June in November

The sun is pouring in my open windows. It reflects off the scattered beer bottles and religious candles. Today I was going to start my morning with a walk. Get blood flowing, heart beating, sweat a little and try to knock the recent haze out of my mind. Instead I am laying naked in bed. The blanket has been kicked to the floor and the flat sheet covers my right foot. I feel the folds developing in my skin and remember the sudden urge for exercise. It isn't enough to get me out of bed. I'll lay here for another fifteen minutes. A mix from this summer is playing. Suddenly I am walking through a strange neighborhood commenting on trashy yards and trashier things that happen in bed. I'm lost in this memory. Then its another memory, after a long night of vandalism, champagne and drugs. The sun is coming up, shining through my open windows, much like right now. But then I was holding someone else, tracing shapes on her skin of dreams long lost and places I used to live. Whispering things you hear in movies or sitting on park benches. I'm not getting out of bed. Let the gardeners do their work. Let them try to rouse me from this life raft too big for just one. Today I will show them. I'll pull the blanket up over my face. I'll read a short story about a woman who gets left in a motel and man who likes to get stabbed. I'll ignore text messages from coworkers who need my help, women who want my attention, and friends who want to know what happened to me. I'll masturbate thinking about all the times I wasn't alone in this bed; how one liked a hand here, another wouldn't look away, another made me think twice about ropes and sometimes it took all I had not to cry, cum, or leave. I'll change the mix and make sure the saddest songs ever play so when I fall back asleep I'll dream about sharing a new apartment in a new city with people I have never met. And I'll fall in love with some girl with short hair and a tiny nose. I'll blow all my money on things I think she'll love, so she'll love me. But all she wants is me to cook her dinner. But I sold my pots and pans for gold she will lose at a party while kissing my best friend. So I'll settle on a drug habit and the ability to fly. I'll grow a huge beard, sleep in a tree and shoot dope in the most beautiful parts of Yosemite. And everyone will say I remember when he used to get up, go for walks, buy spray paint and fall in love every other day. Those were the days.

a partial list of things set on fire in my backyard on 3/10/2008

• chair
• cd's
• a 7inch record
• speaker wire
• bottles
• cans (clap your hands)
• underwear
• booze
• traffic sign
• random wood
  

just come see me again when it burns.

California is on fire.

I can walk outside and look south probably 30-40 miles and see some flames on top of hill. That sentence sounds more exciting or dramatic than it could ever be. I usually enjoy a good fire. I see all the smoke, the sky is red, i can smell it, sometimes there is ash in the air. But not today, not the last couple of days.

Before my senior year in high school I read a collection of short stories by Joan Didion. One of them spoke of fire and "the santa anas", winds that nontraditional go out towards the ocean. (That's probably not the best description, I'd apologize if it mattered.) Those winds are one of the few things giving the firefighters so much trouble out here. And me too.

With the normal wind all the smoke and fires would be blown my direction.

So instead of sitting outside in what has become a quiet night at the house I am laying around listening to every song in my itunes folder that has "smoke" "fire" "burn" or "flame" in the title. It is 4 hours long. I am also battling a cold that needs to hit the road before I hit the road on wednesday. A few hours ago I almost choked on a cough drop and realized no one would probably found my body for a few days and the cat would try to eat some of me and I got really depressed for about 5 minutes. But then I realized that someone would put my myspace profile on deadspace and everything was ok.

A few years ago california was getting fucked by fires. Santa Clarita was getting it pretty good. We had ash at our house, the way I like it. A group of friends went down to the big LA and saw some bands play. The "14" was closed so we had to take windy mountain roads to get there. There was ash in hollywood, the way I like it. The band Smoke of Fire (from Richmond, VA) was here and they wrote this song about it. The video is at the top.

I'm thinking a mix should be in order for tomorrow. Maybe a fest mix. Maybe a fire mix. Probably both.

If I burn up, I'll figure out a way to tell you.

a post that was started two days ago

My computer is next to my bed. It is on an upsidedown milk crate. (They were out of cinderblock.) A night or two ago I decided that instead of sleeping I would drink a 32oz beer and try to find something on the internet about the Antelope Valley that would make me want to stay, or at least appreciate it. My jumping off place was Flickr. I searched through tags, looked at profiles, went to people's myspace profiles, went to their blogs, looked at groups and sets, picture after picture after picture.

I had seen it all before.

I'm ok with it, actually. The Antelope Valley is familiar. Too familiar. There are probably little pockets of interesting that I haven't found, but I don't even care to look anymore. It is the same people doing the same things in the same places.

I know that my new home will eventually become the same thing, but there is the possibility of it not turning into that for at least a year, and that seems nice.

There was a fire down the street today, that was nice.