Clean with alcohol only. Do not attempt to replace blown fuses. Do not remove access panels. Return to certified mechanic for regular maintenance. Made in the USA.
2/12/15
Forgotten Pieces of Processes
One part of the process I always have to remember that is very important in life inside and outside of my heart and my mind is music. Not just music like noises or radio or background so that I can better divide and discern what might be real and what is artifact or relic or error, but actively listening to and pulling apart and submersing myself in music. It's not difficult to forget, but listening to music is incredibly important in my life. Sitting down to paper my pencil or pen or whatever is in my hand and ready to create falls dead. Instant death. Sometimes I can move things along and create a corpse or a rock or a tree or a dancer or lover or a struggle, but it is lifeless. Stale. Imagine being beyond death to a place where everything is dimensionless. I wonder where it comes from and I tinker with my process or my thoughts or turn the idea around to another side and hold it up to the light to see if anything sparks inside. Listening to music and breathing it in helps tremendously. I will run over the same sounds over and over again, picking them clean until the only thing left is a place holder in my music library and my mind settles inside that hole, quite comfortable, stable, and slowly, one replay at a time, dying. It's not easy to forget, but I do forget that a valuable piece of the process is pouring in unfamiliar music to help keep the system turning with any degree of fidelity.
2/4/15
That Instant
the creeping suspicion slips in that there's an extra month lurking in the margins of the calender and everyone and everything is actually 8% percent older than it appears.
2/1/15
The Year End Look
2014 had many moments I would like to take back, but not too many. I didn't break my nose again, which is awesome! Thinking back through it I cannot remember a single concussion, which is also awesome and very good. Awesome and very good are different things. Awesome can be tanking on purpose to see if you can get a flat line goose egg. Awesome is also seeing if you can bust the high score. Very good is taking care of business and dotting every single "I" and looping to the correct depth of the drop liner each "P". Very good is washing your hair every time you must do it, but awesome is having a great shampoo without a schedule.
Twenty fourteen saw a battle between myself and a close friend and another close friend and another close friend that required more time to heal than any physical injury. Fully healed? Yes. Full confidence? No. The third piece of the puzzle is entirely lost. As is the fourth piece. I never believed it was possible to force or be forced beyond the edge of limping the object into a shop and getting blow torches out and suitable scrap, but sometimes, no matter how the repairs go, you can never look at the finished product the same way no matter the lighting.
The year presented no new physical projects in terms of repurposing homes and was difficult in that respect too. The hardest part about being on call is that you are waiting for something to go wrong. In that zone it becomes difficult to see everything going right. By the second quarter of the year I could see better that when I am doing my job well I will not receive calls. I always strive to do the best work because while I am doing whatever job it is the goal is to never hear from them again. In the time it takes me to get home I can, and sometimes do, forget that is the primary objective. I do not work to make friends. If I make friends after or during a viewing it is business. Business does not cross over to farming. Sometimes farming crosses over to business. I confused the two in 2014. Because I work a small job for you does not mean we have to be friends for life.
I thought I could make significant repairs to my lower lumbars, but I do believe the back injury is in the nerves. It's not a structural injury. It's software, not hardware. I learned through 2014 that some tissue explosions/implosions cannot be fixed by tending or work or loosening or tightening. Bring all of the wrenches you choose, unless one of the tools in your kit is a new gold plated circuit board, you are screwed no matter what you plug in, replace, or renew. It took a year, still feels like yesterday, to figure that out. I became very aware of my age last year and the limitations that age brings. The new year will bring a secondary mode. Caution. Beside the hatswitch for go is a new button installed to activate precision. Everything cannot be solved by a hammer. I knew that before 2014, but the application was aimed outward. The application will be aimed inward in 2015.
Everyone who shares a drink or breaks bread with you is not your friend. They may have motives aside from smiling. Believe it or not, I have better things to do today than laugh and clap my hands. So do they. That does not mean that they need to be cut out of your life entirely. That remained silly through the previous year and that point will remain sharp, if not sharper, through this year.
I performed a great deal of reading through 2014 without any specific schedule. That should continue. No books were finished. There was a boost in output that will take more discipline in 2015. It is a steep ask, but I am prepared for it. I do not like that my discipline grew slipshod enough to not finish or even map a new story though they ping ponged around my skull. It's pathetic. It's awful. You screwed up and I am saying it now: we dropped the ball and it hit you in the teeth. All we had to do was open our hands and we were too busy adjusting our emotions to see. We do not appreciate that. At all. And I want to make sure you know. "Why am I picking up my teeth?" Because you were punched in the mouth. You didn't trip. You didn't fall out of bed. You didn't scrap. You were punched dead in the mouth and didn't have the wherewithal through an entire year to defend yourself. Do better. I do not care if it is garbage. I do not care if it is too rich. Do you really believe years will keep falling out of the sky? Ignorance is not a defense. Do better. Stop reading, stop audiobooking, stop trawling, start layout. Start mapping. Stop talking about "I started this universe in highschool and"... what since then? I'm sick of hearing about it. Yes, physically ill. Begin to finish it and stop spit polishing a trophy no one else can understand. "But there's no translation..." so translate it!!! Do you hear me??? Look at me. Look at me! Translate it! Damn it, you are thick skulled. I want notes out of 2015. Stop dancing and screw like you dream.
I began a few tattoos in 2014. Progress is going very well. The sleeve will not be completed at the close of 2015 however there is very specific direction and direction is extremely important as they cannot be erased, easily or ever aside from through growth and the normal cycling of skin cells like tectonic plates. The reminders still remain on my face and are used daily. They are pretty much worth every second of the process. We are building a lens on our left hand to remind us of our ability and scope and potential and violence. That we can and should hold back at time as a window can be opened or closed or screened. Not zero and not one. Infinite, yes! Singular yes! The real pleasure is in the curve, not the approach either way.
Are we addicted to tea now? Yep. Significantly cut down on the drugs through 2014. Management & things. One of my cats died. Actual cats. Not "cats" cats. I took it rough. Too rough. Harder to deal with than I anticipated, but it reminded me that my pets are closer to me than my cousins or extended family. I think that's when the extent of my cut off really hit. My family, direct family, includes my brother and two sisters. It ends there. My father is dead to me so that I do not fuck up and go back to Maryland to kill him myself. I cannot do that. If I do that everyone will know, no matter how I mask it or plan it or do not plan it or just get in the mood and take the trip and kill him and my mother, because she'll either be in the house or somewhere within ear or eyeshot, no offense but it's best to keep things tidy, because I said it here and it's public record. I am closing that door, but it's dead bolted from both sides. Very good. Not awesome, but very good. Call it a standing threat if you want to; I call it a restraining order. If you come into my space I will kill you. In return, we will do everything we can to stay away. Deal. The cat's death was very sad. I mourned for quite some time. More than I mourned for any of my extended families deaths through the year. The sensation was arresting and unexpected and taught me the depths and exhaustion true hate goes. His death also taught me the danger of dehydration and the ties I have still with local law enforcement and the patience they have with me and the value of a friend who can tap into your nerves in ways we thought we only tapped their structure. The year heightened my self awareness and heightened my awareness of my emotional footprint.
I cried a lot in the last year. Much more than usual. I began to understand the actual details of outcomes through 2025. There is a lot of potential there and more danger than I would like. Many of my peers are pairing up and gearing themselves toward producing families and I became acutely aware of timelines. I'm not sure how to govern the sensation. I suppose I will have to start graphing... I can't. It will be the struggle of 2015. What do you give up, what can I give up, what can we give up, to make a family. I cannot. Not for me. Not for you. I will get up for a child, not for you. I will not fight for a child, not for you. Ever. I will not crack a beer on an off day for a child, not for you. It's a strange equation and I'm not sure how to change it. I'm not sure what is supposed to come on the other side of the equal sign.
One of the other things I realized through twenty fourteen is that I am fiscally trapped. Free as a mongoose in every way besides the wallet and the wallet is where futures are made when you look at families. I am damaged goods in that way and can be as free as I want to proclaim, but jailed for quite some time fiscally. Going for jogs, playing catch, buying food with EBT, unable to hold a credit card, unable to get loans (even though I refuse to, but cooperation will require it) or car notes, impressing other's parents with charisma, buying them shoes, going to dinners and lunches, going on a paint craze, shutting myself in a room for a few days because I cannot listen to anything because it hurts, all of these do not help a child's upbringing at all, but they are instrumental. I have no idea when or if they will change. I became acutely aware of the maintenance I require and it made me cry. Take what it takes for me to relate to other people my age without falling apart like crushed salmon in a frying pan with burnt butter. Add a marriage. Add a child. Desire came in the last year. Twenty fifteen will include learning how to better understand what exactly that desire is and not consciously or subconsciously destroying it wherever it arises, be it from outside in general or specific environments or from within or side effect to proximity to others. I will try to be more reliable and predictable and acceptable to your children or child rearing or child bearing circumstances. Failure to do so will cause increased isolation and we all know where that heads.
2014 taught me that no matter how I feel I have to get up. 2014 taught me who to trust. 2014 taught me to let go a little bit and who to hold on to without hanging on. It taught me change is inevitable and you cannot wish everyone a happy birthday because at least half them muthas have no idea who you are now and you have no business wishing them well because you have about as much idea of them as they do you, so stay out or at least don't go balls in to their affairs, unless they ask, which gives us a little gray area because it's fun to play even though not everyone would like to play with you. Understand better when no means no in fifteen. Just because you would like to laugh does not mean everyone else you encounter does too.
Let's draw this to a close. The last thing I socked away for 2014 was that you still definitely get what you pay for. That and given enough time anyone can be a mechanic if you study well and stock a good garage. You get what you pay for and through repairs to my truck I got exactly what I paid for: a running truck. I love the sound of a "V" layout 8 cylinder more than an inline 6 cylinder engine. It's really throaty. It has some gargle and growl and purr to it more than an inline 6. Sixes sound closer to a four cylinder screech now that I've become accustomed to an 8. I'm not sure where I was going with getting what you pay for. I wish a little bit that I was heterosexual. I envy it a lot and often and at many times intensely. Even more than perfect sanity. At least then I'd be married and crazy instead of just crazy. It makes me cry. It makes me furious too. It makes me violent. I want access. I don't want to just understand, I want access! I fucking want access! What do you do? Do you fake it? Do you sleep walk it? I'm laughing now because I am crying. I hate my circuitry. Let's not beat ourselves too hard in 2015 and let's keep that streak of no nose breaks and no concussions going. I said I will never cut my face again. That promise will be kept.
XOXO
///Daft Punk - "Giorgio By Moroder" the year end playlist is up next. shoot em dahn.
Twenty fourteen saw a battle between myself and a close friend and another close friend and another close friend that required more time to heal than any physical injury. Fully healed? Yes. Full confidence? No. The third piece of the puzzle is entirely lost. As is the fourth piece. I never believed it was possible to force or be forced beyond the edge of limping the object into a shop and getting blow torches out and suitable scrap, but sometimes, no matter how the repairs go, you can never look at the finished product the same way no matter the lighting.
The year presented no new physical projects in terms of repurposing homes and was difficult in that respect too. The hardest part about being on call is that you are waiting for something to go wrong. In that zone it becomes difficult to see everything going right. By the second quarter of the year I could see better that when I am doing my job well I will not receive calls. I always strive to do the best work because while I am doing whatever job it is the goal is to never hear from them again. In the time it takes me to get home I can, and sometimes do, forget that is the primary objective. I do not work to make friends. If I make friends after or during a viewing it is business. Business does not cross over to farming. Sometimes farming crosses over to business. I confused the two in 2014. Because I work a small job for you does not mean we have to be friends for life.
I thought I could make significant repairs to my lower lumbars, but I do believe the back injury is in the nerves. It's not a structural injury. It's software, not hardware. I learned through 2014 that some tissue explosions/implosions cannot be fixed by tending or work or loosening or tightening. Bring all of the wrenches you choose, unless one of the tools in your kit is a new gold plated circuit board, you are screwed no matter what you plug in, replace, or renew. It took a year, still feels like yesterday, to figure that out. I became very aware of my age last year and the limitations that age brings. The new year will bring a secondary mode. Caution. Beside the hatswitch for go is a new button installed to activate precision. Everything cannot be solved by a hammer. I knew that before 2014, but the application was aimed outward. The application will be aimed inward in 2015.
Everyone who shares a drink or breaks bread with you is not your friend. They may have motives aside from smiling. Believe it or not, I have better things to do today than laugh and clap my hands. So do they. That does not mean that they need to be cut out of your life entirely. That remained silly through the previous year and that point will remain sharp, if not sharper, through this year.
I performed a great deal of reading through 2014 without any specific schedule. That should continue. No books were finished. There was a boost in output that will take more discipline in 2015. It is a steep ask, but I am prepared for it. I do not like that my discipline grew slipshod enough to not finish or even map a new story though they ping ponged around my skull. It's pathetic. It's awful. You screwed up and I am saying it now: we dropped the ball and it hit you in the teeth. All we had to do was open our hands and we were too busy adjusting our emotions to see. We do not appreciate that. At all. And I want to make sure you know. "Why am I picking up my teeth?" Because you were punched in the mouth. You didn't trip. You didn't fall out of bed. You didn't scrap. You were punched dead in the mouth and didn't have the wherewithal through an entire year to defend yourself. Do better. I do not care if it is garbage. I do not care if it is too rich. Do you really believe years will keep falling out of the sky? Ignorance is not a defense. Do better. Stop reading, stop audiobooking, stop trawling, start layout. Start mapping. Stop talking about "I started this universe in highschool and"... what since then? I'm sick of hearing about it. Yes, physically ill. Begin to finish it and stop spit polishing a trophy no one else can understand. "But there's no translation..." so translate it!!! Do you hear me??? Look at me. Look at me! Translate it! Damn it, you are thick skulled. I want notes out of 2015. Stop dancing and screw like you dream.
I began a few tattoos in 2014. Progress is going very well. The sleeve will not be completed at the close of 2015 however there is very specific direction and direction is extremely important as they cannot be erased, easily or ever aside from through growth and the normal cycling of skin cells like tectonic plates. The reminders still remain on my face and are used daily. They are pretty much worth every second of the process. We are building a lens on our left hand to remind us of our ability and scope and potential and violence. That we can and should hold back at time as a window can be opened or closed or screened. Not zero and not one. Infinite, yes! Singular yes! The real pleasure is in the curve, not the approach either way.
Are we addicted to tea now? Yep. Significantly cut down on the drugs through 2014. Management & things. One of my cats died. Actual cats. Not "cats" cats. I took it rough. Too rough. Harder to deal with than I anticipated, but it reminded me that my pets are closer to me than my cousins or extended family. I think that's when the extent of my cut off really hit. My family, direct family, includes my brother and two sisters. It ends there. My father is dead to me so that I do not fuck up and go back to Maryland to kill him myself. I cannot do that. If I do that everyone will know, no matter how I mask it or plan it or do not plan it or just get in the mood and take the trip and kill him and my mother, because she'll either be in the house or somewhere within ear or eyeshot, no offense but it's best to keep things tidy, because I said it here and it's public record. I am closing that door, but it's dead bolted from both sides. Very good. Not awesome, but very good. Call it a standing threat if you want to; I call it a restraining order. If you come into my space I will kill you. In return, we will do everything we can to stay away. Deal. The cat's death was very sad. I mourned for quite some time. More than I mourned for any of my extended families deaths through the year. The sensation was arresting and unexpected and taught me the depths and exhaustion true hate goes. His death also taught me the danger of dehydration and the ties I have still with local law enforcement and the patience they have with me and the value of a friend who can tap into your nerves in ways we thought we only tapped their structure. The year heightened my self awareness and heightened my awareness of my emotional footprint.
I cried a lot in the last year. Much more than usual. I began to understand the actual details of outcomes through 2025. There is a lot of potential there and more danger than I would like. Many of my peers are pairing up and gearing themselves toward producing families and I became acutely aware of timelines. I'm not sure how to govern the sensation. I suppose I will have to start graphing... I can't. It will be the struggle of 2015. What do you give up, what can I give up, what can we give up, to make a family. I cannot. Not for me. Not for you. I will get up for a child, not for you. I will not fight for a child, not for you. Ever. I will not crack a beer on an off day for a child, not for you. It's a strange equation and I'm not sure how to change it. I'm not sure what is supposed to come on the other side of the equal sign.
One of the other things I realized through twenty fourteen is that I am fiscally trapped. Free as a mongoose in every way besides the wallet and the wallet is where futures are made when you look at families. I am damaged goods in that way and can be as free as I want to proclaim, but jailed for quite some time fiscally. Going for jogs, playing catch, buying food with EBT, unable to hold a credit card, unable to get loans (even though I refuse to, but cooperation will require it) or car notes, impressing other's parents with charisma, buying them shoes, going to dinners and lunches, going on a paint craze, shutting myself in a room for a few days because I cannot listen to anything because it hurts, all of these do not help a child's upbringing at all, but they are instrumental. I have no idea when or if they will change. I became acutely aware of the maintenance I require and it made me cry. Take what it takes for me to relate to other people my age without falling apart like crushed salmon in a frying pan with burnt butter. Add a marriage. Add a child. Desire came in the last year. Twenty fifteen will include learning how to better understand what exactly that desire is and not consciously or subconsciously destroying it wherever it arises, be it from outside in general or specific environments or from within or side effect to proximity to others. I will try to be more reliable and predictable and acceptable to your children or child rearing or child bearing circumstances. Failure to do so will cause increased isolation and we all know where that heads.
2014 taught me that no matter how I feel I have to get up. 2014 taught me who to trust. 2014 taught me to let go a little bit and who to hold on to without hanging on. It taught me change is inevitable and you cannot wish everyone a happy birthday because at least half them muthas have no idea who you are now and you have no business wishing them well because you have about as much idea of them as they do you, so stay out or at least don't go balls in to their affairs, unless they ask, which gives us a little gray area because it's fun to play even though not everyone would like to play with you. Understand better when no means no in fifteen. Just because you would like to laugh does not mean everyone else you encounter does too.
Let's draw this to a close. The last thing I socked away for 2014 was that you still definitely get what you pay for. That and given enough time anyone can be a mechanic if you study well and stock a good garage. You get what you pay for and through repairs to my truck I got exactly what I paid for: a running truck. I love the sound of a "V" layout 8 cylinder more than an inline 6 cylinder engine. It's really throaty. It has some gargle and growl and purr to it more than an inline 6. Sixes sound closer to a four cylinder screech now that I've become accustomed to an 8. I'm not sure where I was going with getting what you pay for. I wish a little bit that I was heterosexual. I envy it a lot and often and at many times intensely. Even more than perfect sanity. At least then I'd be married and crazy instead of just crazy. It makes me cry. It makes me furious too. It makes me violent. I want access. I don't want to just understand, I want access! I fucking want access! What do you do? Do you fake it? Do you sleep walk it? I'm laughing now because I am crying. I hate my circuitry. Let's not beat ourselves too hard in 2015 and let's keep that streak of no nose breaks and no concussions going. I said I will never cut my face again. That promise will be kept.
XOXO
///Daft Punk - "Giorgio By Moroder" the year end playlist is up next. shoot em dahn.
1/19/15
That Instant
you realize you've been wearing your plug glass piece like a Faberge egg and forgot it was in all day through the night before and you take it out and sigh like the first time you saw the sun rise on a golf course with a spliff between your lips and you know it was the best 25 dollars you ever spent.
1/17/15
The Unwritten Beard Manifesto and Subsequent Referendum That Never Happened
Here's why:
I'm not against shaving. I just hate it. I say that shaving is for pussies. Its a joke that cuts both ways. If you don't see the humor in it, you're an idiot. If you don't see the humor in it, allow me to clarify. Shaving is for pussies, as in weak people that feel they have to present a certain image of themselves to be attractive. Beards are awesome. Lady, if you've got a mustache, the only thing weirder is shaving every morning. Everyone sees your five o'clock shadow. I dunno, bleach it or something maybe? Okay, fine. Shave it. Laser it. Laser the hell out of your face. It's a complicated issue, I know. Shaving is for pussies, as in pelvic areas, as in the vulva, is a joke. It's sarcasm. Can you imagine walking around with razor burn on your crotch all day, everyday, with the most confining underwear known to mankind? I can. I once completely botched a ball shaving job with an electric razor and didn't realize it until my scrotum was on fire in a pair of fine mesh black panties while sitting at a bus stop in the middle of summer. It was ten o'clock in the morning. It was one of the worst days I've ever experienced hygienically speaking. Oddly enough, when I do it right I can shave my crotch with great ease and never have the problems induced when shaving my face. If I had pubic hair for a beard I could shave every day, easy as pie. However, I could never grow a beard because I would have pubes on my face and a full forest in my pants and that's just asking for all sorts of smelly sweaty awfulness down there and who wants a pube face? I mean, than I would absolutely have to shave every day and that's just a hassle on another scale. Shaving is not for pussies. Trimming perhaps, but not baby smooth shaving. That's just weird and hazardous to your health and safety. Beards are awesome. They keep the wind off of your face in Winter. They shimmer in Summer. They're low maintenance. They let the world know you are a sexy beast. They let the world know you are not a child anymore. They make a statement. They give you a chin if you don't have one. They give you something to play with and tug on and snuffle into. I'm not against shaving. I just hate it. I hate it like I hate Nazis. Okay, I hate Nazis more. Slightly more. There should be an extra notch above hate so that I can hate Nazis more, but there isn't so I have to hate shaving slightly less than I hate Nazis. So I don't actually hate shaving. I just strongly strongly strongly dislike it. Why set your face on fire everyday? I don't like anyone enough to go in for that no matter how much they like a smooth cheek. How's that working out for you now? What do you mean you don't want to nuzzle my horribly broken out, bleeding ingrown haired face? Wasn't that what you wanted? Aw, go to hell! You don't know what you want. I want a nice thick beard, thank you ma'am. Shaving is not for pussies, its simply not for me. No need to spark a revolution. Grow a beard or do not. I won't love you less, but you may find I love you a little more.
I'm not against shaving. I just hate it. I say that shaving is for pussies. Its a joke that cuts both ways. If you don't see the humor in it, you're an idiot. If you don't see the humor in it, allow me to clarify. Shaving is for pussies, as in weak people that feel they have to present a certain image of themselves to be attractive. Beards are awesome. Lady, if you've got a mustache, the only thing weirder is shaving every morning. Everyone sees your five o'clock shadow. I dunno, bleach it or something maybe? Okay, fine. Shave it. Laser it. Laser the hell out of your face. It's a complicated issue, I know. Shaving is for pussies, as in pelvic areas, as in the vulva, is a joke. It's sarcasm. Can you imagine walking around with razor burn on your crotch all day, everyday, with the most confining underwear known to mankind? I can. I once completely botched a ball shaving job with an electric razor and didn't realize it until my scrotum was on fire in a pair of fine mesh black panties while sitting at a bus stop in the middle of summer. It was ten o'clock in the morning. It was one of the worst days I've ever experienced hygienically speaking. Oddly enough, when I do it right I can shave my crotch with great ease and never have the problems induced when shaving my face. If I had pubic hair for a beard I could shave every day, easy as pie. However, I could never grow a beard because I would have pubes on my face and a full forest in my pants and that's just asking for all sorts of smelly sweaty awfulness down there and who wants a pube face? I mean, than I would absolutely have to shave every day and that's just a hassle on another scale. Shaving is not for pussies. Trimming perhaps, but not baby smooth shaving. That's just weird and hazardous to your health and safety. Beards are awesome. They keep the wind off of your face in Winter. They shimmer in Summer. They're low maintenance. They let the world know you are a sexy beast. They let the world know you are not a child anymore. They make a statement. They give you a chin if you don't have one. They give you something to play with and tug on and snuffle into. I'm not against shaving. I just hate it. I hate it like I hate Nazis. Okay, I hate Nazis more. Slightly more. There should be an extra notch above hate so that I can hate Nazis more, but there isn't so I have to hate shaving slightly less than I hate Nazis. So I don't actually hate shaving. I just strongly strongly strongly dislike it. Why set your face on fire everyday? I don't like anyone enough to go in for that no matter how much they like a smooth cheek. How's that working out for you now? What do you mean you don't want to nuzzle my horribly broken out, bleeding ingrown haired face? Wasn't that what you wanted? Aw, go to hell! You don't know what you want. I want a nice thick beard, thank you ma'am. Shaving is not for pussies, its simply not for me. No need to spark a revolution. Grow a beard or do not. I won't love you less, but you may find I love you a little more.
Dear (_____)
Dear Samuel Adams,
Don't you dare try to sell me Spring time beer. My body has just got acclimated to Winter and I am not at all ready to look forward to Spring. Let me have this! Let me catch a snowflake on my tongue before you shove your next limited edition "tastes like Winter, but hey, there's a citrus note" piece of garbage lager down my throat!
Sincerely,
the Winter us
Don't you dare try to sell me Spring time beer. My body has just got acclimated to Winter and I am not at all ready to look forward to Spring. Let me have this! Let me catch a snowflake on my tongue before you shove your next limited edition "tastes like Winter, but hey, there's a citrus note" piece of garbage lager down my throat!
Sincerely,
the Winter us
1/10/15
Dear (_____)
I don't know how it's going to happen or when, but if I ever end up comatose I believe I've left enough bread crumbs to get me conscious again. Just play Mathew Dear's R+S and if that doesn't work, go down the list and work backward.
1/8/15
Focus Divided by Time and Keeping the Fire (what the hell is the point)
Creeping and creeping and creeping like dawn. I am a romantic and the world is not fit for romantics. Then again it may be entirely geared for romantics. Someone has to balance out the blizzard of the hall of horrors. Then again, the world is not at all fit for romantics. Then again it is perfectly suited for romantics. Romantics survive and thrive despite what comes their way. The only thing better than the horror are moments of brilliant romance in which romantics thrive; the difference being (I really need to brush up on my grammar) half of the experience becomes imagination and projections overlaid and the other half becomes visceral and inlaid and breathed through existence.
What the hell is the point. Is it possible to be a furious romantic? I would like to believe so. That is beside the point. My apologies, romanticism is entirely beside the point.
With the onset of a new year and the end of an old one it is clear that it is, barring catastrophic failure, inevitable that you will be one year older. And it is a little disappointing. A little disappointing and a lot of frustrating. What is one more year?
You look at your car and it needs work. You listen to your body and it needs work. You hear your head and it needs work. One more year on the odometers and everything needs work to make it run better than it does, but never as good as it did when it was built. You look at your insurance and you go through the hundreds of lines of your policies and nothing is actually covered. You are essentially paying for a card that says you cannot be put in jail for leaving your home because you have paid into a pool that says you acknowledge that if anything happens to your person or your property you are screwed and if you do anything to anyone else or their property with your person or your property to damage them in any way you are more than likely screwed. These things are difficult to look at and absorb and be okay with. What the hell is the point?
I think about how many ways so many junctures could have gone differently all the way back to my birth and hate and rage simmer a sideways glance beneath a rolling boil. A nudge here, a hand there, a push here, tire screeching stop there.
I think about how many ways so many junctures could have gone differently all the way back to my birth and hate and rage simmer a sideways glance beneath a rolling boil. A nudge here, a hand there, a push here, tire screeching stop there.
Everyone has a ten year head start on you. That is not going to change. There is no way to somehow work so hard that the gap goes away. Wherever you go, whatever you get up to, everyone else living marginally productively will always be at least ten years ahead of you from a developmental stand point. If you want the insurance that is more than a "please do not put me in jail for being alive and mobile" card you will have to work twice as hard and twice as long and essentially kill yourself to get it anyway. What the hell is the point? Go back to school and get a better job and then extend your retardation to twenty five years to pay everything back for a degree you do not want and a career that will probably end with your body dangling from a rope because you could afford a gun, but forgot to budget for ammunition. To top off your glass, the time spent at home learning to be an adult was spent largely learning how to avoid pain and punishment heaped out by the bucket for things that beg explanation to this day, and so you are essentially 12 when you should be 30 years old.
The mathematics are overwhelming. Standing back from the numbers it takes on the shape of a massive impact crater you landed in America inside, the walls high enough to block out the time of day from dawn to 11 A.M. and 2 P.M. to night, with you at its center with a sun dial wondering why people are phoning you at night when in reality the suns been up for 6 hours with no clue otherwise. A hurricane seen from the bottom of a well.
Staying focused is not easy. Time continues to multiply. You do not. It is an effort and choice and a way of life to maintain focus. How simple and easy to quit. Quit is too strong a word. How simple and easy to decline engagement.
Problematic situations. Unsolvable and unreasonable problems will remain so and perhaps, in many cases, get worse over time and you are only responsible for you. Time will keep doing its thing regardless of you and when your focus, you, divided by time approaches zero, you are failing. You are dying faster than you should be. Faster than you have any right to be. You are committing suicide and that is never acceptable for reasons I do not need to go into here. Focus will save your life, whatever value you place on it. Stay away from zero and, if you can, stay as far away from zero as you can.
Forget everyone else. Forget your starting point. Acknowledge the nature of your sun dial, the make up of your world, and the existence of a map beyond your own. Without a balance of forgetfulness and presence, what the hell is the point?
Do not spend all of yourself trying to forget and do not spend all of yourself trying to be present in a world that is not yours. Both roads amount to declining engagement.
Ten years from now I will be 40. I will, in all likelihood, be driving the same car. I will live in the same city. I may own a house or still be renting an apartment. I will have health insurance that does nothing for me beyond an occasional check up. I will probably have all of my teeth. I will have a few friends and a lot of people I know or can say I have met or worked with. I will still enjoy fishing. The lumbar portion of my spine and my hip will still give me problems on extremely cold days or humid days or days when the air pressure or humidity is not right for me. I will still be romantic and ornery and searching for interfaces. Time will have multiplied.
Keeping the fire that spawned my consciousness, my awareness that I am different, my awareness of the world outside and the world inside, is not easy and will become a stiffer challenge as the people I know have their children and families and connections.
In the backwoods of civilization, the margin(?), the nights are very long. There are things and beings and people back there in the darkness, myself occasionally among them, that fire keeps at bay. Tending the fire and humming songs to us to stay awake, you can hear them, smell them, sometimes see them, drawing near the wavering circle to see if you are asleep yet. Ten years from now I will still go out during the day to gather more wood, bits of jetsam, refuse natural and not, to keep the fire burning through the night and the days when the sun refuses to rise and the off chance of eclipse.
I know I am not going to magically get better. I know I am not going to boot strap myself to prosperity. I will have a greater distaste for company. A more combative spirit. As you grow older in the wild, the things you fear grow older and more capable too. What the hell is the point?
The point is you. The point is decay is inevitable. The point is you have lived a scant 20% of your entire life under what can be deemed more freedom to explore the world, embrace yourself, and see without blinders or taint or outside in corruption than you have ever known. Do not be swift to let your fire die. The only thing better than eating is an opportunity to eat you alive. Time will not change course. Debts will not evaporate. Closeness cannot be manufactured or faked. The people and places you know now are not the extent of everything you will or may know.
Stay focused. Remain passionate. Sing your songs. Love nature and all that it has to offer. This thing called you is far from over. You say you want to make a map? I present to you the wilderness.
1/4/15
1/1/15
Are You 8 Years Old?
Sometimes things happen in life and you continue to trip over them mentally. The constant tripping makes us more and more upset and before we know it we're pacing and running our fingers over our scalps and shaking our heads and then shaking our arms and hands at empty air.
What follows is one of those things. Do you hear yourself when you say to me it's my fault for saying "yes, help yourself" when you ask me if you can have a portion of something I have. Do you hear how ridiculous you sound? Are you fucking eight years old? You do understand taking almost all of the thing you asked if you could have a portion of is the same thing as stealing, correct? Do you believe that I am two years old? Do you snicker to yourself and say something in your inner monologue like "teehee, I'm going to take way more than I should, but he won't notice because I'll leave a little bit and even if he does notice he can't say anything because I didn't take everything, teehee."
Are you eight years old? You're older than I am. Do I actually have to walk you by the hand and take out exactly how much you are allowed to have and set it aside and then hide the rest of what I have just to be sure that if I leave the room more won't disappear into your pockets? I don't really consider having some consideration to be an adult attribute. It's a communal attribute that manifests at all ages. A hallmark of civilized community. A certain level of trust afforded to someone you consider to be a member of your community, much less a friend as well. Friendship should, if anything, heighten that attribute within yourself.
What the hell is wrong with you. Do you hear yourself? You have the nerve to say "you obviously don't want me in your home" after I tell you I can't have you over because you basically steal from me when what is clear is that you obviously don't consider being in my home or my friend to be a part of your community. Are you kidding me? Be playful, be imaginative, be a little immature and fresh from time to time, but do not fucking steal from me and expect me to nod along and say "aw shucks, you're right. I should've known if I was at all considerate toward you I would end up broke and hungry. I'll be on my toes next time, a-hyuck."
Be a better person. Have some consideration. Life's not free and friends don't fall from the sky everyday. You'll find yourself without community fairly swiftly. Don't be that shifty and somehow all too casual eight year old in the room always looking to see how far and for how much you can take people. Chances are very good you are known and it's only a matter of time.
What follows is one of those things. Do you hear yourself when you say to me it's my fault for saying "yes, help yourself" when you ask me if you can have a portion of something I have. Do you hear how ridiculous you sound? Are you fucking eight years old? You do understand taking almost all of the thing you asked if you could have a portion of is the same thing as stealing, correct? Do you believe that I am two years old? Do you snicker to yourself and say something in your inner monologue like "teehee, I'm going to take way more than I should, but he won't notice because I'll leave a little bit and even if he does notice he can't say anything because I didn't take everything, teehee."
Are you eight years old? You're older than I am. Do I actually have to walk you by the hand and take out exactly how much you are allowed to have and set it aside and then hide the rest of what I have just to be sure that if I leave the room more won't disappear into your pockets? I don't really consider having some consideration to be an adult attribute. It's a communal attribute that manifests at all ages. A hallmark of civilized community. A certain level of trust afforded to someone you consider to be a member of your community, much less a friend as well. Friendship should, if anything, heighten that attribute within yourself.
What the hell is wrong with you. Do you hear yourself? You have the nerve to say "you obviously don't want me in your home" after I tell you I can't have you over because you basically steal from me when what is clear is that you obviously don't consider being in my home or my friend to be a part of your community. Are you kidding me? Be playful, be imaginative, be a little immature and fresh from time to time, but do not fucking steal from me and expect me to nod along and say "aw shucks, you're right. I should've known if I was at all considerate toward you I would end up broke and hungry. I'll be on my toes next time, a-hyuck."
Be a better person. Have some consideration. Life's not free and friends don't fall from the sky everyday. You'll find yourself without community fairly swiftly. Don't be that shifty and somehow all too casual eight year old in the room always looking to see how far and for how much you can take people. Chances are very good you are known and it's only a matter of time.
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