June 2007 Archives

It's 1 AM and I have now been awake for 39 hours straight for a reason that involves zip codes and home sale prices and that's about all that is worth mentioning. What I have is not exactly synesthesia, but I do have an acutely aware sense of smell, especially of those things that are on the not so pleasing end of the sensory scale. I keep smelling bad flatulence, cat piss, rotting corpses...

I am starting to think of this like some of my friends think of detox diets, lemonade fasts, confession, etc. It's been years since I last stayed up all night, and that time it was writing and recording a bad song. This time it was a bad map. But I do feel like I a resetting my clock. Tonight was one of my most relaxed in recent memory. I felt like most of the synapses were firing properly, so I went to see a baseball game. The boys of summer in this here town put up numbers that would have won all of their recent scoreless games.

I stepped into a pile of melting summer bubble gum today that is still collecting gravel on my out-of-season boots.

I should learn how to dress better for this weather.

The words "I love you" can save a life.

I will sleep like a baby tonight.

Today was one of those go to the Korean market and get a ham sandwich and eat at your desk type days at work.

I am working on the zip code delineated home sales data map and apparently the data is not mean prices, but median prices, and you cannot do an accurate weighted average of median data. I had to google the difference because I could not quite extract that one from the catacombs of my brain. I used to be a designer, now I am becoming, reluctantly, something else.

So I go to the Korean market and feel that the humidity is down so the low nineties don't feel like they will later on this Summer. Outside the market there are two semi-homeless white guys talking about what to buy and they decide upon an Icehouse and a pack of Rave cigarettes. I know the Icehouse trick from baseball games, as cheap as the other beers but with more kick, but you will find it kicking you in the head in the morning, but I figure living in this moment is probably what these guys want. It's probably what I would want if I were in their shoes as well.

So I find myself in line behind the one of them sent to procure the goods in the market, and upon hearing his total, he begins digging vigorously in his sock, partially removing his shoe, and produces several singles and probably three dollars in coins. I wondered how he was able to walk. I wondered was this one of the safe ways of the street. Then I wondered if it were a best practice, why would they not just take your shoes and socks and look for the money after kicking your ass out on the street, or down in the parking lot under the bridge at night.

I guess my homeless guy, the one I paid my alms to on Fridays, has been killed or arrested or found another stomping ground. He never made it to this Summer with me.

It's hard for me to imagine whether I would prefer Summer or Winter if I were living on the streets here. If you were lucky, in Winter, you would find enough cover to make you warm on most nights. In Summer, sometimes, you cannot take off enough to make you cool though. I don't really know. At least you can sleep in heat, but if freezing you are wired.

I am not too sure about this city today. I am not too sure about my job today. On the other hand, I feel pretty good about me. I have found myself, however, starting to wonder what those first few days of the real Fall, when you can put on a sweater, will feel like. I need to get these thoughts out of my head, lest I be miserable for months to come. It hasn't even really heated up in this city.

Today there was three homeless folks that I saw, met, and felt sorry for. I could not give the money because it was not Friday, which is my alms day. I gave a cigarette today, and a light, and realized that I need to stop smoking, except I do not want to think myself better than that.

It is the beginning of summer in this crowded and cluttered city. In this city in which you cannot even pick your nose in peace on the way home because there are eyes from every angle always watching you.

There is a Miller Light bottle cap in my pocket because I didn't know where to put it. It is a badge of shame or honor depending on the crowd the you inhabit when you confess. I am so tired of confessions. I just want the truth to be real, to be something that we can all touch. My body is all swollen with the mess. The heat gets in my head. My body feels old.

To day was the longest day of the year. There was a party to go to at a recording studio. I thought of Gatsby. You should always have a party on this day of the year. I just wish we were all in linen and hats and that Dorothy Parker was telling jokes in corner.

I listened to This American Life today and the episode was about camp. Summer camps, places we made friends and lovers, maybe even got married, cried and wiped each other's tears away. Places we were away from mom and dad in which for a brief period we could truly be confessional. There was so much innocence in those summers, in those bonds. Some of us (I am speaking of myself now), pissed that all away. To be so afraid of what it is that you are is to be in prison. I would love to hug each and all of the kids there again. The blonde twins, and the brunette that I kissed, without tongue, behind the boathouse, and the boys, Charlie, David, Ian.

I guess when I was a kid they were summer. They were something beautiful. Playboy magazines hidden under the spring bed frame. Flashlight pointing on glossy breast after lights out. "Coming of age" is what the critics call it.

There was swimming and canoeing and late night clandestine excursions.

Now I live in a city. There are kids everywhere but I know nothing of there lives. I retire into permanent bachelorhood.

There is so much summer here. Lovely summer. The AC prices are escalating, but the girls are all wearing strappy versions of less. Their shoulders are devine. Their tan lines do dirty talk. They bring back memories of camp, and places by the pool, and places by the pool even more recently.

Summer is desire. Summer is all that we ever wanted when we were kids, and maybe it could just be enough for our little, withered adult hearts.

Montana owns Winter. If you cannot deal with it you need to find other environs. Georgia owns Summer. I prefer colder weather, but this weather is me, it is in my bones like nothing else. I will not be leaving this town.

I fell down a thousand wells to get here. Thirty three years and a month or two to get there. I like my butterflies, but not like you like butterflies. Ten day off medication. Wish that this mess wasn't mine to deal with.

I sing alleluia, alleluia. The lord is my shepherd. He makes me whole. I ask you for so many things, oh pretty boy. I still believe. I still believe. I still believe. After all of this I finally and still believe.

The prisms through which we try to view this life bring us sadness, joy, heartbreak, etc. Mine is a dark crystal, yet turning light.

I drink sparkling water from a can tonight, with a touch of lemon, or something like that.

Don't kill me when I think these things can be real. Don't kill me, oh lord, for believing.

Take me to a river where all of these sins can be washed away. A swift running river where everything I have done is five miles down stream already. Where we have all already seen God and passed or signed up for the passage.

Forgive me father for I have done things. I have told lies. I have tried my best to protect whatever it is that I understand myself to be. Forgive me father, and mother, and friends, and little tiny animals. Forgive me, all of you.

There are pictures of me, in this place, of people I do not know, and they keep asking me to remember, and I continue to say no.

Let's fall asleep and see if we can awake as Peter Pan. Please Peter Pan? Can we make this happen. Before I become nothing and the world takes on far more heft?

Six days on the road, but I'm gonna make it home tonight... but to what?