Missing The War

This is for Zane's Birthday, it is late, like pretty much everything I do in my life. I keep listening to three songs over and over, let's see if they put themselves into this.

I've been coming to this blog a lot lately, to see if I have talked about something already, to see how I used to feel about people, places and things, and to help me figure out what is going on in my head. Isn't that what detectives do? Go through someones past life to figure out what frame of mind they were in or whatever? Well, I am detecting myself lately. Anyways. I've been coming to this blog a lot lately, and the pictures on the right side bar continue to be from Dan and Marliegh's wedding on Fourth of July. None of the scenes in the pictures are familiar. They make sense; I can tell when people are drinking, dancing, crying, fighting, whatever. But I didn't see any of this happen. I was standing behind a table playing the soundtrack for most of the night. I enjoy doing this, but it got me thinking.

More days and nights lately my mind is somewhere else. It is in kitchens of houses on streets with numbers for names. It is in car rides, bus depots, airport terminals and standing on docks. Its at weddings, funerals, hospitals, gravesides, baseball games, and graduations. It is at the beach, in a lake, at a waterfall, beside a cliff, on a peak, in the desert and lost. It is holding hands, kissing, fucking, punching, crying, hugging, celebrating, singing and dancing with girls, women, men, boys, family, friends, coworkers, bosses and alone.

But I can't prove it. There are pictures somewhere, in some box or some landfill or sitting in a drawer undeveloped. There is video, maybe, in a format that no one could possibly still play. No one took minutes though. No one wrote a description in journal to be cataloged and referred to by someone someday to prove/disprove my existence. But I was there.

And fuck them if they don't believe me.

I meant everything. Even when I lied, or stole, or cheated, or whatever thing didn't seem right; I meant it. Every kiss, every tear, every thrust, every hug, every joke, every curse, every compliment, every erection, every stare filled with anger/passion/pain, every song, every mistake, every regret (no regrets, no looking back at sinking ships). All of it. I did it, I felt it, and I meant it.

You can't find it in photographs. You cant find it a video. You can't find it in a third hand story. It is all in my heart and my head.

There are nouns I have forgotten. They come back into my head every once in a while. I still care about them. There are things here I have forgotten to say. But if I said everything I had to say, I would have nothing left for tomorrow, nothing left for this.

But there is one thing.

Happy Birthday Zane.

Don't stand there, participate. I am sure you already are.

wordless wednesday. the first blogger to show up in geography class.

A harmonica in my lungs

There is a song playing right now, that is barely longer than 2 minutes and quiet enough to play in the most somber of places. It has a harmonica in it. And that harmonica echoes out of my lungs and heart and other organs.

Today (technically yesterday, I haven't gone to bed yet, so it is the same day) I walked around the desert next to my house. The same desert from these posts. I went wood gathering. I didn't have any exact ideas for the type of wood I wanted, I just knew I needed enough to make a flower. I have the day off from burrito manufacturing, so I figured I could do something nice for someone, make some art, and start regaining some of those hands on skills we seem to be using. (I didn't notice we were loosing are ability to work with our hands, but Bill brought it up, and he is a smart guy, and he is right. He is going to learn how to weld, count me excited.) After my gathering I went to the hardware store for nails and spray paint. Then I took pizza to Whit. Awww, lunch date. After borrowing a saw from him I went to work. Here are the before, in process and after. Crystal might be mad at me for spray painting the grass. She might not.

12 hours ago...

I was at LAX. I was dropping of friends for a trip to New York City. I was driving one of their cars and I thought about parking it and buying a ticket to somewhere. I love flying. A little part of me hurt, literal pain in my stomach, from being so close to security and ticket agents and 5 dollar pints and baggage claim and not participating. My bank account got the best of me. Time to plan another trip!

It took all I had to not quote that live song.

I left two bars tonight.

Both times there was lightning, but it was far away, somewhere else.

And it is always somewhere else.

I want to drive to the lightning, be rained on, hear the thunder, see the flash.

But I am stuck in this valley. No lightning, no thunder, no rain, nothing.

This valley is dead and it is dragging me with it.

rinse. repeat.

I have a really good memory. I store lots of knowledge, some useful and some not. I remember a lot of things that happened when I was pretty young. I am glad I still remember this story.

I went to preschool at the same school that I went to for elementary, junior high, and high school. From being around 4 till 17 I spent most of my days at a private christian school. The original building was two stories and had a bunch of classrooms. In the middle was the playground for the kids in preschool, me.

In our classrooms we each had our own nap mats with our names on them. And we had coat hooks with our names on them. And we had clear boxes stacked high up out of reach with our names on them. Those held our emergency change of clothes.

My class had one set of teachers. The other classes had their own. There was this one teacher, man she was HOT! Tall, skinny, blond, gorgeous. (Funny how at 4 I already knew what was supposed to be considered attractive.) Knowing know about the hiring practices of the school, she was about 18-20 years old.

When I had recess and and her class hat nap time or some other activity I would stand outside and look into the window at her. Creepy. Then I would go run around and swing and slide and whatever, then go back and stare at her.

One day I was standing outside of her window and the urge to pee hit me. Like a ton of bricks. But I stood there. I crossed my legs and watched. I did what some have referred to as the pee-pee dance and watched. I pinched myself and watched. Then I gave in.

I pissed my pants.

And I stood there, watching. After a minute or so I went up to my teacher, feigning embarrassment, and told her I had an accident.

It was no accident. I knew I was going to, but I would rather stand there at the window and watch this teacher.

So I got to use my change of clothes. My pants had velcro instead of a zipper. I was awesome.

And a creepy bastard.

Now that essentially went on to repeat itself in very differing situations, no more piss, but definitely social awkwardness or discomfort, for the rest of my life. It still happens. And when I realize it, it makes me laugh.

announcements

I am taking the month of August off. From booze, from women, from a good portion of my life. I will also be trying to get rid of all this useless shit that is crowding my life, a thing a day on ebay for 31 days.

I'll be keeping this updated more often, especially since I won't be spending all that time drinking.

I need a jinx-removing candle

I have this thing, a jinx if you will. If there is something I am hoping will happen, or if the opportunity for something might present itself, I have this tendency to talk about it. Or write about it. And sometimes I can get away with it once, a passing reference to a friend or stranger, but usually not. If I have a plan for my life, a desire to move, a girl I want to take out, and I talk about it, it is gone.

Everytime. Well, almost everytime. Sometimes it still happens, but it is super rare.

It happened again.

Things we going pretty well with the girl here on referred to as second chance. A couple of email exchanges had taken place. There was interest in setting up a date. There were a couple complications (we live about 100 miles about, my shitty car can go about 25 before near explosion). But it all looked good. As it flew out the window.

I called her to firm up the details. She said she would call back. A few days later I said hi, wondering how her move went. She said she'd call after work. A few days after that called her to just get her to come hang out with a bunch of friends.

We never talked.

So that one is done. I was hoping for something more exciting, but I got nothing.

Tomorrow is video day and a nice little meme.