Category Archives: Book

Driving Back To Portland

Art, Book, Daily Life, First Impressions, mur, Quick Thoughts, Stories

I didn’t remember I had use of my center rear view mirror until 45 minutes outside of Portland.  Why, you might ask, am I driving back to Portland after making the daunting trek across the country only stopping to eat, sleep and see the Grand Canyon?  To see a show of course.  Symptoms are playing at a club near my friend’s place.

I need internet at home.  It’s the last link in this chain of support I’ve rigged up.  I’m on the west coast, I know what I want – now I just have to do it.  Driving South for the first time this week, I decided it would be poignant to cue up the Dead Soldiers.  The twang in Teddy Gene Mountain echoed off the evergreens around I-5 and I caught myself welling up.  By One More Last Goodbye I was bawling like a baby.  The Soldiers encompass a musical style that can only be described as Memphis.  It’ll take me right back every time.

I’ll be there again this weekend for my official goodbye.  It’s not that I won’t ever go back, I just know it won’t be for an amazingly long time.  I can already tell that this side of the country is my new home.  I know who I am and I get at least 6 months to figure out what I’m going to do with that.

How To Leave Home

Book, Daily Life, Future Plans, mur, Random, Reasons for Things

I came up with the URL name on vacation in the PNW. I got invited to a pizza party at Penny Arcade and we turned it into a 4 day vacation. Dave took a picture of me at Discovery Park doing tree pose with the Sound in the background. I felt at home there. I wished for a step-by-step guide on leaving the place you’ve lived your whole life. On the flip side, I urgently needed advice on how to not leave Seattle. The name of this project – it felt right. I purchased a 3-year lease on the internet and set to work.  Continue reading How To Leave Home →

No Rest for the Weary

Book, Daily Life, Future Plans, Large Events, mur, Reasons for Things

I made the mistake of letting myself relax. I moved all of the furniture that matters to anyone. 90% of my things are either packed or thrown away. I even did laundry so all the clothes I pack are clean.  Continue reading No Rest for the Weary →

Panic

Book, Daily Life, Games, mur, Quick Thoughts, Reasons for Things

It all hit me at once last night. The stark reality of what I’m doing. Picking up and leaving a perfectly good situation. Traveling toward the unknown with no way to know if I can make anything of myself.  I just started figuring out how to be me and now I’m turning the world upside down. It grips my heart with cold icy fingers. This might be the high point in my life.  I could be hurtling along the downward slope to my demise on the West Coast.  I don’t understand why I do this to myself.

Fortunately, I have a xanex script.  I slept off the worst of the panic attack and spent the rest of today dealing with this knot of nauseating stress in my stomach.  Moving things helped.  Not having furniture makes all of the boxes look much smaller.  Thanks to early training at Tetris I can visualize most of the car packing experience.  I have the speakers, head unit, and record player in one corner.  The records make a good line.  Three rectangle suitcases.  CPU, 2 monitors and accessories.  The rest is just towels and boxes in alternating stacks.  Like cement between bricks.
Then, the drive.  I’m stuck on this Grand Canyon idea based on the idea of scenic.  I’d rather drive for 45 hours than try to make it in 34 and get stuck at the pass.  Stopping could be irreversible.  And I have a flight out of Seattle scheduled for January 30th.  I haven’t planned any going away party yet.  I don’t want to make it that real.  But I know I have to go.  If I was gonna quit, it would have been yesterday.

 

 

Protagony

Art, Book, First Impressions, Future Plans, mur, Reasons for Things

I just now discovered which two voices in my head are the main characters in the story. A boy and a girl – obviously.

Porgasm

Art, Book, Future Plans, mur, Reasons for Things

I pop zits.  I know I’m not supposed to but I do anyway.  Nothing makes me crazy like a bump.  I’m not particularly vain, It’s a textural thing.  Same compulsion that makes me pick at scabs.  Unlike scab-picking (which hurts) zit-popping has a visceral element of relief.  A gooey white glob of gunk erupting from the peak of a tiny, engorged pore.  An effect I can only call gratifying.  I’m not too concerned admitting this since I suspect facials are a Brazilian way of doing the same thing.  Continue reading Porgasm →

Lila

Book, mur, Quick Thoughts, Reasons for Things, Yoga

In yoga class my teacher brought up lila, a sanskrit word that expresses the inherent joy and playfulness necessary for creation. Something about the way she phrased it struck a chord in me.  Willingness to play around with something leads to new creation.  There’s a joy that comes with the act of creation. That’s why we do it.  Most brilliance is perceived as as odd at first.  Artists embrace the odd, seeking the joy of creation that only appears when you’re on the right track.

I’m essentially creating a new life across the country this month.  Only taking what I can fit into my subcompact, I’m trying something completely different from what I was taught to do.  It’s a massively serious undertaking that I’m approaching with capricious enthusiasm.  I choose to believe that things will work out based on the fact that my true needs are simple.  I don’t have a map but I know where I’m going – serenity from minimalism.  Lila explains how I find the energy to do it.  I don’t mind messing up.  Even making mistakes is fulfilling when you’re on the right path.

Questions dealing with the soul are onerous but what would you do otherwise?  The light of meaning calls to us. Even if you can’t see, it you know it’s there.

Creeping Sadness

Book, Daily Life, P & H Cafe, Quick Thoughts, Random

Words and feelings seeping out at angles painful to watch.
Emblazoned across the sky for all the moon to see
Not full until she says we can stop
Fulfillment is not something you can buy

Craven, small boys below the bed, sleeping on mattresses from the floor.  The floor of where is the question.  Location location location.  The locomotion of crazy makes a train-ride out of the city hard to ignore.  Confetti and silly string is not punk rock, but then again I’m a sap.

I had a pain in my shoulder I can keep off my back with one more reason to go down.  Down town to the place where Leroy brown might be found on the ground.  A pound can be the puppy or flesh.  Ragged, swelling at the sight of blood all over your cock.  You don’t mind.  You don’t know.

Better to skip the holiday party, in my experience.
Watching the movie is another way to buy into the hype.

 

Name Changed

Book, Daily Life, Stories

 

The air in probate court is just as heavy as any other court.  At least , for me because I always assume the worst where courtrooms are concerned. We all sat there huddled in squeaky leather chairs, footsteps shushed by thick navy carpet.  Something as simple as a name doesn’t require much paperwork. The court only meets once a week for this specific reason and there are only half a dozen requests even that often. It’s the most service-like of the civil service proceedings I’ve witnessed.  Continue reading Name Changed →