stationary man – decompressing on the train from the ‘Zine Symposium

I wonder what we gain and lose inside our fragile minds by travelling non-stop versus staying stationary… never in my life have I travelled this much in such a short period of time. I am become whole cosmos. I free my being. Keep roots planted while romancing stars with my limbs. Too many thoughts. Train 506 enters a tunnel. My beer between my legs. Preppy cute knit sweaters and yuppie t-shirts. Amtrak sucks but it makes me feel so much better about myself seeing all these normal boring middle-class people and their frightened eyes. And of course I do it in proper pirate style: beer at 1:30, queer zine stickers prominantly displayed, counter-culture emanating from my very being. Paused but are my days of sneak-a-tokes in vacuum flush toilets. I wear my principles on my body. Perhaps I should just have them inked directly on, my busy sleeves of ethics for the world to see.

China plants deep thoughts across the surface of my mind and morality, she allows me to see parts of my own future which hitherto lay darkly shrouded in those innocent immature robes of inexperience. We swap stories and perspectives on relationships, counterculture, family structure, father figures, ‘zines, monogamy, and countless other topics. We talk so much so fast I have to duck away to this Pyramid Thunderhead Ale and my greedy keyboard. She believes that young people are more ready to be parents then our society gives them credit for, especially more prepared to be single parents, due to their sort of shared innocence with the newborn child. I still didn’t say that very well but it fits me to a goddamn tee. China says that relationships are the adult, grown up thing, while raising a kid is more fresh and spontaneous and unlearned. This is my sentiments exactly! That’s why I never read the stacks of cliched parenting crap and just forged my own way. That’s why I haven’t gone out seeking a support network until now, when my girls are past two. I had to do it alone, myself, to learn who this new me was. And that’s okay. Take your time, hide in your shell before you come out into the world with your new ideas. That’s why I’m so good at parenting. Because I learned how to do it on my own and it instilled in me an incomparable sense of self-worth and gave me back my self-confidence she stole with tiny insensitivities and one-sided sex, making me into something I wasn’t and couldn’t be, could not sustain, couldn’t keep it up.

and I say damn but goddamn life moves sometimes. my mind is on fire, wits sharp and all about like tiny knives despite the cloudy hangover and boisterous amtrak lady who collects chins. I feel alive! Booming and blooming and blossoming and coming out of my various cocoons.

I embrace these new technologies, dreaming of electric sheep. I utilize the burgeoning info-sharing networking waves of the present/future perfect, graft them to my existing skills and toolset, see how they mesh and coalesce, what their upsets will pan out to be. “Is my new Norelco™ Smooth Glide Shaver w/ Accessories going to be compatible with my Japanese insta-blogger USB interface port or will I need to purchase yet another liquid crystal piece of crap?” (or something like that)

China: “people think if they feed their kids organic broccoli they’ll grow up to be little revolutionaries” when in actuality they might still turn out to be one of the most normal teens on the block. I listen to her stories of her 18 year old daughter Clover (who is Nadja) and try to imagine myself 16 years from now, age forty. China is so strong, mature in ways my inexperience can only envy, and I try to retain as much of her scattered praise and advice as possible. Just having someone you admire express their confidence in you skips one up a few rungs on the ladder of self-respect and rebirth. I will eternally be grateful for having met her at this time in my life, a veteran in this war we're waging with ourselves and the world.

chatter chatter chatter box thoughts in my full but hungry mind – I wonder what I will become in the pending...

“to dream, perchance to sleep, aye THERE’S the rub”

Outside hawk wings catch the wind, winding up into the blue. My train shoots north, landscape and scenery blending into a blurred zoetrope of past, present, future, and dream. I sit back, breath deep, and keep on living at whatever speed the moment serves.