designed to contain something
or hold an infused quality such as grace
or bear one across a body made of water
or convey and circulate that body's fluids through a vast complex network of tubes, canals, arteries, to an unknown destination
a cask, bottle, kettle, cup or a skull used for a bowl
a child of light, vessel of the lord
a hollow utensil used for pouring
from the ancient uas, root of vase
an empty vase made of light material will float, hence the ship connotation
dwelling on the sheer number of souls I fell in love with this week
the walk of one, talk of another troubles
but a few combine to steal my smittens
and now my hands grow cold
with the thought of wintering too many tables of contents
i try to write about my soul from the inside out but my skin keeps getting in the way, a vellum upon which my spleen conducts its orchestra of mirth, oh holy organ which never ceases to make noise! oh cacaphony of spirit, capricious sunrise! mine humble eyes repent, gaze penitent but persistant, fingers clutching pen, man, ship.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Utne likes me! But I still have to clean up all this shit.
Awake this morning early to poop-filled diapers and blindingly bright rays of sun crackling through the tree line into my peepers. flick on the BBC world service and drink some protein shake while running through computer routines. discover my zine/blog featured on Utne's website! Decide I should say something profound today of all days.
Honesty is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal, capable of teaching the most important lessons in the shortest ammount of time. This thought occured to me while chatting with other young radical parents at The Evergreen State College over the course of this past week's adventures in anarchist book selling. Whenever we find a few spare moments to exchange words we almost instinctually shift into this form of concise brevity that spares no bullshit, whether comparing our simple routines, swapping toddler-talk-tales, telling stories of our lives beyond the walls of parenthood or merely discussing the day's events/responsibilties/happenings/pitfalls. Whenever we talk politics it's always short but deep, we don't argue really at all (probably because we don't have the time or energy to waste our relationships that way on each other)... it's more like middle-schoolers showing each other their answers on a test and copying the ones they approve of.
This experience has been a wonderful break from my normal rhythms, as we cannot help but shower each other with praises, be they blatant or subtle, smiles and nods from across the square or up-front strong hugs and words of support. This common bond helps transition me into rediscovering my alma mater campus again in a whole new context, as this man and father I am becoming rather than as a high-strung overly-intellectual alcoholic womanizing college kid. Not that don't still get along with those cats... I've just moved past their scene and like to look back fondly sometimes.
Powerful women have entered my life as of late on several different fronts. I've always been drawn to the wildly brilliant, equally neurotic, amazingly artistic ones but it seems a new breed has discovered me as well, or perhaps along with the increased responsibility of fatherhood some older women have started noticing how little maturity has to do with age over attitude. Their words of reassurance and compassion, understanding and empathy ring in my ears after days have passed and I carry their little lessons around with me in the worn-out pocket of my soul.
I hope all this makes sense to someone and I hope that someone writes me back and helps me get it.
Honesty is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal, capable of teaching the most important lessons in the shortest ammount of time. This thought occured to me while chatting with other young radical parents at The Evergreen State College over the course of this past week's adventures in anarchist book selling. Whenever we find a few spare moments to exchange words we almost instinctually shift into this form of concise brevity that spares no bullshit, whether comparing our simple routines, swapping toddler-talk-tales, telling stories of our lives beyond the walls of parenthood or merely discussing the day's events/responsibilties/happenings/pitfalls. Whenever we talk politics it's always short but deep, we don't argue really at all (probably because we don't have the time or energy to waste our relationships that way on each other)... it's more like middle-schoolers showing each other their answers on a test and copying the ones they approve of.
This experience has been a wonderful break from my normal rhythms, as we cannot help but shower each other with praises, be they blatant or subtle, smiles and nods from across the square or up-front strong hugs and words of support. This common bond helps transition me into rediscovering my alma mater campus again in a whole new context, as this man and father I am becoming rather than as a high-strung overly-intellectual alcoholic womanizing college kid. Not that don't still get along with those cats... I've just moved past their scene and like to look back fondly sometimes.
Powerful women have entered my life as of late on several different fronts. I've always been drawn to the wildly brilliant, equally neurotic, amazingly artistic ones but it seems a new breed has discovered me as well, or perhaps along with the increased responsibility of fatherhood some older women have started noticing how little maturity has to do with age over attitude. Their words of reassurance and compassion, understanding and empathy ring in my ears after days have passed and I carry their little lessons around with me in the worn-out pocket of my soul.
I hope all this makes sense to someone and I hope that someone writes me back and helps me get it.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
a new ring
you know when you're subtly looking for that piece of jewelery or adornment, pondering that ever-elusive tattoo you can conclude upon with all your being? well, today at evergreen I looked down at my friend Anne's blanket of knick knacks and jewelery and laid eyes upon a very simple silver ring that almost looks like two blades of grass lying towards each other and meeting at the tips with a slight overlap.
wathcing princess mononoke and working on the old computer, postponing as many inevitabilities as possible while being as productive as possible in other ways to offset any guilt that might decide to spring upon me in the middle of some dark and lonely night. Eamon is a huge help, taking initiatives when I have no presence of mind, picking up slack in most of the right places, we slowly learn to live with each other. odd to have spent this much time with someone, yet he's really only been here a handful of nights since moving in in early august.
looking forward to this winter when we can spend a few days working on books and winter gardens and weatherproofing and sailboats and sipping wine by the fire with no other commitments beyond our own domestic dreams. unplug the phone, load up on movies, pray for snow and warm ourselves with whiskey or the thought of women or the woodstove.
girls sound asleep upstairs, early bedtime after another longfunfullday on campus. hung out with several other kids: Rogue, Uli, Madison, Obi, & Ella May. Nice smattering of Oly names. Plus I love the fact that out of whoever stays around this area with their kids, there will be some badass tykes/teens for my (not-so)little ladies to play with/bend to their will. good to socialize with so many other parents... at one point today I was with 3 papas and two mamas, just talking, not even about parental thingummies that muck up the real systems we depend on if we hash and rehash them too much. i love it! the place seems to have presented itself, so I'm gonna try to "organize" a meeting of the parent-minds on campus one or two days a week for whoever's around. and if everyone else's schedules conflict then I'll be the home-base/glue and survey everyone as they come hang out with their little slivers of time.
bingo. back to the books and this wonderful miso noodle soup Eamon just concocted! thanks for tuning into this edition of pirate papa and a big sloppy kiss to our sponsors this evening: I've Almost Had Enough Of This Shit! & Milwaukee's Best Ice.
wathcing princess mononoke and working on the old computer, postponing as many inevitabilities as possible while being as productive as possible in other ways to offset any guilt that might decide to spring upon me in the middle of some dark and lonely night. Eamon is a huge help, taking initiatives when I have no presence of mind, picking up slack in most of the right places, we slowly learn to live with each other. odd to have spent this much time with someone, yet he's really only been here a handful of nights since moving in in early august.
looking forward to this winter when we can spend a few days working on books and winter gardens and weatherproofing and sailboats and sipping wine by the fire with no other commitments beyond our own domestic dreams. unplug the phone, load up on movies, pray for snow and warm ourselves with whiskey or the thought of women or the woodstove.
girls sound asleep upstairs, early bedtime after another longfunfullday on campus. hung out with several other kids: Rogue, Uli, Madison, Obi, & Ella May. Nice smattering of Oly names. Plus I love the fact that out of whoever stays around this area with their kids, there will be some badass tykes/teens for my (not-so)little ladies to play with/bend to their will. good to socialize with so many other parents... at one point today I was with 3 papas and two mamas, just talking, not even about parental thingummies that muck up the real systems we depend on if we hash and rehash them too much. i love it! the place seems to have presented itself, so I'm gonna try to "organize" a meeting of the parent-minds on campus one or two days a week for whoever's around. and if everyone else's schedules conflict then I'll be the home-base/glue and survey everyone as they come hang out with their little slivers of time.
bingo. back to the books and this wonderful miso noodle soup Eamon just concocted! thanks for tuning into this edition of pirate papa and a big sloppy kiss to our sponsors this evening: I've Almost Had Enough Of This Shit! & Milwaukee's Best Ice.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
all men dream
book season starts for me on Evergreen Campus, fresh meat with financial aid money hot in their little pockets for me to fleece. all these crazy books come in handy once in awhile. tons of fun but utterly exhausting to talk to two hundred people a day, rehash sales pitches and chase toddlers around Red Square. it's good to socialize with other parents and kids and students, makes me sentimental... I want to go back to school too [insert whiny tones here].
i try to be strong, open, punctual, supportive of my friends in need, honest with myself and others... but parts of me want to just suck up into my shell, not depend on anyone for anything, internalize anger and resentment and bitterness and grudge like men are supposed to do, nose to the grindstone, belly to the bar. That same classic stance we all learned from our fathers before us, one of the keystones of the nuclear family and one of the reasons those ideas are dying and changing... I think we're learning, however slowly.
alternate between intense conversations with other radical young parents and light-hearted joking alpha male book-sales humor, my own special blend of literary flirting that gets the girls to cough up the bucks and maybe wins me a smile or three. so many new faces and styles, teachers, trees, dogs, gemstones, bicycles everywhere. enough eyecandy for ten thousand days for one who's grown used to the woods again, finally.
i go from having four or five full days at the farmhouse to having one, with no transition to ease into like a warm pool of thought or blood. just bam! no time to decompress or get the million tiny responsibilities of being psuedo-self employed swept under whatever rugs you've got them filed beneath. at last i get an afternoon at home and plug away on a few projects, still managing to ignore the dishes. Eamon gets back from his sailing trip and we talk a bit, plan some work times, business dinner at the bar and grill, loosen up a bit and look towards tomorrow.
I feel strangely lonely today, despite all this recent contact, these streams of words I dip my soul into again, slowly, slowly, like learning to walk again after an accident strips you of that fundamental skill.
i leave you for my books and beer with this small piece: whatever it is you want to be, forget it. it's who you are that counts, and if you're not striving with every ounce of your being at every moment to be your dreams then you aren't being honest and you won't ever truly discover them.
"“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” T.E. Lawrence
i try to be strong, open, punctual, supportive of my friends in need, honest with myself and others... but parts of me want to just suck up into my shell, not depend on anyone for anything, internalize anger and resentment and bitterness and grudge like men are supposed to do, nose to the grindstone, belly to the bar. That same classic stance we all learned from our fathers before us, one of the keystones of the nuclear family and one of the reasons those ideas are dying and changing... I think we're learning, however slowly.
alternate between intense conversations with other radical young parents and light-hearted joking alpha male book-sales humor, my own special blend of literary flirting that gets the girls to cough up the bucks and maybe wins me a smile or three. so many new faces and styles, teachers, trees, dogs, gemstones, bicycles everywhere. enough eyecandy for ten thousand days for one who's grown used to the woods again, finally.
i go from having four or five full days at the farmhouse to having one, with no transition to ease into like a warm pool of thought or blood. just bam! no time to decompress or get the million tiny responsibilities of being psuedo-self employed swept under whatever rugs you've got them filed beneath. at last i get an afternoon at home and plug away on a few projects, still managing to ignore the dishes. Eamon gets back from his sailing trip and we talk a bit, plan some work times, business dinner at the bar and grill, loosen up a bit and look towards tomorrow.
I feel strangely lonely today, despite all this recent contact, these streams of words I dip my soul into again, slowly, slowly, like learning to walk again after an accident strips you of that fundamental skill.
i leave you for my books and beer with this small piece: whatever it is you want to be, forget it. it's who you are that counts, and if you're not striving with every ounce of your being at every moment to be your dreams then you aren't being honest and you won't ever truly discover them.
"“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” T.E. Lawrence
Friday, September 22, 2006
i lounge
read pablo by firelight
drink wine
sigh
and wait for life to wrap me up
in her ribbons, bows, patches affixed with safety pins
one pink rose on the table compliments the whiskey bottle
on its slender neck
like a kiss when work at last
ends
an ode to today only
a humble corkscrew
me the cork
life the bottle
death the neck
love the kiss
wind the sigh
drink wine
sigh
and wait for life to wrap me up
in her ribbons, bows, patches affixed with safety pins
one pink rose on the table compliments the whiskey bottle
on its slender neck
like a kiss when work at last
ends
an ode to today only
a humble corkscrew
me the cork
life the bottle
death the neck
love the kiss
wind the sigh
links, shits, comix, eighteenth century midget poetry and wildlife drunk on rotten pears
last night scarleht naked standing in the brisk air saying "goo-night sun"
before bedtime i am informed by twin mouths that the fire is sleeping
this morning after cereal and scramble
taking a dump in my bathroom in the dark perusing canadian pornographic beaver comix and playing footsie with four tiny feet
abandon self-consciousness that my aunt reads my blog, for it's a cool, cruel, crude world
british techno-pop over daily blogging routine
coyotes and deer in my orchard harmoniously eating the fallen pears I watch drop over the course of the day
reading My Name is Rachel Corrie, an Incredible Hulk comic book (that quite frankly sucks, the old stuff was great but this new storyline blows), and flicking my mind across Alexander Pope's incredible poetry (even though he was only four feet tall).
some links for y'all:
Gene-Engineered Food
Duh, cell phones eat holes in your brain and give you CANCER
Average American home has more televisions than people
What getting emergency contraception is like
Flouride delays eruption of new teeth!
Custom I-pod baby stroller - give me a fuckin' break
Teaching the kid her NBCs - the glories of our corporate culture
Rainbow Babies - resource for LGBT parents and parents to be
More from one radical papa's internet-mining as soon as my computer stops overheating.
before bedtime i am informed by twin mouths that the fire is sleeping
this morning after cereal and scramble
taking a dump in my bathroom in the dark perusing canadian pornographic beaver comix and playing footsie with four tiny feet
abandon self-consciousness that my aunt reads my blog, for it's a cool, cruel, crude world
british techno-pop over daily blogging routine
coyotes and deer in my orchard harmoniously eating the fallen pears I watch drop over the course of the day
reading My Name is Rachel Corrie, an Incredible Hulk comic book (that quite frankly sucks, the old stuff was great but this new storyline blows), and flicking my mind across Alexander Pope's incredible poetry (even though he was only four feet tall).
some links for y'all:
Gene-Engineered Food
Duh, cell phones eat holes in your brain and give you CANCER
Average American home has more televisions than people
What getting emergency contraception is like
Flouride delays eruption of new teeth!
Custom I-pod baby stroller - give me a fuckin' break
Teaching the kid her NBCs - the glories of our corporate culture
Rainbow Babies - resource for LGBT parents and parents to be
More from one radical papa's internet-mining as soon as my computer stops overheating.
secretly me
I am secretly depressed, secretly secretive, secretly withdrawn, secretly shut-in, secretly emotional...
I'm not looking for any relations beyond kissy-faced revolutionary friends, literary booze-hounds and other radical parents right now. I just got hurt and hurt badly and hurt someone I love and I'm not going to open up for anyone for a long, long time. I’ll be myself and that’s all I can promise to anyone, love me or leave me lost in my own dusty library.
Maybe I secretly loathe all women right now, I don't know, I know I secretly loathe myself. That's why I'm trying to remake myself. Although I alternate between wanting to be past and future selves, sometimes secretly wallowing in regret, despair, piss-poor attempts at change, motivation, inspiration, all with a secretive smile on my face.
Cyclical redundancy. Bullshit. I’m not going to grovel or apologize or explain myself unless I want to. If you have to ask you’re already wrong. I will help those who help me and focus on my life, which is my art. I am my own magnum opus and as much as I secretly wish I knew what was around the next corner I’m secretly glad I can’t see that far.
I'm not looking for any relations beyond kissy-faced revolutionary friends, literary booze-hounds and other radical parents right now. I just got hurt and hurt badly and hurt someone I love and I'm not going to open up for anyone for a long, long time. I’ll be myself and that’s all I can promise to anyone, love me or leave me lost in my own dusty library.
Maybe I secretly loathe all women right now, I don't know, I know I secretly loathe myself. That's why I'm trying to remake myself. Although I alternate between wanting to be past and future selves, sometimes secretly wallowing in regret, despair, piss-poor attempts at change, motivation, inspiration, all with a secretive smile on my face.
Cyclical redundancy. Bullshit. I’m not going to grovel or apologize or explain myself unless I want to. If you have to ask you’re already wrong. I will help those who help me and focus on my life, which is my art. I am my own magnum opus and as much as I secretly wish I knew what was around the next corner I’m secretly glad I can’t see that far.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Hold still while we shit on you again
Submitted by Libby a.k.a. the military matriarch
Dear friends and family,
As of Sept. 18, 2006 President Bush has cut all mid-tour Budget. To be more simple he has cut the money that would have allowed Ben to come home in Oct. Without that money Ben and many like him will not be able to come home for the holiday's to see their family's. Some of theses men and women did not get the chance that Ben did in June to come home. Some have saved up all their "promised" days to be home for a whole month at a time. Ben and I are doing all we can to make coming home in Oct. happen. I'm not sure yet how we are going to or if we are even going to be able to but we are sure as heck going to try. But many in Korea right now will not get this chance thanks to our President. Please give them your prayers, that they find peace with this news. As for right now we have to plan on Ben not being here. I am working on coming to grips with this but I am going to need your help. The idea of Ben not coming home now is heart breaking to me and the girls. So please do not talk about it around them. I don't want to get their hopes up and not be able to follow though. They've had their hearts broken to many times already.
thank you all and we love you.
libbie and the girls
Dear friends and family,
As of Sept. 18, 2006 President Bush has cut all mid-tour Budget. To be more simple he has cut the money that would have allowed Ben to come home in Oct. Without that money Ben and many like him will not be able to come home for the holiday's to see their family's. Some of theses men and women did not get the chance that Ben did in June to come home. Some have saved up all their "promised" days to be home for a whole month at a time. Ben and I are doing all we can to make coming home in Oct. happen. I'm not sure yet how we are going to or if we are even going to be able to but we are sure as heck going to try. But many in Korea right now will not get this chance thanks to our President. Please give them your prayers, that they find peace with this news. As for right now we have to plan on Ben not being here. I am working on coming to grips with this but I am going to need your help. The idea of Ben not coming home now is heart breaking to me and the girls. So please do not talk about it around them. I don't want to get their hopes up and not be able to follow though. They've had their hearts broken to many times already.
thank you all and we love you.
libbie and the girls
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
ended up on a soapbox (i like the view from up here)
"submitted" (read stolen... hee hee hee) from my friend Heather a.k.a. Super Mom
so i'm feeling a bit introspective this morning...the sky looks like the bruises covering my thighs (from slinging boxes of veggies into and out of the box truck) and the wind reminds me that the time has come for sweaters, root vegetables cooked in fire and long revolutionary conversations inside rather than out.
my littlest girl started "school" this week. she is going to the evergreen childcare center (yay for academic subsidized institutionalization). she seems to like it almost too much for my tastes. "pick me up after my sisters get home so i can play with my friends after rest, mom" uh...okay. so i find myself at a loose end for the second day in a row.
today i am going to sort through the massive box of dress up clothes in my girls room (perhaps finding a few new things for my own meager wardrobe) and if i have the energy after that i'll start in on the massive piles of paper scattered throughout my house. all in the name of order, movement and autumn...
i'm thinking a lot about love these days...how intensely important it is and how hard to imagine. i had two conversations last night, both with men i admire and was struck by how courageously they admit to the damage done by a culture that doesn't permit men to feel emotion other than anger or rage and then only towards folks less powerful. these men are sensitive and caring and both definately fascinated by women and sex.
this seems to be one of the few outlets we have for creating love: making love. and i think that we have it backwards. when i know and love someone and then have sex with them it is powerful and delicious, afterwards i am full and have much to share with my lover and others. when i try to have sex as a means of creating love i am left feeling hollow and bruised...and resentful and scared. perhaps this is just the ghost of past trauma, but then who doesn't have some sexual truama in their past?
even if you have personally escaped rape or incest we all find our roots in violation, appropriation and oppression. and men were not the original holders of power!! matriarchal cultures had no idea that men were a part of the creation of life and so property and power (leadership) was passed through mama's line...this left men without a place to hang thier hat if you will. so from this perspective patriarchy was men's response to matriarchy and so we all share a piece of the collective responsibility to heal this fucking mess!!!
from the perspective of my male buddy women are healing at a profound and rapid rate and men are lost and hurting and don't know where to start. our old models of love come from a ownership model, where basically we as women have been holding men's emotions; as i heal myself i am no longer willing to do this . i think the emotional crisis that men are facing is in part the result of many women choosing to feel their own pain instead of their mens'. i hope that this will push men to do the same. out of the void and all that...
but i also know that an essential part of my healing is my community: people loving me in spite of my damaged heart, friends calling me on my bullshit and loving me anyway. perhaps that is what women are finding inside of themselves: accountability with compassion. love from the inside out.
men need women. women need men. without one another we cannot create life. we must find a way to rebalance. gender is genital not archetypical. to me this means that we all have masculine and feminine potential inside of us and our task is to cultivate that inate potential.
i believe that men are beginning to face that reality and as they begin feeling, things could get messy...women are much more adept at feeling because we have been conditioned to be. now we have several generations of being strong and active as well. we need to share what we are learning with the men in our lives and we need to listen. we need to believe in thier innate ability to heal themselves and we need to offer support that doesn't drain or damage us or enable them to be numb or abusive...we need to find ways to work together and believe that love is real.
so i'm feeling a bit introspective this morning...the sky looks like the bruises covering my thighs (from slinging boxes of veggies into and out of the box truck) and the wind reminds me that the time has come for sweaters, root vegetables cooked in fire and long revolutionary conversations inside rather than out.
my littlest girl started "school" this week. she is going to the evergreen childcare center (yay for academic subsidized institutionalization). she seems to like it almost too much for my tastes. "pick me up after my sisters get home so i can play with my friends after rest, mom" uh...okay. so i find myself at a loose end for the second day in a row.
today i am going to sort through the massive box of dress up clothes in my girls room (perhaps finding a few new things for my own meager wardrobe) and if i have the energy after that i'll start in on the massive piles of paper scattered throughout my house. all in the name of order, movement and autumn...
i'm thinking a lot about love these days...how intensely important it is and how hard to imagine. i had two conversations last night, both with men i admire and was struck by how courageously they admit to the damage done by a culture that doesn't permit men to feel emotion other than anger or rage and then only towards folks less powerful. these men are sensitive and caring and both definately fascinated by women and sex.
this seems to be one of the few outlets we have for creating love: making love. and i think that we have it backwards. when i know and love someone and then have sex with them it is powerful and delicious, afterwards i am full and have much to share with my lover and others. when i try to have sex as a means of creating love i am left feeling hollow and bruised...and resentful and scared. perhaps this is just the ghost of past trauma, but then who doesn't have some sexual truama in their past?
even if you have personally escaped rape or incest we all find our roots in violation, appropriation and oppression. and men were not the original holders of power!! matriarchal cultures had no idea that men were a part of the creation of life and so property and power (leadership) was passed through mama's line...this left men without a place to hang thier hat if you will. so from this perspective patriarchy was men's response to matriarchy and so we all share a piece of the collective responsibility to heal this fucking mess!!!
from the perspective of my male buddy women are healing at a profound and rapid rate and men are lost and hurting and don't know where to start. our old models of love come from a ownership model, where basically we as women have been holding men's emotions; as i heal myself i am no longer willing to do this . i think the emotional crisis that men are facing is in part the result of many women choosing to feel their own pain instead of their mens'. i hope that this will push men to do the same. out of the void and all that...
but i also know that an essential part of my healing is my community: people loving me in spite of my damaged heart, friends calling me on my bullshit and loving me anyway. perhaps that is what women are finding inside of themselves: accountability with compassion. love from the inside out.
men need women. women need men. without one another we cannot create life. we must find a way to rebalance. gender is genital not archetypical. to me this means that we all have masculine and feminine potential inside of us and our task is to cultivate that inate potential.
i believe that men are beginning to face that reality and as they begin feeling, things could get messy...women are much more adept at feeling because we have been conditioned to be. now we have several generations of being strong and active as well. we need to share what we are learning with the men in our lives and we need to listen. we need to believe in thier innate ability to heal themselves and we need to offer support that doesn't drain or damage us or enable them to be numb or abusive...we need to find ways to work together and believe that love is real.
big dreams and shallow feelings
I'm dreaming big tonight while I hash out the nitty gritty details,
one of my favorite combinations of extremes, head in the clouds, feet
on the ground and I don't go to sleep to dream (as fiona apple puts it
so eloquently)
I mean my book empire I'm building/assembling from the dregs of my father's business.
I'm picturing an organization that hires a combination of seasonal Evergreen students and young parents (yeah!), operates out of a warehouse in downtown Olympia in tandem with Last Word Books and Earthlight Books. I mean, let's not split any hairs here, I've got two fully functioning bookstores, three online businesses, a succesful alternative parenting blog, an organic book farm, a sailboat, four printing presses and several none-too-humble dreams. Let's get a radio show and shoot for the goddamn stars. My aspirations might seem larger than my self and that's because they definitely are. But I fully intend on carrying this vision through to it's penultimate conclusions, if there are any. In a few years we will kickstart the bookmobile project and take this shit on the road around the country and down into South America. I don't want to make gobs of money... well, actually, yes, I do, but I fully intend on spending every cent of it on the next rung of the ladder. Any succesful business spends a great deal of time with their economics hovering right around zero 'cause everything's tied up in the projects. By the time I get these various balls rolling (no sexual puns intended, but then again, puns aren't supposed to be intended, then they're not puns) my girls will be able to alphabetize and won't yet be of the age that I have to pay them a decent wage... hee hee hee... gears turn, wine is imbibed, futures are foreseen.
So... if any of you dear readers have any literary connections or dreams in collusion (yes, some of my dreams are illegal and deceitful in that I want to pull the wool over the eyes of the system that keeps so many young parents locked into a world in which they don't belong... thusly... if you are at all interested in these ideas of literary oceanic empires, message me with your thoughts on the matter, think of them as auditions of sorts, even though the performance is still years down the line.
In other matters, my heart wraps itself around other hearts while theirs wrap 'round mine... explosive tendencies, unpredictable outcomes. danger danger. crazy crazy. wine over a fish called wanda, some scattered words over the telephone I hope do as much good as I put into them. What else can we really hope for?
one of my favorite combinations of extremes, head in the clouds, feet
on the ground and I don't go to sleep to dream (as fiona apple puts it
so eloquently)
I mean my book empire I'm building/assembling from the dregs of my father's business.
I'm picturing an organization that hires a combination of seasonal Evergreen students and young parents (yeah!), operates out of a warehouse in downtown Olympia in tandem with Last Word Books and Earthlight Books. I mean, let's not split any hairs here, I've got two fully functioning bookstores, three online businesses, a succesful alternative parenting blog, an organic book farm, a sailboat, four printing presses and several none-too-humble dreams. Let's get a radio show and shoot for the goddamn stars. My aspirations might seem larger than my self and that's because they definitely are. But I fully intend on carrying this vision through to it's penultimate conclusions, if there are any. In a few years we will kickstart the bookmobile project and take this shit on the road around the country and down into South America. I don't want to make gobs of money... well, actually, yes, I do, but I fully intend on spending every cent of it on the next rung of the ladder. Any succesful business spends a great deal of time with their economics hovering right around zero 'cause everything's tied up in the projects. By the time I get these various balls rolling (no sexual puns intended, but then again, puns aren't supposed to be intended, then they're not puns) my girls will be able to alphabetize and won't yet be of the age that I have to pay them a decent wage... hee hee hee... gears turn, wine is imbibed, futures are foreseen.
So... if any of you dear readers have any literary connections or dreams in collusion (yes, some of my dreams are illegal and deceitful in that I want to pull the wool over the eyes of the system that keeps so many young parents locked into a world in which they don't belong... thusly... if you are at all interested in these ideas of literary oceanic empires, message me with your thoughts on the matter, think of them as auditions of sorts, even though the performance is still years down the line.
In other matters, my heart wraps itself around other hearts while theirs wrap 'round mine... explosive tendencies, unpredictable outcomes. danger danger. crazy crazy. wine over a fish called wanda, some scattered words over the telephone I hope do as much good as I put into them. What else can we really hope for?
Monday, September 18, 2006
not much to do with anything
an introspective relaxed day with Rob at the farmhouse
i drive to Allyn's tiny post office, hang out for an entire goddamn hour chit-chatting with big David who works there and this bulk mailer jewelery hawking middle-aged W.A.S.P. who beats me to the counter with a hundred plus envelopes. Ahhh, my life in the postal offices of Washington State. What a strange thing to do regularly all over the place. Whenever I take road trips now I end up in the post office at some point to either ship books or pick up flat rate envelopes. Sometimes when I'm bored I catch my mind calculating postage and brainstorming ways to milk the system. I'm such a weirdo.
we lounge around reading comics for six hours
barbeque hamburgers, chicken, an onion
salad, rice, wine
a feast fit for folks like us
on such a day
talk is intermittant but heavy
grad school for Rob
children and the book empire for me
loosely planning the distant future
it makes me lonely already to think of my friend and business partner leaving
i don't want it to be real but i want him to chase his dreams
things will change: back to work at the bookstore a bit I'd imagine, some childcare to allow that, the bookstore itself will change, having assimilated Rob's persona since I became a father and stepped off stage. We shall see... stoked on the prospect of quarterly alcoholic book-scouting trips to the bay area though! Stoked on Rob getting his masters in literature, becoming a teacher and getting even more intelligent, argumentative and full of himself.
I just hope he comes back. God, my mind is on fire and all I want to do is stop thinking. Odd sometimes, how someone else's energies can feed (and feed on) your own. We are rolling stones, we are hills and we are moss.
back to the comic books.
i drive to Allyn's tiny post office, hang out for an entire goddamn hour chit-chatting with big David who works there and this bulk mailer jewelery hawking middle-aged W.A.S.P. who beats me to the counter with a hundred plus envelopes. Ahhh, my life in the postal offices of Washington State. What a strange thing to do regularly all over the place. Whenever I take road trips now I end up in the post office at some point to either ship books or pick up flat rate envelopes. Sometimes when I'm bored I catch my mind calculating postage and brainstorming ways to milk the system. I'm such a weirdo.
we lounge around reading comics for six hours
barbeque hamburgers, chicken, an onion
salad, rice, wine
a feast fit for folks like us
on such a day
talk is intermittant but heavy
grad school for Rob
children and the book empire for me
loosely planning the distant future
it makes me lonely already to think of my friend and business partner leaving
i don't want it to be real but i want him to chase his dreams
things will change: back to work at the bookstore a bit I'd imagine, some childcare to allow that, the bookstore itself will change, having assimilated Rob's persona since I became a father and stepped off stage. We shall see... stoked on the prospect of quarterly alcoholic book-scouting trips to the bay area though! Stoked on Rob getting his masters in literature, becoming a teacher and getting even more intelligent, argumentative and full of himself.
I just hope he comes back. God, my mind is on fire and all I want to do is stop thinking. Odd sometimes, how someone else's energies can feed (and feed on) your own. We are rolling stones, we are hills and we are moss.
back to the comic books.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
mother do you think they'll drop the bomb?
smell of wet asphalt forgotten over the hot summer months
me, a child again, learning to explore this landscape of experience
so many flowers in the field and me a bee
you have to give yourself away to want yourself back
'cause the real you isn't the way you treat yourself,
it's how you treat everyone else around you
Curious if anyone knows...: Are there any languages that do not employ possessive pronouns? Or languages that simply do not address the issue of ownership and property with their grammar? We need some new words that don't immediately gift power to one side or the other. We need new grammar and punctuation that doesn't reinforce dualistic thinking. Americans want to own it all. From an early age our capitalist empire encourages this mode of thinking, look at our valentines: Be Mine.
Look at a Monopoly board, look at the absurdly evil infrastructure built up around law and real estate, the complexities of a system which just shouldn't be, a system that influences folks to care more about their possessions than their neighbors. We bicker and squabble over fences and whose yard the bulk of the tree is in, these invisible demarcation lines we lend such credence to. Who are we to give power we don't possess (whoops) to imagined linear systems that invariably end up crushing us under their awesome weight.
I'm really Noam Chomsky in the mornings.
There's a frickin' 21-foot sailboat in my yard.
I have twin daughters.
Life is good. I no longer fear much more than shreds of tomorrow, which never arrives.
"Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter,
When the promise of a brave new world,
Unfurled beneath a clear blue sky?" - Floyd
Saturday, September 16, 2006
throw around the word love
throw around the word love because it means so much to hear
especially by oneself with whiskey and chocolate
stood up by one's own dreams
and so left to wallow in the spontanaeity of unplanned solitude
flat beer accompanies this penultimate darkness, assuaging our costumed guilt
urging us to believe in the dangers of the animated stasis of social hearts
and making us believe in our however humble projects
for what else is there?
we judge our secret selves severe
attempting to climb ladders erected to a roofless blue open
an indistinct soul disregarded by heroines and victims
bragging broken dreams to dazzle themselves to death
retracted fantasies galloping full clip
hearts contradict heads
confusing in their mantles of protection
mere shells on this tremulous vague shoreline
make up a mask to efface that sharp furrowed brow designed by nightmares
and dreams like ostentatious capes with which we wrap our lonlinesses up
toss off a high bridge somewheres to drop and plop in the waters of the infinite Buddha
until we trust ourselves enough to encounter that defenseless nomad called night
mark my place with a beer coaster
wonder on trivial intentions
a meaningless malcontent
a satisfactory self-loathing
especially by oneself with whiskey and chocolate
stood up by one's own dreams
and so left to wallow in the spontanaeity of unplanned solitude
flat beer accompanies this penultimate darkness, assuaging our costumed guilt
urging us to believe in the dangers of the animated stasis of social hearts
and making us believe in our however humble projects
for what else is there?
we judge our secret selves severe
attempting to climb ladders erected to a roofless blue open
an indistinct soul disregarded by heroines and victims
bragging broken dreams to dazzle themselves to death
retracted fantasies galloping full clip
hearts contradict heads
confusing in their mantles of protection
mere shells on this tremulous vague shoreline
make up a mask to efface that sharp furrowed brow designed by nightmares
and dreams like ostentatious capes with which we wrap our lonlinesses up
toss off a high bridge somewheres to drop and plop in the waters of the infinite Buddha
until we trust ourselves enough to encounter that defenseless nomad called night
mark my place with a beer coaster
wonder on trivial intentions
a meaningless malcontent
a satisfactory self-loathing
Friday, September 15, 2006
wistful mists
rainy season engulfs us this morning, her robes sweeping us up in a light welcoming mist as if to say how sorrowful the summer months make her wet disposition dry. first fire of the fall today, girls cold upon waking. we wear socks and hats and warm clothes, huddle next to the heater in the bathroom to heat up extremeties before braving the living room to start a fire. soon it's off with the socks and hats and up with the sleeves and sweating and happy living room run around cuddle spins. Outside the sun peeks through Rain's robes for an instant, Scarleht notices and says hello. Lyli lies face down on the table, rump in the air, a cool blue mellow mood today for some reason or season.
I've been so busy with books and old friends I keep neglecting the old housework. Haven't cooked a decent meal for myself in over a week. I mean, we eat very well all the time but I haven't put any effort into it recently and I miss it. Living off my late-planted green tomatoes which I put in almost every dish these days.
Rob scares and excites me with tales of grad school masters in literature dreams in Berkeley. Tip of the iceberg and already I'm cold but happy for him. Wish I could go too. Life will change again whenever that happens. Back to the bookstore 1/3 to 1/2 the week I'd imagine, childcare, what-have-you. Wistful deep breaths. Don't think too far ahead. Think too far ahead. Turn around. Wistful deep breaths.
In the kitchen Lyli and Scarleht talk about kittens and water while dining on stir-fry with potato sausage. They eat constantly these days. If I don't get up and make a grip of food immediately I end up spending half the day running around feeding them. Maybe that's why I don't have any energy or desire to cook for myself. A strange symbiosis, surviving off my toddler's scraps.
As much as I love this place and this life I am always dreaming of those literal forks in proverbial roads and what would have happened if I'd taken the one more traveled by...
This message brought to you by My Desk On Any Given Day & There's A 21-Foot Frickin' Sailboat In My Yard!
I've been so busy with books and old friends I keep neglecting the old housework. Haven't cooked a decent meal for myself in over a week. I mean, we eat very well all the time but I haven't put any effort into it recently and I miss it. Living off my late-planted green tomatoes which I put in almost every dish these days.
Rob scares and excites me with tales of grad school masters in literature dreams in Berkeley. Tip of the iceberg and already I'm cold but happy for him. Wish I could go too. Life will change again whenever that happens. Back to the bookstore 1/3 to 1/2 the week I'd imagine, childcare, what-have-you. Wistful deep breaths. Don't think too far ahead. Think too far ahead. Turn around. Wistful deep breaths.
In the kitchen Lyli and Scarleht talk about kittens and water while dining on stir-fry with potato sausage. They eat constantly these days. If I don't get up and make a grip of food immediately I end up spending half the day running around feeding them. Maybe that's why I don't have any energy or desire to cook for myself. A strange symbiosis, surviving off my toddler's scraps.
As much as I love this place and this life I am always dreaming of those literal forks in proverbial roads and what would have happened if I'd taken the one more traveled by...
This message brought to you by My Desk On Any Given Day & There's A 21-Foot Frickin' Sailboat In My Yard!
Thursday, September 14, 2006
weeds in my garden of delights
Lyli and Scarleht feed each other soup on the front porch. "Padipa, peez wawa" (politley, please water) which they pass back and forth. Today in the car Scarleht employed the use of please and politely when asking for more food. They have noticeably started helping each other more, showing more and more concern for each other's well-being. Four hours in the car each of the past three days, whew! Not my lifestyle of choice but necessary.
Up to Port Townsend several times to Loompanics Unlimited's warehouse to pick up books. Mike Hoy, the editor, sold me the doubles from his personal collection for a quarter apiece and gifted me the dregs of their overstock! Food for the next decade for my daughters and I! Now I have somewhere between three and five thousand pounds of Loompanics books in my barn and have to figure out what to do with them. Damn my neck is sore. Where's my live-in housekeeper/cook/chauffer/masseuse? There's a 21 foot sailboat in my frickin' driveway! I had a beer on it yesterday, just because I could.
Attended my friends' wedding reception this past Sunday, Paul and Moe locked in a 21st century union to beat the band. Crazy families, tables of booze, kayaks, horseshoes, little kids dashing around, depraved jokes and awesome conversations. Bunch of hippies I hadn't seen in months/years/lifetimes. Spend the sunset on the water, kayaks, kisses, evening dresses, much love from old friends. A truly unique evening I will be long in forgetting.
Paul allows us to abscond with a bottle of scotch and the half keg of Fishtale Oktoberfest (now flat and in my bathtub). Spoils of love?
Old friend comes to stay last weekend, stroking my ego, plucking my heart-strings. Bacon in bed, breakfast with blackberry shake, bars, too much social collusion for my tastes but to hell with boundaries, my heart feels fine, despite the bacon grease. A little love and lust wrapped up in my nights, abandoned but for the sake of silence. Loose lips, sinking ships, stupid mistakes. A time of extremes, one allowing the other to thrive. Hearts are lonely, asleep or burning, nothing more. Sometimes life moves too fast to scribble little portraits of the moments that touch us deeply, by the time we find the presence of mind to document the details have dribbled down the drain of our emotions, obscured by more recent nothings blacking out the somethings of our selves.
I live, and make no apologies for living. I talk about living and my words twist reality into a scar on someone else's skin. Better to live sometimes, and keep one's mouth shut, or open but screaming silence instead of sound. I lie back and heal a bit, choose not to wallow in regrets or dance upon poppies but instead catalogue the simple weeds abounding in my garden of delights. For weeds are often really flowers in disguise.
Up to Port Townsend several times to Loompanics Unlimited's warehouse to pick up books. Mike Hoy, the editor, sold me the doubles from his personal collection for a quarter apiece and gifted me the dregs of their overstock! Food for the next decade for my daughters and I! Now I have somewhere between three and five thousand pounds of Loompanics books in my barn and have to figure out what to do with them. Damn my neck is sore. Where's my live-in housekeeper/cook/chauffer/masseuse? There's a 21 foot sailboat in my frickin' driveway! I had a beer on it yesterday, just because I could.
Attended my friends' wedding reception this past Sunday, Paul and Moe locked in a 21st century union to beat the band. Crazy families, tables of booze, kayaks, horseshoes, little kids dashing around, depraved jokes and awesome conversations. Bunch of hippies I hadn't seen in months/years/lifetimes. Spend the sunset on the water, kayaks, kisses, evening dresses, much love from old friends. A truly unique evening I will be long in forgetting.
Paul allows us to abscond with a bottle of scotch and the half keg of Fishtale Oktoberfest (now flat and in my bathtub). Spoils of love?
Old friend comes to stay last weekend, stroking my ego, plucking my heart-strings. Bacon in bed, breakfast with blackberry shake, bars, too much social collusion for my tastes but to hell with boundaries, my heart feels fine, despite the bacon grease. A little love and lust wrapped up in my nights, abandoned but for the sake of silence. Loose lips, sinking ships, stupid mistakes. A time of extremes, one allowing the other to thrive. Hearts are lonely, asleep or burning, nothing more. Sometimes life moves too fast to scribble little portraits of the moments that touch us deeply, by the time we find the presence of mind to document the details have dribbled down the drain of our emotions, obscured by more recent nothings blacking out the somethings of our selves.
I live, and make no apologies for living. I talk about living and my words twist reality into a scar on someone else's skin. Better to live sometimes, and keep one's mouth shut, or open but screaming silence instead of sound. I lie back and heal a bit, choose not to wallow in regrets or dance upon poppies but instead catalogue the simple weeds abounding in my garden of delights. For weeds are often really flowers in disguise.
Saturday, September 9, 2006
mingle a bit with downtown OlyPops after a nice leisurely afternoon nap alone, crammed onto the tiny sofa in back the bookshop, din from the record store blaring through just enough to give my sleep a soundtrack to toss and turn to.
mannin' the book store, dave done gone for Old School pizza. not used to this non-breakneck pace in Olympia, remember to breath, adapt to parts of life without children, be me without the crazy... is there such a thing?
mannin' the book store, dave done gone for Old School pizza. not used to this non-breakneck pace in Olympia, remember to breath, adapt to parts of life without children, be me without the crazy... is there such a thing?
Friday, September 8, 2006
another link in the chain
i listen to pears drop into the tall grass beneath the east orchard
i can almost smell the thin wisps of buttermilk clouds as the moon cuts through them, her dusty harvest yellow edge round and full and sharp against this midnight blue
links of the day, a bit more political than I usually post on this blog but I wanted to liven things up a bit and piss a few people off:
Caiman Bedtime Story from Olympia! - How punk is this?
Diamond Companies Lie, attempt to bolster image in the face of increasing criticism. Oh, and fuck all you people with diamond wedding and engagement rings, I hope you enjoy having the blood of innocent people wrapped around your finger to symbolize your imperialistic, priviliged "union".
Go Oly Anti-War Activists!
How to protect your children from the deranged killer monster Olympia raccoons. (This is not a joke.)
The CIA, Guantanamo, & Bush's tiny truths - or, why the fuck don't people pay attention the first time horrible things happen?
Secret History of the CIA & Guatemala: 1952-1954
70% of 9-11 Responders Suffer Lung Ailments - or, tell me again how absolutely safe it was and how absolutely necessary it was to re-open Wall Street. Tell me again how illegal it is to tamper with a crime scene (read: cleaning the entire thing up and selling the scrap to China). Go to hell Uncle Sam.
Parents demand speed for their kids - This one's scary as all get-out.
little article on the benefits of a bilingual upbringing
The The Juvenilizing Evolution of Mickey Mouse - This one kicks ass.
'Flat-Daddy' Cut-Outs for Military Families - OH...MY...GOD...
Childbirth in Rural Ethiopia
Don't want kids? Crank up that heated seat and toast those little spermies!
A Mama Blogs in Rafah!!! Yes!
Anarchist FAQ on Crime, Police & Prisons
Anarchist Economics for the 21st Century
Abolish CPS Blog - interesting...
Fatherhood Statistics:
Divorce & Fatherhood
InnocentDads.org Stats
i can almost smell the thin wisps of buttermilk clouds as the moon cuts through them, her dusty harvest yellow edge round and full and sharp against this midnight blue
links of the day, a bit more political than I usually post on this blog but I wanted to liven things up a bit and piss a few people off:
Caiman Bedtime Story from Olympia! - How punk is this?
Diamond Companies Lie, attempt to bolster image in the face of increasing criticism. Oh, and fuck all you people with diamond wedding and engagement rings, I hope you enjoy having the blood of innocent people wrapped around your finger to symbolize your imperialistic, priviliged "union".
Go Oly Anti-War Activists!
How to protect your children from the deranged killer monster Olympia raccoons. (This is not a joke.)
The CIA, Guantanamo, & Bush's tiny truths - or, why the fuck don't people pay attention the first time horrible things happen?
Secret History of the CIA & Guatemala: 1952-1954
70% of 9-11 Responders Suffer Lung Ailments - or, tell me again how absolutely safe it was and how absolutely necessary it was to re-open Wall Street. Tell me again how illegal it is to tamper with a crime scene (read: cleaning the entire thing up and selling the scrap to China). Go to hell Uncle Sam.
Parents demand speed for their kids - This one's scary as all get-out.
little article on the benefits of a bilingual upbringing
The The Juvenilizing Evolution of Mickey Mouse - This one kicks ass.
'Flat-Daddy' Cut-Outs for Military Families - OH...MY...GOD...
Childbirth in Rural Ethiopia
Don't want kids? Crank up that heated seat and toast those little spermies!
A Mama Blogs in Rafah!!! Yes!
Anarchist FAQ on Crime, Police & Prisons
Anarchist Economics for the 21st Century
Abolish CPS Blog - interesting...
Fatherhood Statistics:
Divorce & Fatherhood
InnocentDads.org Stats
grow'nup
submitted by the inimitable Sam, friend & foe, forget about it. his words spin me round, right round like a rollercoaster baby, right round.
the difference between
you and me is honesty
not much else than that
I am just a wannabe me
I want to be who I want to be so bad
but I'm not
not even close
sober or drunk, the only difference is
I have no excuse now,
I have no reason, no lie slips through my teeth now
without my notice
everything tastes worse
all the skin feels too real to touch
all the sunsets are like dull headaches
taking too much fucking time.
I'm restless as usual
to follow my patterns that I have never broken
in the end I'm looking for an answer that will never come
I will always end up in the same place
hunched under a desk with a typewriter
ready to die
that is who I am
when I'm really me
which isn't most of the time.
most of the time I am inspiring
clever, funny, good looking, hard fucking
mean, blunt, and tired.
I hate this country sometimes with all my heart
and don't want to get stuck in it's web
like all the other revolutionaries who are going to
"change things from the inside out"
yeah go suck my dick
your a fucking hypocrit
real revolutionaries don't need to read Zinn
real revolutionaries don't talk in basements about politics all day, they are too busy being nice to the old black woman who has worked at 7-11 for 25 years without a raise.
real revolutionaries are too busy fucking
and drinking, and smoking, and generally getting the most out of every day to notice or care that everything around them is going to waste
real revolutionaries are ignorant, arrogant,
and daydream about murdering the president with
a switchblade I keep tucked in the right pocket of my jeans, which I only use to cut open boxes of books
and the heads off of beauty queens in fashion magazines.
so don't tell me about revolution
I'm too tired
I'm moving somewhere
where I can lie and cheat and steal and fuck and burn and die alone.
where I can write and no one will know
where I can drink again
where I can think straight
somewhere where america feels far away
somewhere all my memories will fade over time
memories of all those skeletons in my closet
much stronger than my own.
the difference between
you and me is honesty
not much else than that
I am just a wannabe me
I want to be who I want to be so bad
but I'm not
not even close
sober or drunk, the only difference is
I have no excuse now,
I have no reason, no lie slips through my teeth now
without my notice
everything tastes worse
all the skin feels too real to touch
all the sunsets are like dull headaches
taking too much fucking time.
I'm restless as usual
to follow my patterns that I have never broken
in the end I'm looking for an answer that will never come
I will always end up in the same place
hunched under a desk with a typewriter
ready to die
that is who I am
when I'm really me
which isn't most of the time.
most of the time I am inspiring
clever, funny, good looking, hard fucking
mean, blunt, and tired.
I hate this country sometimes with all my heart
and don't want to get stuck in it's web
like all the other revolutionaries who are going to
"change things from the inside out"
yeah go suck my dick
your a fucking hypocrit
real revolutionaries don't need to read Zinn
real revolutionaries don't talk in basements about politics all day, they are too busy being nice to the old black woman who has worked at 7-11 for 25 years without a raise.
real revolutionaries are too busy fucking
and drinking, and smoking, and generally getting the most out of every day to notice or care that everything around them is going to waste
real revolutionaries are ignorant, arrogant,
and daydream about murdering the president with
a switchblade I keep tucked in the right pocket of my jeans, which I only use to cut open boxes of books
and the heads off of beauty queens in fashion magazines.
so don't tell me about revolution
I'm too tired
I'm moving somewhere
where I can lie and cheat and steal and fuck and burn and die alone.
where I can write and no one will know
where I can drink again
where I can think straight
somewhere where america feels far away
somewhere all my memories will fade over time
memories of all those skeletons in my closet
much stronger than my own.
a leisurely revolution
wrapped in a towel sitting in my chair sneezing nonstop
but my neck feels better
if i was a dumb american I'd take some of these here muskle rlxrs
sun and blue skies. i ponder the newfound meanings of my name (see previous posting)
how am I: a shield? the coverer? a shadow? a cloud?
how i define myself matters quite a bit to me (given: I am a Leo)
at this rate I will be Salvador Dali's wet dream by the time I'm sixty
i had my beard trimmed down shorter than I've had it since I was eighteen years young
1/2 an inch.
it's fucking with my head every time I snag a rflctn in a mirrored surface
lyli and scarleht asleep upstairs. I research/create an anarchist grammatical structure, surf parenting blogs, aggregate 150 news stories from assorted sources and compile and collate and quantify and prioritize them inside my cerebral cortex (.08-.16 inches thick), read poetry, sharpen my kitchen knives, put together an order of clandestine chemistry books for shipment to australia, think about scrubbing the kitchen floor, put off as many pertinent duties as possible and prostrate myself before the timing of the sunlight off these leaves.
looking at my jam-packed calendar for the next month, every moment of free time filled, depressing. don't get me wrong, I love every single human I have scheduled, racked, timed, noted with every ounce of my being but sometimes these days I just want to be at my farmhouse with no little girls and no big people and just soak in this place for what it is by its lonesome alternately empty and full and always green self.
frank black live at the china clipper in Oly tomorrow night. portents of sensuality and liquor and fine tunes. then a whirlwind I shant describe til years later. you all know who you are anyways and that's what matters. it's like the music scene in Olympia, we know everyone on a social level but most people are like: "Oh, you're in that band? Cool!" I for one don't purposefully go to shows, I go somewhere and the show happens around that place; blame it on my endless job of hanging and removing all the flyers at Last Word Books for four years, blame it on my anti-social tendencies, blame it on last years hops and grapes and girls and goodness knows what else.
book orders roll in in accordance with our enterage-spree, seven today already and counting. good news. more food upon table, more bacon in pan, more better complainin boy, more trouble with man.
i dream of warehouses teeming with dusty tomes, islands replete with those heads full of ideas I love, green and red and black all over, youth resurrected in action and spirit and intention.
a quick nap bathbound refreshed more than a nights turn and toss, the steam resuscitating the greek in me, I dance through this day's divinity, a leisurely revolution, an easy-going soul, a slow parent hanging on every ... last ... happening ...
but my neck feels better
if i was a dumb american I'd take some of these here muskle rlxrs
sun and blue skies. i ponder the newfound meanings of my name (see previous posting)
how am I: a shield? the coverer? a shadow? a cloud?
how i define myself matters quite a bit to me (given: I am a Leo)
at this rate I will be Salvador Dali's wet dream by the time I'm sixty
i had my beard trimmed down shorter than I've had it since I was eighteen years young
1/2 an inch.
it's fucking with my head every time I snag a rflctn in a mirrored surface
lyli and scarleht asleep upstairs. I research/create an anarchist grammatical structure, surf parenting blogs, aggregate 150 news stories from assorted sources and compile and collate and quantify and prioritize them inside my cerebral cortex (.08-.16 inches thick), read poetry, sharpen my kitchen knives, put together an order of clandestine chemistry books for shipment to australia, think about scrubbing the kitchen floor, put off as many pertinent duties as possible and prostrate myself before the timing of the sunlight off these leaves.
looking at my jam-packed calendar for the next month, every moment of free time filled, depressing. don't get me wrong, I love every single human I have scheduled, racked, timed, noted with every ounce of my being but sometimes these days I just want to be at my farmhouse with no little girls and no big people and just soak in this place for what it is by its lonesome alternately empty and full and always green self.
frank black live at the china clipper in Oly tomorrow night. portents of sensuality and liquor and fine tunes. then a whirlwind I shant describe til years later. you all know who you are anyways and that's what matters. it's like the music scene in Olympia, we know everyone on a social level but most people are like: "Oh, you're in that band? Cool!" I for one don't purposefully go to shows, I go somewhere and the show happens around that place; blame it on my endless job of hanging and removing all the flyers at Last Word Books for four years, blame it on my anti-social tendencies, blame it on last years hops and grapes and girls and goodness knows what else.
book orders roll in in accordance with our enterage-spree, seven today already and counting. good news. more food upon table, more bacon in pan, more better complainin boy, more trouble with man.
i dream of warehouses teeming with dusty tomes, islands replete with those heads full of ideas I love, green and red and black all over, youth resurrected in action and spirit and intention.
a quick nap bathbound refreshed more than a nights turn and toss, the steam resuscitating the greek in me, I dance through this day's divinity, a leisurely revolution, an easy-going soul, a slow parent hanging on every ... last ... happening ...
with all this real I'm keeping
I urinate off my porch, therefore I am.
Laid back consistently intermittant work day. I clean house apathetically and put a box of books online. 3 sales of books I put on last night! Nice turnover. Makes me feel productive, justified, worth my while-salt.
We invent a game whereupon we blow on each other's faces. Mass giggles abound.
I feel the need to make some good food, having been so busy as of late to have only the energy necessary to whip up mediocre sustenance. Maybe a bath and a good meal while my ladies snooze today. Neck's still sore from wrestling Rob.
Little pears on the trees outside, tiny apples. Overcast today, morning chilled. I glance at my hewlett-packard printer atop my woodstove...the cardboard boxes of books ringing it's metal and tile framed burn-belly... gonna have to do somethin' about that soon.
So many things that need to be done and I have so little energy with which to do them all. I focus on getting the daily standards done, forget to put the chicken away half the time, partition off little bits of myself for future little work binges, lay fence around my mindscape to delineate between sanity and art, cordon off the wild from the responsible, too late, for already they mate and mingle in elysian pastoral pastures.
Freezing trays of blackberries all day, still only got a fraction of them off the bushes. Maybe another good haul left on one of our heroic trips to the mailbox. Need to get a cover crop on my tilled soils here before it gets too late. I think I'll name my garden's wing and prayer.
Almost time for a glass of wine and a book in the bathtub. Just found a nice title Aquaerotica, it's even waterproof. And another: The Erotic Field Guide to the Outdoors. Entertaining, better written than those stupid Penthouse forums, that's for sure. Who gasps last? That's what it really comes down to.
Eamon and my daughters goofin' up a given afternoon.
Laid back consistently intermittant work day. I clean house apathetically and put a box of books online. 3 sales of books I put on last night! Nice turnover. Makes me feel productive, justified, worth my while-salt.
We invent a game whereupon we blow on each other's faces. Mass giggles abound.
I feel the need to make some good food, having been so busy as of late to have only the energy necessary to whip up mediocre sustenance. Maybe a bath and a good meal while my ladies snooze today. Neck's still sore from wrestling Rob.
Little pears on the trees outside, tiny apples. Overcast today, morning chilled. I glance at my hewlett-packard printer atop my woodstove...the cardboard boxes of books ringing it's metal and tile framed burn-belly... gonna have to do somethin' about that soon.
So many things that need to be done and I have so little energy with which to do them all. I focus on getting the daily standards done, forget to put the chicken away half the time, partition off little bits of myself for future little work binges, lay fence around my mindscape to delineate between sanity and art, cordon off the wild from the responsible, too late, for already they mate and mingle in elysian pastoral pastures.
Freezing trays of blackberries all day, still only got a fraction of them off the bushes. Maybe another good haul left on one of our heroic trips to the mailbox. Need to get a cover crop on my tilled soils here before it gets too late. I think I'll name my garden's wing and prayer.
Almost time for a glass of wine and a book in the bathtub. Just found a nice title Aquaerotica, it's even waterproof. And another: The Erotic Field Guide to the Outdoors. Entertaining, better written than those stupid Penthouse forums, that's for sure. Who gasps last? That's what it really comes down to.
Eamon and my daughters goofin' up a given afternoon.
Thursday, September 7, 2006
epic
so I had one of the most interesting, entertaining 72 hour periods of my life this past weekend. which probably explains both my lack of writing for a few days and my deluge today. Lyli and Scarleht burn their crazy joy in our sunny yard this Thursday morning like none before it as I sit groggily transposing notes into more notes with a narrative line:
Eamon and I arrive home saturday evening and tidy the house for our lovely guests joining us for dinner, wine and a night in the country. Pasta with vodka sauce, wide ranging conversation, the shy, sly smiles that light up a night, a light bending through the curvature of wine and this glass that holds it. She smiles at me while attaching safety-pins to her everything and I know it's true. Fast-forward a few hours to naked bodies, smeared with blackberries and soot, dancing around a bonfire free and ecstatic under the shooting stars and deep dark open. Fast-forward to the morning after, breakfast and fond touches and smoke and into the city shining.
Meet my father at noonish at Last Word Books. We take a roundabout walk down Eastbay and up San Francisco street to get my girls. Talk turns around our little lives, dipping serious and rising smiling. We talk about familial familiar relationships, respect, this public stage I've made of parts of my and our life. We decide that sometime soon we will talk to my mother about the three of us attending some group counseling from an old family friend in Walla Walla. We talk about fractured families, healing processes, past mistakes, regrets, solutions. It is hard and heavy and good and warm.
We make it up the hill, hang out with Steph for a few minutes and then drive to Priest Point Park, the girls quickly asleep. Now our talk turns to business, economics, our joint book empire we are slowly building, barely maintaining, drowning in. Dreaming of bookshelves, we try to stay small in our endeavors to puzzle together a future that can hold us all. The clock ticks, back downtown to meet my father's parents for lunch. They are aware of Steph and I's separation for the first time and I know this and am nervous. Safety-pins walks up as my grandparents approach and I almost burst out laughing at the absurdity of synchronicity and its ridiculous timing. Safety-pins meets and greets three generations of my family hours after the blackberry bonfire. I blush beneath my beard and our paths part again. Into lunch with the fam at The Urban Onion.
Good food, good talk. My grandmother broaches senstive subject numero uno in the best way possible with a simple "Do you think there's ever a chance you and Stephanie will get back together." And I stop sweating and relax and everything after is good good gravy and quality time. We deliver the ladies back unto their mama and proceed downtown in my green 1982 volve station wagon affectionately nicknamed "Puff".
To nap or not to nap? That is the question. And the answer is a big fat NO. Time enough to sleep when you're dead. Time for some bacchanalian bonding with father and friends. Faster Pussycat is playing across the street at the 4th Ave Tav and we have lent them the back of the bookstore for their pre and post parties. Thusly everyone with our crew has a free ticket, free drinks, free food... all night long... and it's only 6 pm. Olympia, we might have a problem. Olympia, we might have several problems. Fast-forward thru $19.00 buck-hunter binge with odd assortment of Oly Heads, thru crazy band performance and ceaseless banter, fast-forward up 4th avenue with croquet mallets banging every street sign we can, fast-forward over the bridge and up to Rob's house, thru three bottles of wine and a game of croquet and lots of laughs back down said hill and back to 4th ave tav for some end of the evening libations. Quick run to last-minute gas station for beer, sweet blood. We open Last Word Books for 45 minutes or so in the dead of the night, watching 6 cop cars messing with the drunk and homeless but not us, enjoying cans of olympia in the open doorway of a radical bookstore open and empty at 2am, my father dozing in the chair outside. Truly we are blessed. Truly we are kings.
Back up the hill to Rob's to "retire" for the evening, Rob steals an american flag off a street lamp, Eamon and my father to sleep on respective sofas. Rob and I, another story. We find some gasoline in the shed and proceed to burn said flag, waving over our fair city of Olympia while singing America the Beautiful and Glory, Glory Hallelujah with two wierdoes who wander by before having an impromptu barbeque on the sidewalk of Harrison street until a very nice female police officer arrives, rolls her window down and says something along the lines of "could you please not do that?" Astonished, we politely clean up our mess and go to sleep. Rob and I on his bed, books on a shelf, covers scuffed.
Awake a few hours later and drive out to the Nisqually to pick up some of my mother's things. Amy Goodman interviews Pete Seeger on Democracy Now and we listen, enthralled. Back to Oly to grab Ben, Rob and Eamon, some orange juice, bacon, sausage, champagne. Dash to farmhouse, too much to do, too little time. Eamon whips up an excellent breakfast for all as we run around trying to get all the book work done and still have a good time. Rob digs through 25 boxes with my father in the barn, an experience I know he will relish. We eat and talk books until my pops has to head back over White Pass to Walla Walla.
Our coherence goes rapidly downhill as our sheer enthusiasm skyrockets. We chat about families, children, partners. Conversation shifts to typically taboo topics from a masculine slant, at least, things groups of guys don't normally talk about as openly as we did: sex talk with me boyos on the porch, mimosas, etymyological dictionaries, rock 'n roll, intermittant housework. Will shows up to hang out for the remainder of the evening and we talk silly under a rain of bottle rockets and absurd male bonding. Our words resound against the trees: Scooter subculture, kesey, cult films, blackberry vines and bare legged women, tattooed tramps, Eamon sings Long Black Veil, us: the apes of Oly. We hoist our rag and talk boisterous blood. After that bout of naked dancing a few nights back I've decided to call my "privates" my "publics" instead. Public Pubis. Publis Republicus. Rob and I decide repube should be a word. Would like a t-shirt that reads: This is me on brevity; or: Me: Brevity. "Euphonium? What's That? Playing the clarinet on ecstasy?" My virus aids others. Games Theory. I discover my name means "cloud, shadow, to shield, to twist, to turn obliquely, the coverer." I go mouse hunting with an empty bottle of port wine and emerge victorious. The night devolves and I melt into a wildness running in my own veined alleyways.
Tuesday I run errands, food co-op, post office, bank, write rent check, pick up girls and come back to the farmhouse. Eamon and I work on some of the piles of books littering virtually every room of the house for twelve hours, making a small but concertedly thorough dent. An easy decompressing day. I have not been this social in quite some time and now it explodes in me as I exchange one extreme for another to remember who I want to be by allowing my contemporary self to meet my past selves. Slowly, slowly, I discover what pieces I will use to recraft my self into the dream I have of me.
Wednesday we are in to Olympia, Eamon to work on the bookstore's taxes, me and the ladies to hang out with Heather (my supermamaofthreefriend) and Rowan (her 3.5 year old daughter). Lyli and Scarleht watch Rowan climb trees with obvious awe. Heather and I talk about failed relationships, lost loves, food preservation, bukowski, schooling, uschooling, soup stock, coffee, cigarettes, poetry, all of the above in the age of anarchy. Our girls play in the front yard as we grow to know each other better, two similar souls on this brave new landscape of twenty-first century parenting, looking outward.
Up to Evergreen. Another no-nap-whatsoever day. My ladies run around red square as I sit and journal about the weeks relentless progression of events and hearts and hands and good food. Eamon arrives shortly before Bill Ransom, who was our poetry professor at Evergreen, mentor and source for printing presses, who oddly enough will be moving in with us on Tuesday nights at the farmhouse! I have yet to wrap my mind around this one yet... I just can't believe it's happening. Imagine if your mentor/writing-teacher from the bulk of your college education just up and moved in with you! I'm quite excited.
Scarleht - "One People!" (she's already a genius)
Lyli - "Leaf Down! More Leaf!"
L - "He's Riding a Skateboard!"
both - "I see you Papa!" (in response to me asking them to stay where I can see them)
my pen dies, so I stop taking notes. See Daniel, Ronin's papa. Get to hang out with Lauren, who's watching Obi, for a short hour and a half. Nice to watch the girls play with other kids, however hesitantly. I am blossoming to this. I was afraid of it for a long time.
Fast-forward to present thursday night:
Good day with the girls today home for a full one for once. We play outside most of the day, read books, eat cereal, soup, tortillas and hummus and squash. They help keep the living room clean, have a little picnic with their stuffed animals under the tree. I ruthlessly hide over half of their stuffed animals, claiming they have gone on some extended vacation. My new life adopts some regular rhythms I enjoy the pace of very much. After the ladies fall asleep I sweep up her safety pins and sigh, write, be.
Eamon and I arrive home saturday evening and tidy the house for our lovely guests joining us for dinner, wine and a night in the country. Pasta with vodka sauce, wide ranging conversation, the shy, sly smiles that light up a night, a light bending through the curvature of wine and this glass that holds it. She smiles at me while attaching safety-pins to her everything and I know it's true. Fast-forward a few hours to naked bodies, smeared with blackberries and soot, dancing around a bonfire free and ecstatic under the shooting stars and deep dark open. Fast-forward to the morning after, breakfast and fond touches and smoke and into the city shining.
Meet my father at noonish at Last Word Books. We take a roundabout walk down Eastbay and up San Francisco street to get my girls. Talk turns around our little lives, dipping serious and rising smiling. We talk about familial familiar relationships, respect, this public stage I've made of parts of my and our life. We decide that sometime soon we will talk to my mother about the three of us attending some group counseling from an old family friend in Walla Walla. We talk about fractured families, healing processes, past mistakes, regrets, solutions. It is hard and heavy and good and warm.
We make it up the hill, hang out with Steph for a few minutes and then drive to Priest Point Park, the girls quickly asleep. Now our talk turns to business, economics, our joint book empire we are slowly building, barely maintaining, drowning in. Dreaming of bookshelves, we try to stay small in our endeavors to puzzle together a future that can hold us all. The clock ticks, back downtown to meet my father's parents for lunch. They are aware of Steph and I's separation for the first time and I know this and am nervous. Safety-pins walks up as my grandparents approach and I almost burst out laughing at the absurdity of synchronicity and its ridiculous timing. Safety-pins meets and greets three generations of my family hours after the blackberry bonfire. I blush beneath my beard and our paths part again. Into lunch with the fam at The Urban Onion.
Good food, good talk. My grandmother broaches senstive subject numero uno in the best way possible with a simple "Do you think there's ever a chance you and Stephanie will get back together." And I stop sweating and relax and everything after is good good gravy and quality time. We deliver the ladies back unto their mama and proceed downtown in my green 1982 volve station wagon affectionately nicknamed "Puff".
To nap or not to nap? That is the question. And the answer is a big fat NO. Time enough to sleep when you're dead. Time for some bacchanalian bonding with father and friends. Faster Pussycat is playing across the street at the 4th Ave Tav and we have lent them the back of the bookstore for their pre and post parties. Thusly everyone with our crew has a free ticket, free drinks, free food... all night long... and it's only 6 pm. Olympia, we might have a problem. Olympia, we might have several problems. Fast-forward thru $19.00 buck-hunter binge with odd assortment of Oly Heads, thru crazy band performance and ceaseless banter, fast-forward up 4th avenue with croquet mallets banging every street sign we can, fast-forward over the bridge and up to Rob's house, thru three bottles of wine and a game of croquet and lots of laughs back down said hill and back to 4th ave tav for some end of the evening libations. Quick run to last-minute gas station for beer, sweet blood. We open Last Word Books for 45 minutes or so in the dead of the night, watching 6 cop cars messing with the drunk and homeless but not us, enjoying cans of olympia in the open doorway of a radical bookstore open and empty at 2am, my father dozing in the chair outside. Truly we are blessed. Truly we are kings.
Back up the hill to Rob's to "retire" for the evening, Rob steals an american flag off a street lamp, Eamon and my father to sleep on respective sofas. Rob and I, another story. We find some gasoline in the shed and proceed to burn said flag, waving over our fair city of Olympia while singing America the Beautiful and Glory, Glory Hallelujah with two wierdoes who wander by before having an impromptu barbeque on the sidewalk of Harrison street until a very nice female police officer arrives, rolls her window down and says something along the lines of "could you please not do that?" Astonished, we politely clean up our mess and go to sleep. Rob and I on his bed, books on a shelf, covers scuffed.
Awake a few hours later and drive out to the Nisqually to pick up some of my mother's things. Amy Goodman interviews Pete Seeger on Democracy Now and we listen, enthralled. Back to Oly to grab Ben, Rob and Eamon, some orange juice, bacon, sausage, champagne. Dash to farmhouse, too much to do, too little time. Eamon whips up an excellent breakfast for all as we run around trying to get all the book work done and still have a good time. Rob digs through 25 boxes with my father in the barn, an experience I know he will relish. We eat and talk books until my pops has to head back over White Pass to Walla Walla.
Our coherence goes rapidly downhill as our sheer enthusiasm skyrockets. We chat about families, children, partners. Conversation shifts to typically taboo topics from a masculine slant, at least, things groups of guys don't normally talk about as openly as we did: sex talk with me boyos on the porch, mimosas, etymyological dictionaries, rock 'n roll, intermittant housework. Will shows up to hang out for the remainder of the evening and we talk silly under a rain of bottle rockets and absurd male bonding. Our words resound against the trees: Scooter subculture, kesey, cult films, blackberry vines and bare legged women, tattooed tramps, Eamon sings Long Black Veil, us: the apes of Oly. We hoist our rag and talk boisterous blood. After that bout of naked dancing a few nights back I've decided to call my "privates" my "publics" instead. Public Pubis. Publis Republicus. Rob and I decide repube should be a word. Would like a t-shirt that reads: This is me on brevity; or: Me: Brevity. "Euphonium? What's That? Playing the clarinet on ecstasy?" My virus aids others. Games Theory. I discover my name means "cloud, shadow, to shield, to twist, to turn obliquely, the coverer." I go mouse hunting with an empty bottle of port wine and emerge victorious. The night devolves and I melt into a wildness running in my own veined alleyways.
Tuesday I run errands, food co-op, post office, bank, write rent check, pick up girls and come back to the farmhouse. Eamon and I work on some of the piles of books littering virtually every room of the house for twelve hours, making a small but concertedly thorough dent. An easy decompressing day. I have not been this social in quite some time and now it explodes in me as I exchange one extreme for another to remember who I want to be by allowing my contemporary self to meet my past selves. Slowly, slowly, I discover what pieces I will use to recraft my self into the dream I have of me.
Wednesday we are in to Olympia, Eamon to work on the bookstore's taxes, me and the ladies to hang out with Heather (my supermamaofthreefriend) and Rowan (her 3.5 year old daughter). Lyli and Scarleht watch Rowan climb trees with obvious awe. Heather and I talk about failed relationships, lost loves, food preservation, bukowski, schooling, uschooling, soup stock, coffee, cigarettes, poetry, all of the above in the age of anarchy. Our girls play in the front yard as we grow to know each other better, two similar souls on this brave new landscape of twenty-first century parenting, looking outward.
Up to Evergreen. Another no-nap-whatsoever day. My ladies run around red square as I sit and journal about the weeks relentless progression of events and hearts and hands and good food. Eamon arrives shortly before Bill Ransom, who was our poetry professor at Evergreen, mentor and source for printing presses, who oddly enough will be moving in with us on Tuesday nights at the farmhouse! I have yet to wrap my mind around this one yet... I just can't believe it's happening. Imagine if your mentor/writing-teacher from the bulk of your college education just up and moved in with you! I'm quite excited.
Scarleht - "One People!" (she's already a genius)
Lyli - "Leaf Down! More Leaf!"
L - "He's Riding a Skateboard!"
both - "I see you Papa!" (in response to me asking them to stay where I can see them)
my pen dies, so I stop taking notes. See Daniel, Ronin's papa. Get to hang out with Lauren, who's watching Obi, for a short hour and a half. Nice to watch the girls play with other kids, however hesitantly. I am blossoming to this. I was afraid of it for a long time.
Fast-forward to present thursday night:
Good day with the girls today home for a full one for once. We play outside most of the day, read books, eat cereal, soup, tortillas and hummus and squash. They help keep the living room clean, have a little picnic with their stuffed animals under the tree. I ruthlessly hide over half of their stuffed animals, claiming they have gone on some extended vacation. My new life adopts some regular rhythms I enjoy the pace of very much. After the ladies fall asleep I sweep up her safety pins and sigh, write, be.
An awesome poem about condoms
Rubbers by jefferson carter
My eighteen-year-old asks if I'd be
uncomfortable buying him condoms.
No problem, my inner adult answers.
My inner jerk wants to add, as long
as you're not going to use them.
I'm face to face with the fruit
& flower of late capitalism, an entire wall
of prophylactics, Trojans, Avanti,
Durex, Inspiral, fifteen different brands,
red & silver & gold boxes. I forgot to ask
what kind he wants, Extended Pleasure,
Ultra-Sensitive Ribbed, Studded Texture,
Magnum Shared Sensation or, God forbid,
Lifestyle Luscious Flavors. I shut
my eyes & fumble a box off its hook
the way people used to shut their eyes
& open the Bible to a random passage.
How little I know about my son.
I remember sitting in bed beside my first love,
quaking, our hands like wood, waiting
for the call from the doctor's office.
My eighteen-year-old asks if I'd be
uncomfortable buying him condoms.
No problem, my inner adult answers.
My inner jerk wants to add, as long
as you're not going to use them.
I'm face to face with the fruit
& flower of late capitalism, an entire wall
of prophylactics, Trojans, Avanti,
Durex, Inspiral, fifteen different brands,
red & silver & gold boxes. I forgot to ask
what kind he wants, Extended Pleasure,
Ultra-Sensitive Ribbed, Studded Texture,
Magnum Shared Sensation or, God forbid,
Lifestyle Luscious Flavors. I shut
my eyes & fumble a box off its hook
the way people used to shut their eyes
& open the Bible to a random passage.
How little I know about my son.
I remember sitting in bed beside my first love,
quaking, our hands like wood, waiting
for the call from the doctor's office.
a father's thoughts on ending relationships and beginning new ones, on rediscovery and reinvention
lifted from Radical Shift - Thanks! Wish you'd post more often, I enjoy your thoughts!
by far my biggest work has become figuring out what it is that i want out of a relationship. this has brought me back to my journal, and indeed my community.
this might sound simple, and some of you may have no trouble at all writing down, on the spur of the moment what you want from a partner, what you want from marriage, or what you want from your life. i for one, am at a loss.
it may be that i am afraid of what it is that i want, or it may just be that i am a little scattered in that way. for whatever reason, i get to the questions in my mind, and i just shut down. first of all, i get right back into what a professional on the subject once called"my shit". it's the outmoded stories, scripts, etc that play along in my mind blindly defining my life in terms of no possibility, from a place of not being present. i get stuck in the past, or project into the future. i blame myself, or others for what i am "stuck with" in my life, and generally have guilt, and self-loathing that lashes back out on the people i love the most. unfortunately, all this psycho-logikal krap is mostly subconscious, and i have been largely unaware of my stop in all of this until recently.
there is a piece that just occured to me. what i want changes irregularly, and often. i don't seem to know when i am about to make a "radicalshift"(pardon the expression), and change gears completely on what i want. it is just ever dynamic. relationship commitments have been easy for me to make, and very fucking difficult to keep.
i may be strongly sure about a set of agreements i make with somebody, and then without me recognising that it has, it changes almost completely. this mode has set me up to play the role of the hipocrit(however that is spelled) often, and it's not that i lied about what i wanted the agreements to look like, it just changes. all the freaking time.
this has been mirrored my life not just in relationship, but in general interests.
i may be completely committed to one hobbie, or study, and then in the blink of an eye, it's gone. this has brought me to polyamoury in the last year, because it was a set of agreements that i could live by, and seemingly get my needs met, but that has changing slightly, and i am not seeking lovers. there are relationships that i have that could be lover relationships(several), but i have not pursued that. right now, at this short time in my life, it seems foolhardy to risk all that i care about to satisfy my needs, which may only be wants.
i have taken to forsaking my wants in leiu of a wise, and patient course. is that really satisfying me? no/yes/maybe. i don't know, because i haven't gotten down deep enough through all the shit to find out. who's to say that it will stay that way for any length of time. i don't blame any of my lovers if they feel insecure in my life. they are! i can be whimsical, and (hopefully not too hard on myself here), flaky.
how can i expect my partner to act connected, when my issues, and thoughts/opinions/beliefs are moving all over the map. i feel like even when things are going well, that my partner is a little elusive, a little masked, maybe afraid to be vulnerable.
if i wallow in this mess, i get even stucker(yes, it's a word. i just made it up), so i am going to move off the subject slightly, or at least not delve quite so deep.
what do i want? i want to feel loved. i want to be free to express my feelings, and get acceptance, and understanding without judging me for them. i want room to make mistakes. i want sex. not too often, and not too seldom. i know i'm sounding picky here, but it is possible. and while i'm on the subject, i want some of it to be really meaningful, caring, deeply connected sex; spiritual sex. but i want to have quickies in the shower too. like right before work sometimes when it's really selfish but that's ok. or maybe right before the kids get off the school bus, and we only have like 4 minutes, but it's better to fuck for a few minutes than not to. i want some sex with the long looks in the eyes, like extacy sex, and i want some of that really awesome giggly sex that's like tickle torture, but funner and sexy. (admittedly, also like ex sex, but a different kind.) i want teamwork. (and i have a lot of work, so a team helps sooo much) i want to be an inspiration, and even a muse of sorts, but i also want my partner to inspire me, to breathe fresh air into my lungs when i am so deeply in my shit that i lose sight of how awesome i am.
wait a second, i thought i was stuck! what was all that. that fucking wall of fog is just that. it looks a hundred miles long, but as soon as i start running, and ram into it, i burst through, and fall into a meadow with buttercups, and dragonflies.
and furthermore, when i look at the things i wrote, i find that i already have these things.
by far my biggest work has become figuring out what it is that i want out of a relationship. this has brought me back to my journal, and indeed my community.
this might sound simple, and some of you may have no trouble at all writing down, on the spur of the moment what you want from a partner, what you want from marriage, or what you want from your life. i for one, am at a loss.
it may be that i am afraid of what it is that i want, or it may just be that i am a little scattered in that way. for whatever reason, i get to the questions in my mind, and i just shut down. first of all, i get right back into what a professional on the subject once called"my shit". it's the outmoded stories, scripts, etc that play along in my mind blindly defining my life in terms of no possibility, from a place of not being present. i get stuck in the past, or project into the future. i blame myself, or others for what i am "stuck with" in my life, and generally have guilt, and self-loathing that lashes back out on the people i love the most. unfortunately, all this psycho-logikal krap is mostly subconscious, and i have been largely unaware of my stop in all of this until recently.
there is a piece that just occured to me. what i want changes irregularly, and often. i don't seem to know when i am about to make a "radicalshift"(pardon the expression), and change gears completely on what i want. it is just ever dynamic. relationship commitments have been easy for me to make, and very fucking difficult to keep.
i may be strongly sure about a set of agreements i make with somebody, and then without me recognising that it has, it changes almost completely. this mode has set me up to play the role of the hipocrit(however that is spelled) often, and it's not that i lied about what i wanted the agreements to look like, it just changes. all the freaking time.
this has been mirrored my life not just in relationship, but in general interests.
i may be completely committed to one hobbie, or study, and then in the blink of an eye, it's gone. this has brought me to polyamoury in the last year, because it was a set of agreements that i could live by, and seemingly get my needs met, but that has changing slightly, and i am not seeking lovers. there are relationships that i have that could be lover relationships(several), but i have not pursued that. right now, at this short time in my life, it seems foolhardy to risk all that i care about to satisfy my needs, which may only be wants.
i have taken to forsaking my wants in leiu of a wise, and patient course. is that really satisfying me? no/yes/maybe. i don't know, because i haven't gotten down deep enough through all the shit to find out. who's to say that it will stay that way for any length of time. i don't blame any of my lovers if they feel insecure in my life. they are! i can be whimsical, and (hopefully not too hard on myself here), flaky.
how can i expect my partner to act connected, when my issues, and thoughts/opinions/beliefs are moving all over the map. i feel like even when things are going well, that my partner is a little elusive, a little masked, maybe afraid to be vulnerable.
if i wallow in this mess, i get even stucker(yes, it's a word. i just made it up), so i am going to move off the subject slightly, or at least not delve quite so deep.
what do i want? i want to feel loved. i want to be free to express my feelings, and get acceptance, and understanding without judging me for them. i want room to make mistakes. i want sex. not too often, and not too seldom. i know i'm sounding picky here, but it is possible. and while i'm on the subject, i want some of it to be really meaningful, caring, deeply connected sex; spiritual sex. but i want to have quickies in the shower too. like right before work sometimes when it's really selfish but that's ok. or maybe right before the kids get off the school bus, and we only have like 4 minutes, but it's better to fuck for a few minutes than not to. i want some sex with the long looks in the eyes, like extacy sex, and i want some of that really awesome giggly sex that's like tickle torture, but funner and sexy. (admittedly, also like ex sex, but a different kind.) i want teamwork. (and i have a lot of work, so a team helps sooo much) i want to be an inspiration, and even a muse of sorts, but i also want my partner to inspire me, to breathe fresh air into my lungs when i am so deeply in my shit that i lose sight of how awesome i am.
wait a second, i thought i was stuck! what was all that. that fucking wall of fog is just that. it looks a hundred miles long, but as soon as i start running, and ram into it, i burst through, and fall into a meadow with buttercups, and dragonflies.
and furthermore, when i look at the things i wrote, i find that i already have these things.
links before 10:30, or, how much do I hate html code?
Two hours of sleep. Uggh. Lyli and Scarleht tear apart the roses on the dining room table while I lay on the sofa pretending that r.e.m. sleep isn't that important, really. Cold here this morning again, the brrr months have arrived. Will be woodstove time soon enough so papa best get splittin'. Remain tuned for an epic tale from the front lines of Pirate Papa. In the meantime, peruse these most marvelous 'o linkages:
Awesome letter from Metrodad to his little Peanut, to be read as a teenager
Dad Gone Mad - Don't know why I hadn't discovered this one yet
Mom from Daily Dose's personal ranting - "This website chronicles some really pointless times in my life when I would post drunk and take pictures of my shoes. There was a brief interlude of about a hundred million entries about being pregnant, then a bunch of tantrums about breastfeeding, and now it's back to drunk posts about shoes. All full-circle-like." - my new favorite web-mama
Playing & Learning at Home
Slow Parenting - I love it!
Infoshop's Radical Parenting Page - Pirate Papa makes the grade
Top-Blogs Parenting Links
busy pirate
There are times to live and there are times to write about living, a wise woman once told someone I used to be. Recently I have been living far too much to write about it all but I wanted to share some photos with ya'll.
Pirate Papa on Flickr
or, if you've got a news aggregator you can Feed right in
More notes to come soon, I promise. Maybe I can get a little time tomorrow when the girls nap. Thanks to all of you I've gotten to see and hang out with and talk to recently. Life is good.
Pirate Papa Parties start for any and all fathers and their children on the last Sunday of every month out here at the farmhouse. Spread the word.
Saturday, September 2, 2006
I made some things that are growing eyebrows
and it flabbergasts me daily. Lyli and Scarleht's vocabulary is increasing exponentially, I can watch the little language gears interlock and evolve on a microcosmic level. Every few days right now my girls will add another simple word to a simple thought, slowly, slowly making it not that simple anymore. They say good morning to me all the time now, even when they wake up from their afternoon nap. Lyli and I were sitting on our respective potties this morning and she pointed and said "toy-et pay-puh bum papa" (no that doesn't mean she wants to TP her bum of a father)... then a few seconds later she shot her eyes to the left, grinned and said "wype".
My girls got up as I was going to bed (five am), so I squeek through today with a scant two hours of cuddled, fuddled sleep. On the plus side they go down for a nap at 11 am! Strange cycles.
My father comes to hang out with the girls and I tomorrow in Olympia and then party with Rob and Eamon and I perhaps? Time shall tell. She always does, that bitch.
My girls got up as I was going to bed (five am), so I squeek through today with a scant two hours of cuddled, fuddled sleep. On the plus side they go down for a nap at 11 am! Strange cycles.
My father comes to hang out with the girls and I tomorrow in Olympia and then party with Rob and Eamon and I perhaps? Time shall tell. She always does, that bitch.
So many stars here the dizziness overcomes the solitude, the solution becomes the problem it pretends to solve. I stare up at these stars and gasp into the telephone, ear on the other end listening, mouth on the other end speaking truths and powers and hours unfolded but not simple origami like our most individual of souls. Alone but for my breath, my heart foolishly following my tongue and taste deep down into those dishes I never dreamed of cooking but laid love upon like hands hungry for hollow fame.
Friday, September 1, 2006
Can you imagine killing another man with a 2.2 pound broadsword, watching his blood spurt or trickle out to mix with the dust beneath your noble feet? Can you conceive of giving birth in a cave? At whatever given time, folks took these things for granted, just as we take for granted the 5% of our every purchase that goes to Visa or Mastercard or some nameless war somewhere we've never been. Can you imagine killing another man with your 2.2 gram credit card? Setting dictates our perception and bias, our notion of life, death, happiness, sorrow. Speed is not convenience. What was lost when the scribe died on a cross-tempered by technology's steal [sic]? How many of us feel anachronistic and satisfy it with something simply complex like role playing games or science fiction or speculative fiction or fantastic sexual escapades we charge on our 2.2 gram Delta Sky Miles Visa? What do we lose when our snipers kill a man from three football fields and two pints away as opposed to hand to hand combat? What do we lose by pressing a button instead of galloping a horse? More lives, more blood, more distance. Gradually we remove ourselves from the consequences of our actions, lost are those most valuable of lessons learned from the dark side of real. Distanced are our ethics from our hearts. We throw up digital barriers and economic divides, pretending that life is on our side instead of theirs.
So many strange thoughts I would not have had if I had not become a father. Or would not have had for several decades. This quickening of biography caused by fatherhood boggles my addled brain. Hagiography (try that one on for size) fascinates me now, as does heredity, lineage, war, tradition, blood. I wish that my own meant more to me than it does. Damn our culture for eclipsing and negating that most holy of lessons, the lesson of family dashed on the rocks of a greedy consumer culture and a patriarchal, militarized, nine-to-five routine, lost amidst a sea of useless lessons crammed down our throats by father "figures" because we barely know our real fathers, never got gifted the time or circumstance to come to know them. And so we hide behind masks of ourselves, acting as if we know who we want to be but not who we are.
Progressivly drunk. That's going to be my party platform. Forgive any trasgressions I may have unwittingly uprooted. But know that I will plant or bury them given enough time.
So many strange thoughts I would not have had if I had not become a father. Or would not have had for several decades. This quickening of biography caused by fatherhood boggles my addled brain. Hagiography (try that one on for size) fascinates me now, as does heredity, lineage, war, tradition, blood. I wish that my own meant more to me than it does. Damn our culture for eclipsing and negating that most holy of lessons, the lesson of family dashed on the rocks of a greedy consumer culture and a patriarchal, militarized, nine-to-five routine, lost amidst a sea of useless lessons crammed down our throats by father "figures" because we barely know our real fathers, never got gifted the time or circumstance to come to know them. And so we hide behind masks of ourselves, acting as if we know who we want to be but not who we are.
Progressivly drunk. That's going to be my party platform. Forgive any trasgressions I may have unwittingly uprooted. But know that I will plant or bury them given enough time.
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