamed along the way.
Showing posts with label shovels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shovels. Show all posts
7/12/19
6/21/13
Captions Less Pictures, Bagging, Girls, Cracked Year, and Making Time
I saw a zebra printed Cadillac coupe today. I saw it coming around the S curve, my favorite turn in the road in the two mile city where I live, and I was in awe from the get. "Who is so ballsy as to paint their car in zebra camouflage print and rock it like: this is how I always dress" is what was going through my mind. Then it got closer. The car had a blacked out grille, but I could see a Cadillac logo nested in there, completely blacked out. I looked harder while it got closer and I realized it was going, far and away, over the 25 mile-per-hour speed limit for the main road in my city and there was another blue Cadillac in its shadow going just as fast. That's when it hit me: "its a test mule!"
Sometimes car manufacturers will throw a new suspension geometry and engine and transmission underneath an old cowl and body work to shake it out and make sure it does what its supposed to do. I thought that might be what it was, so I didn't go for my camera. There are thousands of pictures of test mules and chasis that won't match when it comes to production or even car shows that are wrapped in zebra camo and it was nothing special, until I started to make out the lines.
The lines did not match up to anything I saw before. Two doors. Shorter C pillar. Thin B. A really long A. The thing was going pretty fast, but once I could start to see past the clutter of the zebra print I knew it was something new. I ripped at my pockets and threw off my backpack to try and find my phone so I could take a picture of it. It blew past me, with the chase car in tow and I was getting ready to chase it down just in case the streetlight changed. The lines were awesome. Way better than the last Cadillac coupe, but the light did not change and it went on. The exhaust note was kind of weird, but I'm sure they'll fix that in post. Watching it blow away, I knew I would never see it again. Possibly never see another prototype in action again, underneath the zebra wrap. If I do, from whatever distance, I know I should get my camera ready just in case. I don't know why I love machines so much. I do. I envy them. So damn sexy. So damn easy. So damn difficult at the same time.
I was going to tell my friends about it. The backlog of knowledge was overwhelming. They're good people, but they wouldn't get it. They wouldn't get it and on top of it all there was no picture. What I would be talking about would be a caption without a picture. I'd ramble on and on and on and in the end I would say something like "whatever, you had to be there." My heart shook watching it slip by like a knife into skin. The thing itself was so beautiful. Once my brain resolved the lines of the machine, I felt like a cheetah caught sleeping while a gazelle pranced on by in a giant Sunday flower hat on its way to church. Missed meals.
I'm not bagging on myself though. It's the first time that's ever happened. It wasn't a mule. It wasn't a prototype. It was the body design that will probably see production. I guess part of me just wanted to be as cool as everyone else who breaks photos on the car blogs and magazines. What it brings me to is bagging on things. "Baggin." Where does that come from? I found myself saying it the other day after thinking about something I said earlier to someone.
It's the writer in me. When you know you're a writer, you think about what you thought about when you said what you said and why you said it that way instead of another way. I don't count myself as a writer anymore. I see myself as a tool. Sometimes as a tool and sometimes as a tool. A tool that sometimes produces. Maybe I'm just a producer. Hah, no. I hate producing. A tool that generates? Yes. I'm a generator. Autonomic generator, that's as far as I can take ya, do you wanna be a part of, oh yes, yeah, I'm on it.
Bagging. I thought about it way too much. Bagging. To bag on someone. Bag on something. The Urban Dictionary was no help. What I think it means, as I've understood it, is to understand that what you are going up against is not at all what you wanted or needed and so you bag. You bag your street clothes because there's no work to be done. No actual work. Bag your street clothes. Whatever was thought to be done was already done or otherwise not doable, so bag your street clothes because the minute you get there is the same minute you know you didn't need to be there. Bag your drugs. The minute you get there and get a feel for what's going on you know you didn't need to be there, but you are, so you might as well enjoy the time you've already set aside. Get to a good place and everything else will follow for you. Maybe not for them, for you it's golden. Bag your expectations. Bag 'em up. Bag 'em up. Take them home with you and flush them down the toilet when you get there. Bag your lunch. Remember how they said you were going to eat good when you got there and lunch turned out to be finger sandwiches and punch and sandwich cookies? Nope, because I brought my own from home and I gotta tell you this chipped ham sandwich with springs and spicy brown mustard and pepperoni tastes so much better than. Bagging.
Hedging is bagging. Hedging is bagging with a backhand because everyone knows when you're doing it. Everyone knows, once you bag, that you came in with low expectations and those expectations played out. It's not an insult to get bagged on. If anything, besides an insult, it says your friends love you enough to show up at all and your enemies did too. To see you fail, maybe. Faces get scarce the older you get when life changes veins. We all know that. Most of us know that. At least make their ticket fee worthwhile. It's not easy to bag. Sometimes you have to take a chance. Everyone bags sometimes. Sometimes bagging on someone or something is as simple as making back up plans or coinciding plans so there can be an ejector seat button that lands you somewhere more comfortable. Nothing wrong with bagging. Most of the time.
Girls are crazy. I'll just say it. They are. I sat through a very long exposition about how some other girl was going crazy and kicked people out of her house even though it wasn't her house or her right to kick anyone out (I would have felt the same if it was a guy doing it and relating the story). While she was telling the story,I kept remembering all of the times she went ape shit while we were hanging out. A diagram. A verbal diagram. Ladies take note. They don't teach you this in college orientation. They only teach the rape threshold.
1 drink: Guys) alright it's official. Girls) Did I get my ride home set up?
3 drinks: Guys) what time is it. Girls) oh my god, why is no one dancing?
6 drinks: Guys) games? how about yes! Girls) i feel sick. this is the song I requested!
9 drinks: Guys) game two, muthafucka! I rule you. Girls) this is fun. I'm having fun. Can you see my tits? I can see my tits. I bet he can see my tits.
11 drinks: Guys) game two, I'm up! Girls) what are you guys playing? Can I play?
14 drinks: Guys) game three, I'm in. Fugg that. I'm winning this round. Girls) You look great, what are you talking about? Oh my god, I go to the same place!
16 drinks: Guys) hah, no way. what he should have done in that fight is... Girls) oh please. That's bullshit. You're better than that. Have you seen my shoes yet? They're discount, but...
22 drinks: Guys) no, let me show you. Okay, okay, okay, let's finish this. We're too grown up to fight... unless you want to. Girls) [throwing up and/or passed out.... if not the latter, forward to the next...] I'm tired/want to go home/what time is it/i'm fine {not fine}.
24 gender war
Girls are crazy. It was simply hilarious though, hearing a woman rail against another about her behavior at a party and it was a kettle calling the pot black. I kept snickering while she was relating the story and getting really into it and painting her as this kind of horrible villain. At the same time, I was thinking about her moments and she's a fiery girl too. It was beyond me to try to explain to her that she did the exact same things except she was hanging out in my place and there's no way to kick anyone out of my house so she left and tried to kick her boy toy out of my place by proxy, but the attitude and acclimation that I have is: if you want to stay you can stay; if you want to leave you can leave. It's that simple. Feel obligated if you want to. If you don't then don't. If you're invited in, you're in for as long as you want to be. I'll do what I want and you can do what you want and if you over step I'll let you know. If you don't over step I'm good too. It might become uncomfortable for you and that's fine with me. I'll be comfortable. Do what makes you. If you don't like it, cash out. No one's holding you here so don't feel obligated, because I don't. Girls are crazy.
I miss my crack year. It was fun. A couple bars closed near me. You'd think they'd have the courtesy to let their patrons know. I miss the not knowing. The not knowing where you're going to get it. Those were the original adventure times... hold on... gotta change to headphones with better bass response... not knowing where you were going to wake up, but knowing who you were going to wake up with because there literally was no one else. I loved it. Still do love it. We're not low lifes. Don't put us there. Every night was time well spent. Now it's like those plastic chatter wind up teeth, except you're sitting on them. They're in your chair. All wound up. Every time you get up to do something, your butt holding them fast shut, they go off. CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHET CHET CHET CHET CHET CHET CHET CHET CHATATATATATARATATARATATATARATATARATARAATARATARAT. Wish they whispered. They don't.
They go ritttttereretetetet and I second guess what I'm doing and wonder if I could do it better breathing it, because some things I can. I don't know if that makes addiction. I don't want to know the answer. I just kicked paint. That was harder than kicking rock. Bad things, really bad things are still too fresh in my head from kicking it. At least with paint everything got super buttery. Like, seeing light, sunlight, made me taste green butter buds with fuzzy tips on my tongue when I saw leaves of plants and leaves of flooring interlocking. Endless energy came to me like I was whispering into the ear of Zeus himself when I was smoking. Something above and away beyond cannabis. There's no replacing that. I wish I could, but there is no way beyond it past pretending it never happened. You sit on that set of spring activated teeth and they don't go off until you stand up and then doubts crowds in hard and fast. Hundred million ----ing strong like a riot where your brain meets your mouth. How your ears get hot when you're about to fuck except it's right there in the back of your skull where you can't scratch and you know if you did itch it the entire thing you are trying to do will treat you so good you will never troll craigslist again looking for the desparate night flyer fuck to help you feel better without the peace between your lips. Fuck.
I miss the time I spent already. Only 4 years removed from abuse. 4 years of being myself. 4 years of knowing how to be and who I am and how to enjoy and how not to be. Her name came up in my head today. I was walking. It came up right after I saw the zebra and I was thinking about one times. I'll live it down. I will. She was nothing. I like to think I got lucky.
Growing up fast. I will give his name that shall never be spoken this one credit: he once said to me "you didn't have time, or you didn't make time" that was before he beat me for not cleaning my room. It stuck with me for different reasons than. What it taught me was that sometimes you just have to make what it is that you want. If you're always short of coke by the end of the week and have to go through the hassle every friday, what you should be doing is budgeting out to double or triple up your order. If you keep running out of fresh fruit by mid month, you need to buy the unripe fruits and mix them in with the ones ready to eat so that by week three you're golden.
A little planning goes a long way. You will find a way to make time for the things that you want. You will make time. What you do with that time is debatable. Once you have that time it's a matter of control. It's a matter of control and liberation because that freedom comes at cost to your doorstep and there's no way to flip it for profit out of the gate. Photoshoot? Writing? Sleeping? Everything that you paid to get that time free bears down guns blazing, Which bullet strikes your heart is not up to you. At least not as often as the wounds would love it to be.
Life is viscous.
Life doesn't care.
Life is what you can make out of it.
Life does not turn the other cheek. Ever.
Don't kid yourself.
Love yourself.
Never. Ever.
Lock yourself
into fear.
///Hot Chip - "You Ride, We Ride, In My Ride" its out here I may find my reasons for. ... found some distance. The distance that I needed to be... whatever the hell it is I am supposed to. Still figuring it out. Ghosts have returned. Hallucinations. I want the simpler times. But where you're going you never really come back from. Some of you comes back. A little bit always stays out there. I just wonder when the numbers run over years what it is that adds up to. How far away is it do you have to stay to make sure everyone else is safe.
Sometimes car manufacturers will throw a new suspension geometry and engine and transmission underneath an old cowl and body work to shake it out and make sure it does what its supposed to do. I thought that might be what it was, so I didn't go for my camera. There are thousands of pictures of test mules and chasis that won't match when it comes to production or even car shows that are wrapped in zebra camo and it was nothing special, until I started to make out the lines.
The lines did not match up to anything I saw before. Two doors. Shorter C pillar. Thin B. A really long A. The thing was going pretty fast, but once I could start to see past the clutter of the zebra print I knew it was something new. I ripped at my pockets and threw off my backpack to try and find my phone so I could take a picture of it. It blew past me, with the chase car in tow and I was getting ready to chase it down just in case the streetlight changed. The lines were awesome. Way better than the last Cadillac coupe, but the light did not change and it went on. The exhaust note was kind of weird, but I'm sure they'll fix that in post. Watching it blow away, I knew I would never see it again. Possibly never see another prototype in action again, underneath the zebra wrap. If I do, from whatever distance, I know I should get my camera ready just in case. I don't know why I love machines so much. I do. I envy them. So damn sexy. So damn easy. So damn difficult at the same time.
I was going to tell my friends about it. The backlog of knowledge was overwhelming. They're good people, but they wouldn't get it. They wouldn't get it and on top of it all there was no picture. What I would be talking about would be a caption without a picture. I'd ramble on and on and on and in the end I would say something like "whatever, you had to be there." My heart shook watching it slip by like a knife into skin. The thing itself was so beautiful. Once my brain resolved the lines of the machine, I felt like a cheetah caught sleeping while a gazelle pranced on by in a giant Sunday flower hat on its way to church. Missed meals.
I'm not bagging on myself though. It's the first time that's ever happened. It wasn't a mule. It wasn't a prototype. It was the body design that will probably see production. I guess part of me just wanted to be as cool as everyone else who breaks photos on the car blogs and magazines. What it brings me to is bagging on things. "Baggin." Where does that come from? I found myself saying it the other day after thinking about something I said earlier to someone.
It's the writer in me. When you know you're a writer, you think about what you thought about when you said what you said and why you said it that way instead of another way. I don't count myself as a writer anymore. I see myself as a tool. Sometimes as a tool and sometimes as a tool. A tool that sometimes produces. Maybe I'm just a producer. Hah, no. I hate producing. A tool that generates? Yes. I'm a generator. Autonomic generator, that's as far as I can take ya, do you wanna be a part of, oh yes, yeah, I'm on it.
Bagging. I thought about it way too much. Bagging. To bag on someone. Bag on something. The Urban Dictionary was no help. What I think it means, as I've understood it, is to understand that what you are going up against is not at all what you wanted or needed and so you bag. You bag your street clothes because there's no work to be done. No actual work. Bag your street clothes. Whatever was thought to be done was already done or otherwise not doable, so bag your street clothes because the minute you get there is the same minute you know you didn't need to be there. Bag your drugs. The minute you get there and get a feel for what's going on you know you didn't need to be there, but you are, so you might as well enjoy the time you've already set aside. Get to a good place and everything else will follow for you. Maybe not for them, for you it's golden. Bag your expectations. Bag 'em up. Bag 'em up. Take them home with you and flush them down the toilet when you get there. Bag your lunch. Remember how they said you were going to eat good when you got there and lunch turned out to be finger sandwiches and punch and sandwich cookies? Nope, because I brought my own from home and I gotta tell you this chipped ham sandwich with springs and spicy brown mustard and pepperoni tastes so much better than. Bagging.
Hedging is bagging. Hedging is bagging with a backhand because everyone knows when you're doing it. Everyone knows, once you bag, that you came in with low expectations and those expectations played out. It's not an insult to get bagged on. If anything, besides an insult, it says your friends love you enough to show up at all and your enemies did too. To see you fail, maybe. Faces get scarce the older you get when life changes veins. We all know that. Most of us know that. At least make their ticket fee worthwhile. It's not easy to bag. Sometimes you have to take a chance. Everyone bags sometimes. Sometimes bagging on someone or something is as simple as making back up plans or coinciding plans so there can be an ejector seat button that lands you somewhere more comfortable. Nothing wrong with bagging. Most of the time.
Girls are crazy. I'll just say it. They are. I sat through a very long exposition about how some other girl was going crazy and kicked people out of her house even though it wasn't her house or her right to kick anyone out (I would have felt the same if it was a guy doing it and relating the story). While she was telling the story,I kept remembering all of the times she went ape shit while we were hanging out. A diagram. A verbal diagram. Ladies take note. They don't teach you this in college orientation. They only teach the rape threshold.
1 drink: Guys) alright it's official. Girls) Did I get my ride home set up?
3 drinks: Guys) what time is it. Girls) oh my god, why is no one dancing?
6 drinks: Guys) games? how about yes! Girls) i feel sick. this is the song I requested!
9 drinks: Guys) game two, muthafucka! I rule you. Girls) this is fun. I'm having fun. Can you see my tits? I can see my tits. I bet he can see my tits.
11 drinks: Guys) game two, I'm up! Girls) what are you guys playing? Can I play?
14 drinks: Guys) game three, I'm in. Fugg that. I'm winning this round. Girls) You look great, what are you talking about? Oh my god, I go to the same place!
16 drinks: Guys) hah, no way. what he should have done in that fight is... Girls) oh please. That's bullshit. You're better than that. Have you seen my shoes yet? They're discount, but...
22 drinks: Guys) no, let me show you. Okay, okay, okay, let's finish this. We're too grown up to fight... unless you want to. Girls) [throwing up and/or passed out.... if not the latter, forward to the next...] I'm tired/want to go home/what time is it/i'm fine {not fine}.
24 gender war
Girls are crazy. It was simply hilarious though, hearing a woman rail against another about her behavior at a party and it was a kettle calling the pot black. I kept snickering while she was relating the story and getting really into it and painting her as this kind of horrible villain. At the same time, I was thinking about her moments and she's a fiery girl too. It was beyond me to try to explain to her that she did the exact same things except she was hanging out in my place and there's no way to kick anyone out of my house so she left and tried to kick her boy toy out of my place by proxy, but the attitude and acclimation that I have is: if you want to stay you can stay; if you want to leave you can leave. It's that simple. Feel obligated if you want to. If you don't then don't. If you're invited in, you're in for as long as you want to be. I'll do what I want and you can do what you want and if you over step I'll let you know. If you don't over step I'm good too. It might become uncomfortable for you and that's fine with me. I'll be comfortable. Do what makes you. If you don't like it, cash out. No one's holding you here so don't feel obligated, because I don't. Girls are crazy.
I miss my crack year. It was fun. A couple bars closed near me. You'd think they'd have the courtesy to let their patrons know. I miss the not knowing. The not knowing where you're going to get it. Those were the original adventure times... hold on... gotta change to headphones with better bass response... not knowing where you were going to wake up, but knowing who you were going to wake up with because there literally was no one else. I loved it. Still do love it. We're not low lifes. Don't put us there. Every night was time well spent. Now it's like those plastic chatter wind up teeth, except you're sitting on them. They're in your chair. All wound up. Every time you get up to do something, your butt holding them fast shut, they go off. CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHA CHET CHET CHET CHET CHET CHET CHET CHET CHATATATATATARATATARATATATARATATARATARAATARATARAT. Wish they whispered. They don't.
They go ritttttereretetetet and I second guess what I'm doing and wonder if I could do it better breathing it, because some things I can. I don't know if that makes addiction. I don't want to know the answer. I just kicked paint. That was harder than kicking rock. Bad things, really bad things are still too fresh in my head from kicking it. At least with paint everything got super buttery. Like, seeing light, sunlight, made me taste green butter buds with fuzzy tips on my tongue when I saw leaves of plants and leaves of flooring interlocking. Endless energy came to me like I was whispering into the ear of Zeus himself when I was smoking. Something above and away beyond cannabis. There's no replacing that. I wish I could, but there is no way beyond it past pretending it never happened. You sit on that set of spring activated teeth and they don't go off until you stand up and then doubts crowds in hard and fast. Hundred million ----ing strong like a riot where your brain meets your mouth. How your ears get hot when you're about to fuck except it's right there in the back of your skull where you can't scratch and you know if you did itch it the entire thing you are trying to do will treat you so good you will never troll craigslist again looking for the desparate night flyer fuck to help you feel better without the peace between your lips. Fuck.
I miss the time I spent already. Only 4 years removed from abuse. 4 years of being myself. 4 years of knowing how to be and who I am and how to enjoy and how not to be. Her name came up in my head today. I was walking. It came up right after I saw the zebra and I was thinking about one times. I'll live it down. I will. She was nothing. I like to think I got lucky.
Growing up fast. I will give his name that shall never be spoken this one credit: he once said to me "you didn't have time, or you didn't make time" that was before he beat me for not cleaning my room. It stuck with me for different reasons than. What it taught me was that sometimes you just have to make what it is that you want. If you're always short of coke by the end of the week and have to go through the hassle every friday, what you should be doing is budgeting out to double or triple up your order. If you keep running out of fresh fruit by mid month, you need to buy the unripe fruits and mix them in with the ones ready to eat so that by week three you're golden.
A little planning goes a long way. You will find a way to make time for the things that you want. You will make time. What you do with that time is debatable. Once you have that time it's a matter of control. It's a matter of control and liberation because that freedom comes at cost to your doorstep and there's no way to flip it for profit out of the gate. Photoshoot? Writing? Sleeping? Everything that you paid to get that time free bears down guns blazing, Which bullet strikes your heart is not up to you. At least not as often as the wounds would love it to be.
Life is viscous.
Life doesn't care.
Life is what you can make out of it.
Life does not turn the other cheek. Ever.
Don't kid yourself.
Love yourself.
Never. Ever.
Lock yourself
into fear.
///Hot Chip - "You Ride, We Ride, In My Ride" its out here I may find my reasons for. ... found some distance. The distance that I needed to be... whatever the hell it is I am supposed to. Still figuring it out. Ghosts have returned. Hallucinations. I want the simpler times. But where you're going you never really come back from. Some of you comes back. A little bit always stays out there. I just wonder when the numbers run over years what it is that adds up to. How far away is it do you have to stay to make sure everyone else is safe.
10/30/11
Every Day I'm Shoveling
First of all, why is "every day" not one word by now? Or the various "every" constructions? If we as a people can come to accept "bling" as a word with real meaning, how can we not accept words with real meanings that don't lose those meaning with the space dropped out? A space between words is a fence between neighbors and fences are necessary. I'm not saying take out all the spaces and make every sentence a word, though that would be awesome. You could say what you wanted to say whenever you wanted to say it in like ten words or less every time. But instead of an organized neighborhood of streets and cross walks when you looked at a page you'd see a mosh pit. Every time you spoke to someone it would basically be you sharing your personal rave and trying to combine parties when they spoke back and that would just be... ...awesome. Also awesomely unintelligible. For a generation or two. Ultimately though it would probably make our children smarter, or at least allow them to think differently. It would change politics. It would make it pretty much impossible for foreigners to assimilate and then you really would need to learn other languages because that guy that only speaks Spanish or only speaks Cantonese would not be able to talk to you at all in broken English because the language would be so agglutinated and dense that it would be impossible for anything but an uncreased brain to grasp it with ease and build into it.
Second of all: why can't I sit in a park with a shovel after the sun goes down? That is just unfair. I walk halfway across town because I saw an awesome shovel out for trash and I forgot to go back and get it until the evening and besides my hands were full at the time. I walk halfway across town, granted I live in a pretty small town and get this nice, heavy handled, spade shovel that would be absolutely perfect for some yard work I'll have to do later and on the way home I cut through the local park and it's a pretty nice night out and the hills are all dotted with little Saturday evening fires of people in doors so I sit for a moment on a bench with my new sweet ass shovel, staring up and letting my mind wander over who those people might be and just enjoying the weather cold enough to drizzle the air with the smell of fireplaces. I've never had a fireplace of my own. I like to imagine what it's like. I saw a duraflame log once, one of those fake wood things for people who don't like to burn real wood I guess. Or maybe for people who like fire places, but don't want to do the things that having a fireplace requires you to do. That really is the story of modern America. I want things, but I don't want to do the things having those things will require me to do.
Anyway, I'm sitting there and a car comes rolling up real slow and I don't look back to see who it is. I know it's a car. I know that pebble crunch anywhere. I also know people don't like it when I make sudden moves, and besides I have nothing to hide. I'm just a dude with a shovel. I keep listening to this car rolling closer and then, in the background of my mind because I'm still thinking about the hillsides and the gorgeous night, but my head is also running through all of the sound clips of tires and pebbles and speed equations, I realize the tires are doing police cruiser and/or drive by speed and/or jump out and stuff in the backseat kidnapping speed. So I stand up and I figure one of those three things will happen and sure enough the flashlights come on and the questions start in and why the hell do you have to shine that shit directly in my eye sockets anyway. I have a shovel. I'm not running anywhere with a damned shovel. Or at least not far anyway. So now I know. It is officially not okay with society to just be a dude in a park with a shovel between the hours of 7 PM and 7 AM.
I haven't really been eating. Not my fault though. I have been eating. Because I'm pretty sure I give off this pheromone when I don't eat. I'm kind of obsessed with how I smell. I try to match it with what I've been doing and putting into my body. Not farts. Those are totally easy. I'm pretty sure you can tell how someone's body functions based solely on how their ears smell. Well maybe not solely. And you probably have to lick them like licking a nine volt battery to see if it works to get the full suite of diagnostic information available through smells. What am I talking about? I get lost in theory sometimes. So I have been eating some. Enough to keep things going, but little more. Mainly because my sink doesn't work and I don't want to have to slog all my dishes down six flights of steps to the sink that does work. Naturally the answer to that problem is: don't do anything that requires the use of dishes. So I've been skipping a bunch of meals. I don't really miss them. I do miss them in that it makes it a lot easier to stay awake. Staying awake has become a full time job again. Partly because of the lack of intake and hypermile-ing my body, but also because dreaming has been so incredible I can't help but want to be there constantly. It's becoming less of a second life and more of a single joined seamless in phase existence. You know people that complain about how they "already did that" in a dream and then like have to go to work again? That used to happen to me. Long ago. Now it never happens.
Of course I feel completely unrested because I am basically alive and in phased consciousness for twenty hours a day, but the people I've met and things I do... it's been ridiculous. Also pointless to tell you about it in those terms because you weren't there. Definitely a "dude I saw this movie and it was awesome, you should have been there, but let me continue to talk about the movie in terms of superlative adjectives because if I frame it in enough paper thin hammered gold you will totally be inspired by the blank space inside the frame containing the picture only I can see."
So the dish thing I learned from my dog, Jack, rest his angry, fun loving, visitor hating, best friend for life, little Shelty bones. We would go on weekend road trips and he didn't want to poop in the house so he would basically not eat or drink, though we always left him plenty of food and water, until we got back. Maybe it was equal parts "if I don't eat then I won't have to poo" and vigil for me. "That's giving an animal too much credit," shut your face. I can't give that old bastard enough credit. He was the man. Seriously. Except for his fear of thunder and lightning and his rage toward fireworks he and I were basically two of a kind and alternated top dog roles depending on the situation, but we were basically 1 and 1A. Learned that little trick of no input equals no output, body wise, from him. More bravery per pound than most people who are not also Marines. Probably more stupidity per pound, but we were, again 1 and 1A on that front too. If you are a cat person I don't hate you, but you have no idea what you're missing.
Which is why I should never be a parent. Me and my kids will be the baddest family on the block. Partly because I would be way too fair to them. With my dog, he would bring me a sock for tug of war and being like three times his size, maybe four if I just ate a couple burritos, the only fair thing to do was meet him at his level. I figured his teeth were probably a lot stronger than mine, what with his eating bones from time to time (never understood that, but I do have a propensity for walking around with spoons in my mouth), maybe four or five times so naturally I used my teeth for tug of war. If I lost a couple, no big deal, so we got it on. "I'm a take you down to China town!" That's how we threw down. Gotta be fair. So instead of setting a curfew I would probably tell my kids they can stay out or stay up as late as they want, but they have to fight me for it and if I win then they have to go to bed when I say. I wouldn't kick the crap out of them. I never actually hit Jack. I would scuff 'em a little. More like lioness to cubs kind of stuff. Only minus the breast feeding. Do they even do that? Or do they come out of the womb craving a hearty meal of lightly chewed, but still fresh, Giraffe. Instead of telling my kids not to go set fires, I'll probably stop them at the door and say something like "make sure you bring fireplace matches so you don't have to stand too close to the accelerant, because I'm not driving up to the woods to put you out." Sure, I wouldn't let them blow themselves up. I'm not a monster. But I will make sure they know how to set a charge properly and it would be the best father/son or father/daughter tandem ever. We will be feared. Probably. Anyway. What I'm saying is every day I'm shoveling so don't cause any problems and there won't be any problems. I'm just a dude with a shovel out for a walk.
Trying to get back to writing fiction, but it's been a long and heady road full of potholes. I'm not dawdling as much as I am reflecting. I wrote a fairly long draft of a science fiction short called Scanlon, but I haven't back over it in almost eight days now. I'm trying though. I apologize. I will try harder. Life's too short not to try, so don't spend all of your time "doing".
///Deadelus - "Taking Wing"
Second of all: why can't I sit in a park with a shovel after the sun goes down? That is just unfair. I walk halfway across town because I saw an awesome shovel out for trash and I forgot to go back and get it until the evening and besides my hands were full at the time. I walk halfway across town, granted I live in a pretty small town and get this nice, heavy handled, spade shovel that would be absolutely perfect for some yard work I'll have to do later and on the way home I cut through the local park and it's a pretty nice night out and the hills are all dotted with little Saturday evening fires of people in doors so I sit for a moment on a bench with my new sweet ass shovel, staring up and letting my mind wander over who those people might be and just enjoying the weather cold enough to drizzle the air with the smell of fireplaces. I've never had a fireplace of my own. I like to imagine what it's like. I saw a duraflame log once, one of those fake wood things for people who don't like to burn real wood I guess. Or maybe for people who like fire places, but don't want to do the things that having a fireplace requires you to do. That really is the story of modern America. I want things, but I don't want to do the things having those things will require me to do.
Anyway, I'm sitting there and a car comes rolling up real slow and I don't look back to see who it is. I know it's a car. I know that pebble crunch anywhere. I also know people don't like it when I make sudden moves, and besides I have nothing to hide. I'm just a dude with a shovel. I keep listening to this car rolling closer and then, in the background of my mind because I'm still thinking about the hillsides and the gorgeous night, but my head is also running through all of the sound clips of tires and pebbles and speed equations, I realize the tires are doing police cruiser and/or drive by speed and/or jump out and stuff in the backseat kidnapping speed. So I stand up and I figure one of those three things will happen and sure enough the flashlights come on and the questions start in and why the hell do you have to shine that shit directly in my eye sockets anyway. I have a shovel. I'm not running anywhere with a damned shovel. Or at least not far anyway. So now I know. It is officially not okay with society to just be a dude in a park with a shovel between the hours of 7 PM and 7 AM.
I haven't really been eating. Not my fault though. I have been eating. Because I'm pretty sure I give off this pheromone when I don't eat. I'm kind of obsessed with how I smell. I try to match it with what I've been doing and putting into my body. Not farts. Those are totally easy. I'm pretty sure you can tell how someone's body functions based solely on how their ears smell. Well maybe not solely. And you probably have to lick them like licking a nine volt battery to see if it works to get the full suite of diagnostic information available through smells. What am I talking about? I get lost in theory sometimes. So I have been eating some. Enough to keep things going, but little more. Mainly because my sink doesn't work and I don't want to have to slog all my dishes down six flights of steps to the sink that does work. Naturally the answer to that problem is: don't do anything that requires the use of dishes. So I've been skipping a bunch of meals. I don't really miss them. I do miss them in that it makes it a lot easier to stay awake. Staying awake has become a full time job again. Partly because of the lack of intake and hypermile-ing my body, but also because dreaming has been so incredible I can't help but want to be there constantly. It's becoming less of a second life and more of a single joined seamless in phase existence. You know people that complain about how they "already did that" in a dream and then like have to go to work again? That used to happen to me. Long ago. Now it never happens.
Of course I feel completely unrested because I am basically alive and in phased consciousness for twenty hours a day, but the people I've met and things I do... it's been ridiculous. Also pointless to tell you about it in those terms because you weren't there. Definitely a "dude I saw this movie and it was awesome, you should have been there, but let me continue to talk about the movie in terms of superlative adjectives because if I frame it in enough paper thin hammered gold you will totally be inspired by the blank space inside the frame containing the picture only I can see."
So the dish thing I learned from my dog, Jack, rest his angry, fun loving, visitor hating, best friend for life, little Shelty bones. We would go on weekend road trips and he didn't want to poop in the house so he would basically not eat or drink, though we always left him plenty of food and water, until we got back. Maybe it was equal parts "if I don't eat then I won't have to poo" and vigil for me. "That's giving an animal too much credit," shut your face. I can't give that old bastard enough credit. He was the man. Seriously. Except for his fear of thunder and lightning and his rage toward fireworks he and I were basically two of a kind and alternated top dog roles depending on the situation, but we were basically 1 and 1A. Learned that little trick of no input equals no output, body wise, from him. More bravery per pound than most people who are not also Marines. Probably more stupidity per pound, but we were, again 1 and 1A on that front too. If you are a cat person I don't hate you, but you have no idea what you're missing.
Which is why I should never be a parent. Me and my kids will be the baddest family on the block. Partly because I would be way too fair to them. With my dog, he would bring me a sock for tug of war and being like three times his size, maybe four if I just ate a couple burritos, the only fair thing to do was meet him at his level. I figured his teeth were probably a lot stronger than mine, what with his eating bones from time to time (never understood that, but I do have a propensity for walking around with spoons in my mouth), maybe four or five times so naturally I used my teeth for tug of war. If I lost a couple, no big deal, so we got it on. "I'm a take you down to China town!" That's how we threw down. Gotta be fair. So instead of setting a curfew I would probably tell my kids they can stay out or stay up as late as they want, but they have to fight me for it and if I win then they have to go to bed when I say. I wouldn't kick the crap out of them. I never actually hit Jack. I would scuff 'em a little. More like lioness to cubs kind of stuff. Only minus the breast feeding. Do they even do that? Or do they come out of the womb craving a hearty meal of lightly chewed, but still fresh, Giraffe. Instead of telling my kids not to go set fires, I'll probably stop them at the door and say something like "make sure you bring fireplace matches so you don't have to stand too close to the accelerant, because I'm not driving up to the woods to put you out." Sure, I wouldn't let them blow themselves up. I'm not a monster. But I will make sure they know how to set a charge properly and it would be the best father/son or father/daughter tandem ever. We will be feared. Probably. Anyway. What I'm saying is every day I'm shoveling so don't cause any problems and there won't be any problems. I'm just a dude with a shovel out for a walk.
Trying to get back to writing fiction, but it's been a long and heady road full of potholes. I'm not dawdling as much as I am reflecting. I wrote a fairly long draft of a science fiction short called Scanlon, but I haven't back over it in almost eight days now. I'm trying though. I apologize. I will try harder. Life's too short not to try, so don't spend all of your time "doing".
///Deadelus - "Taking Wing"
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