The Nowhere Special

About

2011-03-11T12:36:00.000-08:00

First published as a blog and now as a book, The Nowhere Special is a collection of short stories, snapshots, essays, and prose compiled from the artistic mind of Mark Searcy to champion the notion that a medium influences how a message can be perceived. Blogs read differently than books—even when the words are the same, the meaning feels different when you can hold it in your hands.

Dedication

2011-03-11T12:32:00.000-08:00

I wrote this for the person that is attached to the voice you hear when I yell, “Just picture it with words!”

Introduction

2011-03-11T12:31:00.000-08:00

If you can read this and watch yourself hold a book in front of your face at the same time then you’ll get what I mean when I introduce this book as something that was written with you in mind. If you can’t read this and watch yourself hold a book in front of your face at the same time, then your imagination could be broken and you should probably have it checked out to make sure it’s not too serious or deadly.

Now, lady or gentleman, with just a little further ado, I introduce The Nowhere Special as a book that smells like paper, ink, and glue, and now a little bit like you too.

The Modern Problem With Living In Teepees

2011-02-24T13:01:00.000-08:00

The modern problem with living in teepees is that eventually someone will come around and tell you to leave because your teepee is propped up on their property. They'll ask where you got your teepee poles, then add that the trees you cut down to make them were probably on private property too. And where are you poopin'? Behind those trees in a pit? And that fire? Where'd you get them sticks? From around here? On my land? You're burning my sticks! Go on! Get! Before I call the cops, and they'll throw you away for trespassin' and fine you a million bucks. And if you don't pay up, you'll be in it up to your neck, and that teepee won't mean nothin'!

It's the same as the old-fashioned problem with living in teepees, except the old-fashioned teepee living people told that someone who came around to fuck off and chased him away in a big scuffle. Then war broke out when that someone who came around decided to come back again with reinforcements. And they steamrolled those motherfuckin' teepees, and divided up the land with invisible lines that they sold to gullible people—money for thin air!

But these gullible people turned money-serious and got protective of their investments with guns guns knives and guns, hiring cops and vigilantes to fight all intruders within their imaginary invisible lines. They built permanent structures where the teepees would have been, so they could stake their claim in deep and be there to proclaim “This land is my land!—from what you see here all the way to that fence! It's built along an imaginary line that cost me thousands of pieces of paper!”

Modernity! It's a money trap with no freedom! All the teepees are gone now! We killed them and robbed them and chased them away because we wanted so bad to be the only ones allowed to sit where they were sitting. I can't run to the wild and find a teepee town full of native Americans and plead them to let me teepee with them. Teepee towns no longer exist! Now, in the twenty-first century, you can't run anywhere without plowing into a fence! It's a trap! And we all live in it and say we love it because the only alternative we fought and destroyed.

And there can never be a teepee revolution because all those expensive guns and bombs are no match for a teepee made of sticks and skins. Fuming-mad gasoline trucks will run right through them while you sleep in em! And bullets from the guns of attackers defending their position with rain down with a “Yippee ki-yay motherfuckers! Hasta la vista! Go on! Get! Cause, I'll be back... to piss on your dead dirty faces!” The media will make a circus of the whole event. “Look at the clowns trying to say they are free! They squat on your land like mice carrying lice. Oooohhhh gross! Get rid of them—disgusting dirty people living in the dirt of the earth!”

What happened to the Land of the Free? It sure does cost a lot to live here. The Land of the Free is a marketing scheme! And it comes at an inflated price! What it costs now will cost even more, for generations to come!

I'd much rather live in a teepee town and rest my head on the dirt next to a small fire wondering how anyone could live so long without touching the earth. No gasoline guzzlin'. No electricity buzzin'. No cubicle filled building needed to earn nothing I don't already have for free.

Freedom! Real freedom! Not this fake talk of paper money buying advertised freedom! That's not free at all—just something to buy into like religion or fashion or packaging design! Real freedom is escape! And we're all trapped by money and fences.

Shiver Me Timbers

2011-02-22T18:25:00.000-08:00

Stop looking at the forest through the trees. Look up or down or something, and find your way through. Climb a tree and go up—pull branches with your hands down towards the ground under your feet and push everything below you, branch after branch getting smaller and softer the more you pull and press and step and rest—pausing to glimpse the changing world view.

The forest! It's gone! It's been replaced with a field of evergreen grass! And it's vast! It sways in the wind for miles, shivering in the sun. Shivering? Yes. Shivering like shivers on a spine when you see something you have never seen before in your life and you can't believe your eyes.

Shiver me timbers.

Comparing My Writing To That Of Dave Eggers

2011-02-21T16:18:00.000-08:00

While house-sitting this weekend, I poked around a bookcase and found a small book of short little stories by Dave Eggers (How The Water Feels To The Fishes). I have been wanting to read his writing for a while, deeper than just skimming, so I took a lazy quiet Sunday moment and dove in. They were nice little picturesque stories—warm enough to hold my attention and make me smile with applause—all beautifully written. The deeper I read, the more the writer part of me started to question if what I was doing with my writing was different enough to hold it's own. In a self-conscience comparison I came to see that yes, there are obvious preferences to the way I write and read!

1) I write close-up. I realize that I don't often write in third person because I feel further away from the visual of the story. I like to read the way the author sees, and far away characters feel too far away to me.

2) Song and dance. I like the lyrical qualities of words that roll through syntax and meaning down gory alleys. Stupid and silly and playful and perfectly capable of making the reader have a good time, even if that reader is me, the writer!

3) What you see is what you hear. This is my voice, even though it sounds nothing like me. It's something you can't hear with your ears, or see with your eyes. It's a hearsay seesaw heehaw—a party disguised with words.

4) My thoughts and fingers are not your thoughts and fingers. Even when we point at the same thing, we are pointing at something different.

Chicken Wrap

2011-02-18T20:54:00.000-08:00

Feelings feel freshest in the morning, but tonight the dullness of the day-long day will do. A slip of the wrist and a slap of the tongue—flip-flap-flap—chicken wrap!

Unwrapping the cellophane, it crinkles. Chick-chick-chicken smell mixed with mayonnaise and cheese. Green lettuce stickin' out—showin' through the seams—as the tortilla strips with wet finger tips. Yup! It's chicken! I was just checkin' before I took a bite. Mmmmm delicious, kind-of. No not really. That was the hungry speaking before the taste of cardboard and wet juice meat was squeezed all over my tongue.

Chick-chick-chicken. Chew-chew-chicken. Doo-doo-dickin' around. Spit it out, all over my computer screen. It's sticking! And sliding! And smearing on it's own! That's the force of gravity at work. Look-look-look it. Look-look-look it's sliding down and dripping! I think it needs some more. Another bite! Pthewey! Swirly chicken fingers make a greasy surface in which I write the words, “Chicken wrap everything up.” Then I lick a part in the middle to make it read, “Chick rap every up.”

Nonsense. The chicken wrap was eaten in silence and the cellophane wrapper was discarded and eventually lodged in the ground where it waited and waited and waited to be discovered by future human beings—the kind that survived the mess we made and dug up the earth looking for clues as to how we could have been so destructive on purpose, knowing better.

Nonsense. I made the chicken wrap up, based on true events (cellophane future part).

TSSSS!

2011-02-15T17:40:00.000-08:00

Advertising really is a crazy game. Essentially, it's about making a name circulate though an audience of competing demands. You could be the most brilliant shoemaker in the world, but if no one ever hears about you and the brilliance of your shoes, then the only one to benefit from the shoes is the shoemaker. Bah! Brilliance!? Yes! Brilliance! It's only a matter of convincing confidence—brilliance also sparkles!

Advertising! A brand! Spread the word! Get out there and prop up your hot pokers on top of the already cold pokers! Make sure they are positioned purposefully, right at eye level, and in the most crowded places so they will be sure to stab everyone's attention.

TSSSS! Steam escaping skin, stinging and smoking. TSSSS! iBrand! You heard? You seen? TSSSS! Well now you have! And now you have another TSSSS! to add to the Nike TSSSS! on your feet, the Levis TSSSS! on your legs, and the Target TSSSS! marks on your sleeves. Plastic Apple TSSSS!'s steaming out of your pockets and bags, what they doin? Ringing? Beepin? Buzzin? Boopin? Charging the largest network with more can you hear me now things?

TSSSS! One more time, and this TSSSS! is from me poking you in the eyes with branded words like Next! Great! American! Writer!

AHHHH! It stings!

Pooping Pegasus

2011-02-12T19:25:00.000-08:00

Creatures from the depths of the internet, I summon thee from atop my unicorned pegasus who poops on anyone and anything I command. Down there, quick! I see a man pointing up at us, waving his arms. Hello down there! Yes! I see you. Poop on him pegasus! And circle back so we can do it again!

He's running now, protecting his eyes, covered in poop number one. Here goes poop number two! Got him! A direct hit! He's screaming mad things up at us—curses! He's shouting up a shit storm of unicorned pegasuses to appear from above us and cover us! Plop! Splat! They're already upon us! Fly higher pegasus! Faster! And unicorn them to death!

Gross! I didn't know they would explode like balloons full of poop! Pop! Splatter! Make it rain! And that one too! Pop! Cool! That one was filled with glitter! Sparkling! Showering! Sprinkling everything with golden flakes of foil. Pop! Poop! Pop! Cereal! Pop! Poop again. I want to find another one that glitters!

Pop! That's the last one, and it's another pooper.

Looks like I need to go get cleaned off somewhere. I know just the place. The cave of dog tongues. Pegasus! Take me there! Land on the river and hold it open with your hoof so I can jump down inside and roll around the licking lapping sucking off my dirty clothes and wallow in a naked happy ending.

Still Words Unread

2011-02-12T16:07:00.000-08:00

I just want to write, for whatever rhyme or reason that I can make of today, I just want to write, anything, something, nothing, it doesn't make any difference to me, at least not at the moment. Warming up my fingers with tapping and waiting for my thoughts to clear and something to fall from the clouds and land on my lap. I'll keep my eyes looking up, while I take another sip of coffee.

I'm writing hesitantly. I can't seem to find the focus or interest to drag myself beyond these tip-tap thought-words. How about another round of person, place, thing? Why did I stop writing those? Did I just grow bored of them, or am I tired of reading and writing pointlessly?

The latter sounds familiar to the first.

Those people. Those places. Those things.
Grow bored. Get tired. Sound familiar.

I'd much rather think of myself writing the kinds of things that people will point to and oooohh and aaaahhh over and over them for seconds and thirds—telling their friends how deep the allegory goes.

Reeds through waves reflect visions of wonder-words read through waves of thought and suggestion.

My fingers will become calloused and never type again. I will ruin them. They will type into nubs and everyone will gasp at the sight of them. "What happened to your hands? Where did your fingers go?" I wrote words I thought people would read, but sadly, I was mistaken, and here they are—still words unread.

A Pair Of Satisfactions

2011-02-09T18:45:00.001-08:00

After a frantic morning, I suddenly found myself relieved, with the allusion that I could go about the rest of the day feeling satisfied. On a gamble that this notion of satisfaction might prove useful today, I took it with me downtown to look for a new pair of boots that I could hike and wear anywhere—something that laces up high and can step on anything without slipping. I was satisfied with at least the motion of going shopping for them, so I headed downtown on the train.

The Outdoor Store was the first stop on my list. They have boots galore—all kinds, for all kinds of uses for feet. Even if I didn't find anything in my price range, I was still determined to try on anything just to see how it feels to walk around in them—to know the difference between three hundred dollars and less than that, on down to a hundred or two.

The first ones I saw, I loved. I asked if they had them in a size twelve. The man who was working in the room said no, but he could probably order some for me if I wished. I looked at the price and told him no, that's okay. He asked what I was looking for, and I told him a work boot—something with a good sole, that could walk you anywhere. Not something flat and slippery, or flat and gummy, or flat at all. Something like this! And I found it! How about this one? Do you have it in a size twelve?

He said yes, that's it. That's a twelve. You can try it on. And I did. And it fit like a glove! It was soft and snug and surprisingly the lightest thing I could have ever expected. I walked around the store in front of the mirror looking at how they looked on me. They looked fine! I looked at the price and didn't flinch—with the boot on my foot, it all made perfect sense. I was satisfied yet again. Twice in one day. I walked back home with a pair of satisfactions in the bag, and a new pair of shoes to boot!

Pretty Strange Words

2011-02-09T02:58:00.000-08:00

I like the idea that words are like paint. I see them blending together with descriptive thickness and scraped across a blank canvas in the form of a mountain sunset behind a small little cabin in the woods nestled next to a stream of consciousness so shallow you can hop across it in one leap and bound onto a path that leads you back to the vanishing point of an appellation trail. It looks like Salvador Dali and Bob Ross had a baby, and that baby had a baby with Jack Kerouac and Richard Brautigan's baby—pretty strange words.

Monster Fucker

2011-02-05T17:45:00.000-08:00

I had sex with a monster because I'm monster curious. I don't often find a monster that does it for me, but when I do, of course it turns out to be a nightmare. Some say it always does, and it always will, but I don't believe it, because, well, I'm a monster fucker! That's just the way I see it, naturally. I convince myself that the next monster will be different—that the next time I go monster, it will turn out less of a nightmare and more how I daydream. But I guess only the kind of people who can fall in love with monsters will be able to know what I mean. It's uncontrollable.

But this time the nightmare included a half-monster half-me baby. I woke up to find it howling in a cardboard box that was left on my doorstep with a note attached to it that read "This is your problem!" It wasn't signed, but the half-monster part was a dead giveaway.

I found it there, and as a reflex, I kicked it. I couldn't believe it. I KICKED IT! I kicked the shit out of it and the box exploded like a hornet's nest! What have I done? I'm a monster! A MONSTER!

The box hit the back fence and fell to the ground. It was quiet, dead quiet, for about three seconds, then the screaming began, and my blood curdled, and my hair stood on end—each and every hair on my body stood up and grew in gobs, covered my toes, and burrowed themselves into the ground, deep down, pulling off my skin. It ripped my skin off in pieces and chucks. I screamed until my cheeks were pulled off, then gargled at the top of my lungs!

I fell to the ground a bloody mess of muscle and exposed nerve endings. Everything felt, all at once, like ice cold daggers and volcano heat. My monster baby crawled out of the box, over to where my ear would have been, and whispered, "That's what you get when you fuck with the monster inside!" Then he spit something wet into my ear-hole, stood up, and vanished.

COMMENTARY: I was curious what would result while writing and feeling feverish-sick. It appears a dark place would make sense of these sore muscle aches.

A Figurine Of Speech

2011-01-25T21:34:00.000-08:00

Serious writers have to answer questions about where they get their inspiration and how long it took them to write their masterpiece. How long did it take? Only three weeks? Bullshit! No way! I don't believe you! That's not writing! That's not the answer I was looking for. Give me something that I want to hear. A year! Yes. That's better. A year and maybe a few months more. Time well spent on a book that is a whopping forty-eight pages. Forty-eight! Forty-eight in a year? That's weak, and thin, and okay then, three weeks sounds better now that I can picture it, but it still sounds like a bit of a stretch back in on itself.

Visual verbal somersaults! You read them with the ease of your eyes washing twisty thought pictures in a waterfall of words. Splashing! Crashing! Falling on the rocks! Cold as ice buckets filled with a heavy mist, hanging from the branches of fir trees that catch wind of the matter and dump the rest upon the both of us. Writer and reader playing together in a waterfall as it is being written.

How do serious writers get inspired? They dive in! They know the water will soak through their clothes and drown their cell phones down Gadget Creek—and their shoes will fill up with water, soak through their socks, and sag them toward the bottom—yet no matter how serious this realization is, diving in's the only way! To dive in and be swept away, knowing nothing can be brand new until it hits you in the face! Gurgle! Gurgle! Glug! Glug! Glug! Tumbling through the rumbling troubling waters, clinging to the branches and rocks, gasping and grabbing for air while being torn apart! All the serious writers eventually wash up on the shore and either cough up gallons of inspiration or drown and lie face down.

Gack! Hack! Vomit! Here, I found this stone at the bottom of the river. I thought you might like to see it. So I gobbled it up and Hack! Gack! Kack! There it is. It was the only way to bring it with me. To gulp it up. The current was too strong to do otherwise. Look! It tore off all my clothes! I'm naked! And my fingers were too busy trying to find air to be able to hold onto something as silky as a water rock. So when I saw it, I quickly imagined that I had swallowed a small statue of Jonah who was swallowed by a whale. For four days and three nights, I thought I would crap it out. But it stayed inside me so long that I forgot about it until now, when I coughed it out, naked, wet, and happy to be alive.

Please take it. It's yours. I coughed it up for you, specifically for the moment when I'm asked about inspiration and taking myself seriously as a writer. I'll say something like "inspiration is inside you always for at least three days, like Jonah, peeing in the corner of your stomach." And you'll know exactly what I mean, literally. It's a figurine of speech!

Loose Marbles

2011-01-23T19:41:00.000-08:00

My eyes are vibrating from the friction of thoughts darting past each other through the same thought-portal—squeezing themselves together into long stringy strands of knowledge—intertwining thoughts into threads. I lick them, and curl them around my tongue, tying them into mouthfuls the size of marbles and spit them out. Plop! There goes the tiniest insult and the biggest dick I have ever seen in my life! Wound up tight in a thought-string memory ball! Plop! And another one, spit out on the table, rolls onto the floor, and Pop! Opens up in a poof of string! It’s green! The strings! Flying everywhere! A puff of silliness and a moment of laughter bursting to know what it feels like to vanish into thin air.

The Beep Boop Generation

2011-01-23T17:51:00.000-08:00

Beep boop bip!
Now text this!
WE R THE BEEP BOOP GNR8ION!!!

We communicate in ways only a few inspired entrepreneurs ever thought possible—and we bought it up! Doo-dads and rechargeable batteries sucking on extension chords, all plugged into rows, feeding from the power strip.

We spend all day beeping at each other and booping back the loop. iBought a new computer! It sits on my lap and we tickle each other! It’s funny because it’s true. We’re all scared of what this is doing to us, but excited by the way it feels. We’re connected, all of us, for the first time, like never before. With just the touch of a button we can beep boop our thoughts of loneliness and isolation to each other directly, instantly into the palms of our friends where they beep boop bounce onto complete strangers through association.

We are the beep boop generation! The next chapter in the long-winded book of history! We wear blue jeans still, with plastic coats—plastic! We plug plastic in our ears and pump plastic static through cables and cords and Bluetooth technology—beep boop blinking in the blue flickering light—the dazzling display—tapping on plastic screens with our thumbs feeling nothing but numbness.

What to buy? What to wear? And even how do I get there? Just tap it in and wait one second!? What just happened? Another beep! Another boop! Another! And another! And another beep boop this and beep boop loop after another.

There Is A Person In Pittsburgh

2011-01-21T16:04:00.000-08:00

There is a person in Pittsburgh who is going to read these words and know that I am writing to them personally. I don't know their name or their personality, or even them personally, but I do know that when that person reads this, they will exclaim, "That's me!"

--

It turns out that the person in Pittsburgh is really a program that has been pinging my page periodically. So replace the word person with a program that was written by a person to pretend it was a person in Pittsburgh and it makes more sense as to why I even thought there was a person in Pittsburgh at all.

Money's Worth

2011-01-18T22:59:00.000-08:00

There's money in these words—golden money glittering next to a sleeping dragon. And there's even more in the darkness behind them, lot's more—money for miles and miles in piles of dragon shit. Toxic. One touch, and it will make you sick.

Infinite Loop

2011-01-16T17:57:00.001-08:00

You can reach through time and space and past the past to the end of the future by imagining a long piece of string tied in an infinite loop.

I Need Your Eyes

2011-01-16T17:55:00.000-08:00

I need your eyes for a moment. I need you to take them out of their sockets and roll them around in these words, really roll them around, grind them into this and that and these and those and smash them into eye-popping ovals. Flatter! They’re not eggs! They won’t burst!

[pop!]

Oops! I was wrong. Sorry about that.

The Portland Zoo - Part 1

2011-01-15T17:55:00.000-08:00

What to do with a warm winter day?
How about the zoo?
Yes! How about the zoo!

I went to the Portland Zoo today. I had never been. So I went alone and had a ball. Alone! At the zoo! On a rainy day! Hurray! All the animals were wet and miserably content in their chain-link cages—just sitting there watching their plexiglass televisions, laughing at the comedy of nature in the grand scheme of things.

For the most part, the zoo was empty. It felt like I had the whole place to myself. The only people I managed to bump into reminded me of ghosts—spooky. They floated by and parted their wisdom with wispy awkward stares—looking as if they had just seen a ghost—floating through the halls of the animal kingdom with scary white faces, laughing nervously, gathering their children close for protection. Stay close little ghost. Don't go that way yet. Wait for me to finish pointing out that that fish just pooped! And look! It floats like a ghost too! Powder suspended in water—murky!

I haven't been to a zoo in a long time. Too long perhaps. It looks sadder the older and taller you grow. You have to stoop down to see everything—it's at a child's level—with easy directions painted everywhere in big-bright colors. THIS WAY TO THE PETTING ZOO.

Wet chickens and cows, covered in mud and sickness. Pet them at your own expenses, and remember to read the sign at the sink when you try to wash off the stink! THE WATER HAS BEEN TURNED OFF FOR THE WINTER. SORRY FOR THE INCONVIENCE. Just wipe it on your jeans, until you can find a bathroom. I think I saw one behind THE GREAT NORTHWEST, next to a bald eagle.

Poor, wet bald eagle. With his white feathers matted down, looking around for the majesty of his life that was lost on the day he was born. He spends the rest of his days searching for it inside himself, somewhere deep within—underlying thoughts of escape—far beyond the net above him, past these godforsaken clouds, where the sun is forever shining, completely out of reach.

In a fury of excitement, another bald eagle comes swooping down, breaking through the clouds, landing on the net. One whispers to the other, “I'm here to rescue you, but I'll need your help. I'm tired of flying around free and hungry. I want to trade places with you. How about that?” Sure, but how bout the net? “We'll use our beaks like scissors, but we'll have to kiss. Your beak and my beak and our tongues together slicing and untying a hole small enough for the both of us. I can crawl in, while you crawl out. Come on now, let's get to it.” The eagles kiss and lick and peck and neck, and feathers fall to the ground. One is let in while the other escapes, freedom bound!

The Portland Zoo - Part 2

2011-01-15T17:45:00.000-08:00

The zoo! The absurdity! Animals locked in cages and tanks, just beyond the security gates! Ten-fifty gets you in, that's the going price of admission. Ten dollars and fifty cents, the same cost as a movie! It's like a movie you walk through—look at all the sets!

THE PENGUINS

Listen to the construction machines roaring outside! They're scaring the penguins! They're all diving underwater to cover their ears. The tractors sound vicious, tearing into the dirt and puking it out by the mouthful. Ten-fifty for this!? This is not peaceful at all! This is loud construction noises echoing through the cave of the polar bears!

In walks a father with his child—too young to know whether it is a boy or a girl. "Watching the observer?" the father asks in a kind, soft voice. I smile, yes indeed. Now throw that child in there with the penguins and we'll have something truly memorable to recall—our day at the zoo.

Those baby arms look just like flippers, wouldn't you agree? The way they flap the same as the penguins' is uncanny! Now let's make out and lie here on the floor, and point at the flapping bubbling spectacle. Look! Your baby shit its pants! And the penguins are eating it up!

THE MONKEYS

The monkeys look like hunched-over little people covered in hair, except around their ass-pink. There they sit on a man-made branch, picking bugs out of their hair. How pleasant! The attention! The touch! The time spent together feeling and snacking and grooming and SLAP!

A kid walks up to me and apologizes in advance. He asks me about my mustache, and how I manage to make it curl like that. WAX! I exclaim! It's as simple as that! The boy looked as surprised as the baboons who had stopped grooming and stopped everything else they were doing just to watch the awkward silence. I look up at them and give them a grin. That's right my boy! MUSTACHE WAX!

THE OTTERS

They flip! They glide! Built to slide through the water and slither through the twigs. Up for air! Then down in a death-defying trail of bubbles. What happens to the otter who loses their love for swimming? What happens to them then? They float.

Don't be sad little otter. You can remember if you try. Just dive right in and let the water slide across your skin. That's it! Happiness! I can see it when you loop up and out of the water, doing back flips—up and out, then arching back and in, headfirst to the bottom, then resurface again.

Snapshots

2011-01-14T16:23:00.000-08:00

- 01 -
Hey runner! What are you running from and where are you running to? What's your hurry? Running is healthy!

- 02 -
Pretty man with the soft silver hair and those deep blue eyes. Let me see them sparkle again when you smile at me one more time.

- 03 -
The grass under my feet is softer than the concrete, naturally.

Motorcycle Race

2011-01-12T18:28:00.000-08:00

Motorcycles! Racing! To the stop light, ziirrrrrrrrr-put. Rumble. Rumble. Rumblezoooom! Quick! Let's get on the highway and zip through the rush hour traffic!

Zip! There's a lady texting on her phone, “STK IN TRAFFIC!” Ziirrrp! There's a man taking off his clothes! Zip! Past a teenager, barely sixteen years old. Boo!

They're all bobbing along with the current state of their lives—stuck in their expensive mechanical bubbles, breathing their own air.

Traffic is tight—bumper to bumper—but we are zip ziirrp zooming right through it. Flying by the daily grind of everyone minding their own business. Who needs them? Leave them be! They aren't going anywhere, you can guarantee! They'll all be right there tomorrow! Right where we left them. Zip!

Let's escape! Let's race up the mountain and I'll show you a place where you can live without money and eat like a king! We'll have a feast!

Ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmm!
Zrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnn!

Through the trees! Watch the branches! Watch your face!

WATCH YOUR FACE!

Don't worry. We don't need those motorcycles anymore. We're almost there. You can smell it! Just follow your nose, if it's not broken. Something's cooking! Over there! Through the forest, you can see there's a light—a fire glowing inside a cabin!

That's the place! Let's go inside!

Welcome! This is where I live sometimes. Go ahead and have a seat next to the fire while I go to the kitchen and get us some coffee, then we can sit for a while and talk about our futures—together imagining a place that doesn't exist.

Thoughts Turn Into Soup

2011-01-10T18:22:00.000-08:00

Here I am, with warmed fingers, tip-tap-typing, with my thoughts flying through the nothingness of everything. My words, boiling down to a concentrate, turning into soup, with pasta in the shape of alpha and omega that tastes like everything in the beginning and nothing in the end.

You Up There

2011-01-09T16:37:00.001-08:00

I see you there. Yes. That’s me. I’m the one that’s waving at you right now—standing on the sidewalk twenty stories below. Yup. I’m the tiny speck standing in the middle of the ring of specks that are the people that have started to gather around me—the curiously attentive ones that are beginning to notice that I have stopped to wave at you. They were disturbed by the way I was standing firm in a place they wanted to pass by—that something was different in their routine of walking to where they were going. Some, as you can probably see better than me, are still going about their business, oblivious, in an unconscious state of movement between point A to B.

I didn’t mean to call this much attention to you. I just wanted to let you know that if you decided to jump, I would catch you, no matter what, even if you flatten the both of us.

The Eruption of Mt. Hood

2010-12-27T16:43:00.000-08:00

Where were you when Mt. Hood blew it's top and the earth shook all the walls in Portland Oregon? Were you standing next to a bookcase filled with books and knickknacks, trinkets and things? Did the floor shake first or after the shock of the bookcase toppling on top of you had surprised you? All your settled things becoming unsettled—together leaning forward, tipping on dusty toes, slipping slopping flopping on top of you, taking the bookcase with them.

Smooshed by your things.

All of your things, all at once, came crashing down upon you—the one person that has been piling them on top of each other for all these years.

The cockroaches tickle your nose as they scurry across your face. They have been unleashed from their home within your home. They squeeze in between your things, looking for air. You are pinned to the floor by the weight of a toppled bookcase filled with the trophies of your life. You can't move your head. You're buried and waiting for someone to rescue you. This is your only hope, that someone will come, the sooner the better, and dig you up, free you, and fill your senses with a feeling of resurrection.

Buried alive.
Smooshed by your things and a bookcase.

- - -

I can't bear to leave you like this. The thought of it! I can write about frantically digging. I can hear you moaning! Don't worry, I'm digging! Can you hear me? Are you okay? Did I do this?

No. Mt. Hood is still burning, and the burning is flowing like a tidal wave—roaring like a lion. I can see it glowing. I can feel the heat growing. It's too hot. I try to scream but all I see is steam.

The Little Engine's Tough Decision

2010-12-17T15:58:00.000-08:00

I don't have enough self-esteem left to make it up the mountain. The only way I can imagine reaching the top is if I climb into the furnace and burn myself up. Fuel for the fire burning water into steam, powering the engine until I'm exhausted in a puff of smoke. I think I can... I think I can... stop. Clang. Clank. Clunk. Stopped in my tracks. This sucks. It's cold and frozen up here. I'm going to die no matter what. Goodbye people that I have hauled this far. Either I unlock the coupling or burn myself up.

The Writing Montage

2010-11-26T19:34:00.000-08:00

From across the room, I can't see what I'm writing. I can only see that I am writing. It's entertaining—like watching a movie about a writer.

The writing montage.

In a few cuts and by the end of a song, I'm done writing. The music fades as I get up from my desk to answer the doorbell. It's my book! My book arrives! I look happy when I hold it for the first time, then sad when I feel the weight of it in my hands. I don't open it right away. Instead, I run to my computer and write something down about the experience of finally getting it before it is forgotten. I only type three words, then I stop and sit still in the quiet, comparing the brand new unopened book to the worn out faded keys of my keyboard. The camera pans over my shoulder to the three words I had just written on the computer screen.

This is is.

The words stay still, hovering in a soft zoom, then a cursor blinks, and the words "by Mark Searcy" appears, letter by letter—typed before your eyes. Automatically the spell-check highlights the last name with a red squiggly line, and the scene cuts to the beginning of a flashback.

How To Make An Excuse Monster

2010-11-24T16:49:00.000-08:00

1) On a blank sheet of paper, write down the first excuse that pops into your head when you ask yourself, “Why am I not writing anything?”

2) Crumple the sheet of paper into a ball and throw it into the corner of the room.

3) Grab a fresh sheet of paper, and repeat the question-answer-crumple process until you run out of paper.

4) Pick out a crumpled excuse at random and flatten it back out.

5) Read the excuse back to yourself.

6) Flip the sheet of paper over and draw a pair of snake eyes.

7) Lay the eyes-side up on the top of the crumpled excuse pile, and viola, you have your very own excuse monster glaring at you from the corner of the room.

Cowboy, Next-to-me, Pineapple

2010-11-23T15:31:00.000-08:00

People, Place, Thing: Cowboy, Next-to-me, Pineapple

Seriously? A cowboy sitting next to me? Fine. I'll go with it. I'm guessing that he's probably reading this while I am typing it. Yep. He just told me that he can read it. Then he told me to say boobs. I said it. He laughed. Then he laughed again when he read it. Boobs!

He fell out of his chair! He's rolling around on the floor! Ouch! That was my leg! Watch where you're hootin' and a hollerin' with those boots buddy! They got spurs on 'em!

He's starting to settle down. A dusty bandanna is laying next to my computer mouse. It's orange, with white patterned pineapples printed on one side. He covers it with his hand when I write about seeing it.

“Hey man! Quit looking at my bandanna!”
“Hey! Stop writing what I am saying like that!”
“I mean it!”
“Stop!”
“Do I really sound like that?”

Yeah.

Boobs!

Sgt. Slaughter Sighting

2010-11-23T15:25:00.000-08:00

I just saw Sgt Slaughter at Baskin Robbins! He was looking at the rainbow sherbet when I walked in. I stopped at the door, shocked by awe. He asked the cashier if he could taste the rainbow sherbet, then he tasted it! I watched Sgt. Slaughter put a little pink spoon full of rainbow sherbet in his mouth, close his eyes, and slowly slide just the spoon out through his lips. Then he moaned! Sgt Slaughter kept his eyes closed and moaned!

The cashier handed him a chocolate malt and asked if he would like anything else. Sgt. Slaughter said no. He took out his wallet and paid with cash. While waiting for his change, he took the tiny pink sherbet spoon and slipped it into his wallet. The cashier asked him if he would like a receipt, and Sgt. Slaughter said no and walked away. The cashier leaned over the counter and whispered, “That's Sgt. Slaughter!” I mouthed back, "I know!"

Curtain Free

2010-11-18T16:38:00.000-08:00

There is a side door to my house. If I open it from the inside out, I can grab the outside like a curtain, and part it. On the other side of the curtain, there is a large white room filled with comfortable furniture, and the floor is covered in fur. On the opposite side of the room from the curtain is a large floor-to-ceiling window. The sun is always shining through it, basking the whole room in a perfect warmth.

I have only been able to take a few steps into it, since I always keep a hand holding on to the curtain. I don't want to drop it and lose my place. On the other side of the curtain is what looks like another door. I want to find out if this curtain door leads back into my house again, but I don't want to find out if it doesn't.

It's hard though, on days like today, when it's so cold and rainy and gray outside, to suppress the urge to push it all aside, kick off my clothes, and roll around on the warm white fur floor, curtain free.

Blood-gas Leaches

2010-11-15T18:19:00.000-08:00

Gobbly goobly gobbity gook. Shake your flappy face cheeks and sprinkle-spray the slobbery spit-strings out from behind your clenched teeth. Now cut two of your fingers off with two other fingers from your other hand. To know which fingers are your scissors, just hold up two fingers and bring them together then pull them apart—move them like they were a real pair of scissors and see which ones do it naturally. This is your other hand—the cutting hand.

Chop chop.
Snip snip.

There is invisible blood everywhere—squirting out of your knuckles. It looks like red gas. It looks like colored smoke, but it's odorless. It's definitely gas, because it used to be liquid blood. It comes out thick, but quickly dissipates before it reaches half-way to the ceiling.

Your fallen fingers look like worms. The nail, the tail—the bone and severed meat, the head. Don't pick them up with your scissor-fingers or you'll cut them to pieces. Use your pinky and your thumb to grab them, then stick the finger-worm's head into the invisible-red blood-gas. Hold it still until the gas stops spewing and the finger sticks. Then, when it feels right, wiggle your worm-fingers around to check for gas leaks.

Now all your fingers look like worm butts. Wiggle them and see. Happy little worm fingers, suckling at your palm.

Blood-gas leaches.

It Smells Like Beer In Here

2010-11-10T21:17:00.000-08:00

I was just getting into a groove. I was about to write a piece about grabbing a squirrel by gripping its soft little body with my bare hands, then when it struggles and scratches my finger joints to bites and pieces, I would grab on to its tail and sling it into the air—twirling its body around my head like a lasso, then fling it forward and watch it flail in the air then bounce on the ground and run away.

I was just about to use that image to sit back at the typewriter and lose myself in the tapping typing twirling whirling, then my phone rang. Jason called to tell me that he locked the keys in the car, which was still running—he had just stepped out of the car to drop off some clothes at Goodwill, and the door closed behind him. So instead of writing about flinging a squirrel across the lawn, I hopped on my bike and raced to rescue Jason. Ten minutes later, the car was unlocked and I was on my way back home, thinking about writing again.

When I returned, my typewriter was waiting for me right where I left it, mid-page wound around the roller. I unpacked my bike-things, took a breath, and retraced my thoughts. Nothing worth writing happened. I tried going back outside to sneak a cigarette like I was doing when Jason called, hoping that being back outside would bring back the squirrel. I only had one cigarette left, so I lit it and decided to walk to the corner store and pick up a new pack, and maybe I'd see a squirrel along the way.

The corner store was a mess. A customer had just dropped a forty on the floor in front of the counter. There was beer and glass everywhere you needed to step, and a man was sweeping it all into a dustpan with a broom—liquid and glass. The man at the counter, who presumably dropped the forty, looked frustrated and stormed out. A small lady in front of me started talking nervously to anyone's attention—something about her son who was standing against the ice cream cooler, waiting for his crazy mom to get what she needed. She was the next in line, so she stepped up to the counter and into the beer puddle. She didn't seem to mind the man sweeping at the beer and glass around her feet. She got a phone call as she was turning to leave, and explained over the phone how she was just at the store and had bought a beer because she needed it after a day like today. Stepping back through the puddle to gather her son, I was next in line. I stepped up to ask for cigarettes, while a man behind me exclaimed, "It smells like beer in here."

Have to Want

2010-11-02T02:01:00.000-07:00

It's never enough to be satisfied with what you already have when you can want anything and everything imaginable.

Pumpkin Breath

2010-10-29T00:13:00.000-07:00

Jack was carving a pumpkin into a Jack-o-lantern. He was sitting on the floor pulling out the pumpkin guts and placing them on a platter... a cookie sheet. Anna was sitting next to him separating the seeds from the gutstrings on the cookie sheet. After he had scraped in the sides and trimmed up the loose flesh, he flipped the pumpkin over his head. The room started laughing as soon as everyone in it got around to seeing what everyone was laughing about. Jack took the laughter as his cue to preform.

Pumpkin Head. Here's how it goes.

Jack stumbled around the room with a pumpkin on his head, and Anna would yell “STOP!” as he got too close to the plants or precariously positioned drinks near the edges of furniture. He bent over slowly and picked up the jack-o-lantern lid, then stood back up and placed it on the top of his pumpkin head. Holding the pumpkin hat by the stem, he tipped it towards the loudest laughter. Muffled inside, it probably sounded like breathing and smelled like pumpkin breath.

Eagle Eyes

2010-10-19T21:26:00.000-07:00

Eagle eyes, take me there, to that place that only eagle's eyes can see.
Open wide and blind me with the bigger picture.

Look! Something is moving farther away than human eyes can see, but with these eagle eyes, I can see it now, clear as the sky above the clouds—sharper than a laser. Something is moving, far away.

Ah Ha! I'm going to get my binoculars and see just how much farther these eagle eyes can see.

It looks like something... no, wait... this is moving differently. This something is moving like a crowd of people who are running for their lives! And they are moving fast too! And... wow! There's something more! Behind them! Something bigger. Much bigger.

That's the thing with eagle eyes, you can easily forget that you are wearing them and everything can feel so much smaller because you are so much farther away.

The Much Bigger thing is a crowd of people—an enormous crowd of people. The smaller thing is a smaller crowd of people who all look scared—scared for their lives. The Much Bigger people all look like they are having the time of their lives chasing after the people who are running for their lives. I'm not quite sure who to root for. My first impulse is to root for the underdog, but they look so scared, and I can see it would be an unsafe bet. But I can't get myself to even want to root for the Much Bigger crowd when they all seem so perfectly happy. I don't want to root for the Much Bigger people! I just can't. Being so happy while making someone else so scared to fear for their life is just not something I can get behind.

Thank you again eagle eyes, for showing me what is coming my way. It always helps to be reminded that what you see with your eagle eyes is both a blessing and a curse. Already I feel the side effects. My face is stuck in that half-cringe you get when you see someone throw something soft and familiar at your face—like a pillow, or a water balloon. My face is stuck like that—waiting for something to make its impact—a soft smack first as the skin breaks, then what's inside crashes onto your face, splashing into your eyeballs, and up your nose.

Positive Thinking - Laughing Gas Memory

2010-10-10T01:38:00.000-07:00

I'm telling myself that I need to be more positive, that if I am going to write, that I should write something positive, and steer myself away from all the negative descriptions I have been milling about, over and over, about how negative the description of my life can be. I realize it's a matter of language that forms the way you describe how you feel. I can just as easily pick out positive things to write about instead of the tried and true go-to negative things—all these negative things, like wet in a rain forest.

I'll try now, instead, to look less, rather than look harder. Looking too hard can strain your vision, and cause the world to appear coated in purpled anxiety. A Purple Haze. All around. I don't know if I'm coming up or down. Jimi Hendrix. Now there. See. That's a start. Positive things are still in my brain. They're leaking out like steam. I just have to keep chipping away through the layers of hardened mucus in my brain to make the steam-hole bigger, so these positive things can fill this thought chamber and choke me dead.

A positive thought escapes, and this one's a memory.

About ten years ago, I chipped my front tooth... okay I'm embarrassed to admit, but for the sake of reading something fondly later... I chipped my tooth on the sidewalk when I fell while rollerblading. I played roller hockey then, but even now, I still enjoy rollerblading, casually. It's fun. Oh whatever. I don't have to feel guilty about something I like doing. It's my positive memory anyway.

Ok, so, I chipped a chunk off my front tooth while rollerblading, and I went to the dentist a few days later to get it checked out. They decided that they could mix some epoxy and tooth-color together and build out the missing part of my front tooth... which is quite magical and unnatural, and the realization of how strange and fascinating living in a future where you can color-match fake teeth with dirty, old-colored real teeth must have set the tone for the Nitrous Oxide which was just beginning to be pumped into my nose, which I was told would help me relax and make my mouth feel numb.

I had never had laughing gas before, and when the dentist asked if I was feeling anything yet, I told him no... because really, I didn't feel anything yet. Even when he poked at my gums with his latex fingers, I told him that I could still feel them. He responded by telling me that he was going to turn the gas up a little bit, which he did, and then he turned to ask the assistant how the epoxy and tooth colors were mixing and matching. I laid back in the dentist chair with the rubber laughing gas cup over my nose and stared off into the medium-sized office landscape painting that was hanging on the wall near my feet.

The gas streamed through the metal valvessssssssssssssssss.
Mumbled-rumbled dentist's wordsssssssssssssss.
I felt myself moving. Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssslowly.
Sssssssssomehow floating into the landsssssssssssscape painting, wondering if thissssssssssssss is what dying feelsssssssssssssssss like, because the way I imagined dying was sssssssssssssssssimilar to the way I was unable to talk or move my body, which would explain why everything looked darker but felt more ssssssssssssssssserene, like I'm asssssssssssssssssleep and dreaming about being awake, but with my eyesssssssssssssss still open and lying in a dentist'sssssssssssssssssssss chair. I wonder what the dentist and his asssssssssssssssssistant would do if they accidentally had killed me? I wonder if anyone has ever died in thissssssss dentist'ssssssssss chair like thisssssssssss before?

Mumble. Rumble. Mark.
Mark? Can you hear me?

Yess.

Whew! Good. You were gone there for a little bit. I think we're ready to start. Open wide.

Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggggggurgle.

My broken tooth was patched.
My smile was repaired.
Something positive. There.

The Future Feeling

2010-10-01T13:33:00.000-07:00

It feels like nothing is foreign anymore. I can only think that the future will feel even more crowded than it does today, with millions more people trying to fit inside the last little closets of space. If somehow everything goes smoothly, all the people will just stack on top of each other and live in one vast concrete city—with food being genetically grown for lack of ground, faster to meet demand.

It's either that, or something is going to burst and wipe out a huge lot of us in one fell swoop, like a plague or disaster, or war, or a mistake, or something even more sinister. Perhaps aliens would appear much like the pilgrims on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. With them come devastating bacteria and disease and viruses and religions that kill swiftly before anyone can figure out what is happening.

The House Where My Thoughts Live

2010-09-30T19:32:00.000-07:00

I sure seem to be doing a lot of pacing around the apartment today. I keep wanting to feel like I am supposed to be doing something else, and that maybe I should stop and try to figure out a direction instead of doing all this pacing that is beginning to make me feel dizzy. I left my typewriter out on the little wooden table in the center of the room for this very reason, so that while I am pacing around the apartment I can feel it looking at me, and be constantly reminded that I can always get back to writing. Writing is just as self-gratifying as anything else I could be doing right now. It's just as fun as a bike ride around the neighborhood, and quite the same, as I have ridden the streets around here enough to be quite familiar with where they will take me. It's the surprise of what might be lurking around the corner that makes it exciting almost every time, guaranteed.

All this pacing and talk of pacing and typing like I am pacing about riding a bike instead of pacing, I'm reminding myself of the sight I saw yesterday while riding my bike across town to meet up with my friends for dinner. There is this one house along the route where there is a circle path in the grass out front. This little circle path in the grass between the sidewalk and the curb was created by a child who walks it in circles—he paces in a loop, barefoot and talking to himself like children often do. He seems happy. He seems normal. But it's the wear in the grass that wants you to think otherwise. He has been pacing this circle in the grass in front of his house before, and before that he paced it some more. It's obvious that he had created this little place on his own, carved out of repetition with his own two feet, over and over, first on top of the cool grass, then later over and over and over until the grass gave way—with little blades stuck between his toes, he hits the ground running around and around until it is polished smoother and softer the longer he goes.

I wonder if this is the house where my thoughts live? I wonder if I have found it after all these years? And after all this time it has been so close that it was easy to miss unless you happen pass by just as the little boy is turning and turning around and around, spinning and pacing, compressing the dirt harder than it was before. I imagine he can't stop himself from turning around and around once he starts going, that he sees his path there at the end of the walkway that leads him there directly from his house, and he has to walk it at least one time more because he has walked it so many times before, and he finds that once he gets started he gets lost in the feeling of starting over and over one more time, and keep it going, one more time—walking in circles, pacing this same-old worn-out path, around and around again, because I can't stop now, I can keep going around one more time, around and around again and again and again again.

Snapshots

2010-09-21T16:23:00.000-07:00

Taken on a walk to Laurelhurst Park today while the sun was shining in the few hours before the clouds increased their cloudiness.

- 01 -
An older-than-me man walking up the sidewalk toward me, holding a carpet cleaning machine, walked up to me and asked if I wanted to buy a house. I told him "Sure, I'd love to!" and that was it, nothing else was said, we both kept on walking past each other in silent disbelief. What a strange thing to say. What a strange thing to hear.

Stranger passing stranger.

- 02 -
Today at the park, the dark-green shadows of the Douglas Firs pushed all the people out into the sun. I even saw an artist among them, a genuine painter, standing in front of an easel and everything, including the three old ladies beside him, arms outstretched slowly, then down, and bend the knee up slowly doing old-lady Tai Chi. They point in unison at all the people playing in the sun on the bright-green grass—there is a painter painting over there, and there is a writer writing over here.

- 03 -
I'm walking behind a mom on a cell phone in one hand who is pushing a child's scooter with the other, making a rickety-racket and a blaa blaa blaa. Her large bag of a purse is stuffed full of her mom-things and hangs from her arm on the phone like the child helmet hangs from the rattling handlebars. She's covered all over in mom-and-child things!

Look! There's another! And another! I'm surrounded by the mom-zombies picking their children up from school! Filled with fresh knowledge, they take their children home and squeeze their brains out for dinner. What did you learn today my child? Mmmmmm delicious!

When the final school bell rings,
all the children scream,
It's dinner time!
It's dinner time!
It's dinner time for me!

And when they meet their moms,
then they'll all sing along,
It's dinner time!
It's dinner time!
It's dinner time for me!

Snapshots

2010-09-20T20:04:00.000-07:00

Taken with a longer exposure while walking through a close-by neighborhood on a cloudy Portland day.

- 01 -
When designers lose their Lucky Strike, they switch to American Spirit. Additive-free! I believe! Pillows of smoke hit us in the face—coughed out of the advertisement manufactory.

Quitting smoking feels like changing careers and running to the mountains for a breath of fresh air. Away from the billboards and packaging that litters the forest—plastic bottles filled with piss and spit—forever remains by old degradable trails, paved with the butts of cigarettes.

- 02 -
Children walking home from school, brother and little sister, take your time getting home, rent free, for me.

- 03 -
Two ladies who look like sisters walking their golden retriever, don't mind me, I'm just jotting down your picture.

- 04 -
Pretty house hiding in the pretty trees, the one with the wooden canoe hanging in the garage that I can see looking like brand new, pristine. I see you there, empty and alone and gorgeous and huge, waiting for the ones who left you to return from their jobs in their beautiful cars with their beautiful children, and drive right up into you, right next to the brand new wooden canoe—the place where luxury lives.

Get off my lawn you strange man! Go back to where you live! Go now! Move along, and sing your lack-of-luxury song where we don't have to hear it!

Square Knot

2010-09-19T21:58:00.000-07:00

Two ends together, holding hoop-hands with their elbows locked, intertwined. Left over right. Then right over left. The first knot a boy scout learns is the one he will never forget. It's the knot that ties all childhood memories together so they won't blow away. It's also the knot that ties two strings together to make one string reach around and hold even more.

No, I was not molested as a boy scout. The closest thing that ever happened to being molested then was when we went on a canoe trip and I was something like thirteen or fourteen, and my two friends who were brothers' father stuck his ice-cold hands down the back of my shirt while we were buying sodas at the corner store next to the river. I jumped away from them—surprised at first by the ice-cold, and then by the dripping-wet, and then by the fact that it was my friends' father's hands.

I only half-knew I was gay at the time, so part of me didn't mind, but I knew full-well that I was thirteen or fourteen and the whole situation was confusing and awkward. We just laughed it off as little more than just a joke, then went canoeing, and all things were forgotten—flushed downstream and washed away. No harm done. All dangers avoided. Returning to shore, I would never be able to look at my friends' parents the same as before.

Eagle Scout, fly away, and go camping in the mountains. Use your skills to prove yourself able to survive with only your knowledge and a pocket knife. Build a fire out of nothing and blow it gently with the words you remember from your childhood. Trustworthy. Loyal. Helpful. Friendly. Courteous. Kind. Obedient. Cheerful. Thrifty. Brave. Clean. Reverent.

Walking And Writing Of Walking

2010-09-19T19:35:00.000-07:00

Feeling restless, I keep wanting to pull myself outside since the sun decided to peek out from behind the clouds. I don't know how much longer it will decide to last, but it looks nice. A sight for sore grey eyes.
I see the blue! The blue! The blue is peeking through!

This is how writing can teach you to stop writing and go for a walk.

I went out for a walk and made it as far as the corner of the closest coffee shop around and just up the street. A twelve-ounce americano to-go please. That will be two dollars. Okay and I leave to return the long way back home, two blocks around where the kid asked me if that was my car and I told him no because he was just-uh wonderin' out loud because the car right behind the one that wasn't mine, the one with the plastic bag for a passenger window, was his, and he suspected that the car he had thought was mine had been broken into too. He was just askin'. He didn't have much else to do. His car had the stereo ripped from it, and it's wire guts were hanging out. You could see the horror when the wind blew through and flapped the plastic back.

Money for crack! Gimmie that crack! Crack's in the corners of your mouth's tingling tongue salavation. Cracks in the sidewalks, where the mamma's break their backs, stealing car stereos in a frenzied crack-attack.

I expected that I would have walked longer and further away, but decided that reading in the sun in the courtyard of my apartment complex was still outside enough. I read like I was walking and grew tired of reading after I had read for awhile. I stopped to daydream, and dreamt myself returning back inside and sitting and staring at one nothing dot com after another. Sitting in the dark, wide-eyed, in front of a blue flickering light. A cold fire—pretty to look at, but failing to keep me warm. I'm hunching and slumping together to trap in the last of the heat before it is sucked all out of me. Look at me! I'm a frozen figurine!

A chill of wind wakes me just in time. Even my daydreams can feel cold as leftovers. I think to call a friend to save me from this electronically-induced hypothermia—to keep me warm and entertain my bones—but my phone is dead. Technology is high maintenance, but so goddamned sexy that we shove every inch of it into our bodies as much as we can till we feel like we still can't get enough, and there is still room for more and more and more.

Technology shows the hole inside us grows.

Once again I set off to walk and look for adventure on the same old streets. All over again, alone, and all over again and again. Maybe someone dropped something between yesterday and today that is still waiting there until tomorrow—to be discovered and forgotten all over again, or stepped over, without notice, at all or ever again.

The Last Americano

2010-09-16T01:15:00.000-07:00

Take a day for yourself tomorrow. Get out. Do something other than stare at the gigabytes you download inside and into your dark and tiny 'lil room-womb. Get up early and act like you have an interview downtown or somewhere. Take your time and get some coffee for here and just sit there and drink it up. Maybe write a story about how you are down to your bottom dollar, but you were lucky enough that a friend was working at the coffee shop where you were hoping they would be, able to wave their magic decision over your cup and make your Americano appear free-of-charge. Dear friend who I only see on occasion, the Great & Amazing, in the flesh, the one and only. I write a tribute to you and the fine job you do as the person you are, not the thing you do.

Looking down at my bottom dollar stretched out on the table next to the Last Americano—wondering where to go—here, or where to go after there is no more Americano. Let it go. Leave it as a tip. Wait it out. Take another sip. There is still time. The bottom dollar's still yours. Roll it up and use it as a straw. Dip it in. Suck it in. Rake it in. Take it in—to the last drop.

Near the bottom, it tastes like pennies.

How All My Stories End

2010-09-15T21:11:00.000-07:00

... now read this all again like I'm dead and gone forever.

Far Away Forest

2010-09-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

Leap forward. Over the doubts and buildings and streets in a single bound. Land on the open field and look around. The grass is brown and the roads are dusty. The sky is big and the clouds are puffy. A black bird flies, followed by another. Leaping after them, they twist their feathers and dodge my feat. They flap behind me while the sun warms my face and the wind cools me, soothes me, smooths me. Gravity propels me back to the ground.

I land in a forest, next to a stream. I don't remember feeling the touch of the leaves. I must have missed them, just barely. I look down at a giant green slug slowly moving slower than any eyes can see, but I can see the direction he's headed in the shiny trail of slime leading the way back to the places he has been. Sparkling slime next to a sparkling stream, where the water is rushing, and splashing the rocks, breaking the water into drops, tiny explosions, tiny fireworks, tinier waterworks, shooting sparks carried by the wind, cooled and glowing, barely hitting my face from where I am standing. Stepping closer and over the shiny green slimy, I am surrounded in mist—showered with kisses and cooling hisses. I love it here.

Far away forest.

A La Mode

2010-09-10T17:57:00.000-07:00

Clink. Chink. Cling-clang-clack.
Heart attack. Heart attack. That's where we're at.
Make a wish. Blow it out. Slice it up and give it to your friends.
Ask them if they would like a side of ice cream,
a la mode — a la mode.

There Goes Those Memories

2010-09-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

Click it if you like it.
Double-click it if you like it more.

Here's what the internet is doing to your body. You write a little something on it and tell yourself that there are millions of people that are waiting there online to read it. You tell yourself until you are convinced that there are millions of people reading your little something words that will like them so much that they will pay you with so many compliments you become rich and famous.

It's an unhealthy habit—an addiction that feels like you could never be the same without it. Your life is better and faster because of it when you can still remember a life without it. The internet has us all convinced and connected to the idea that we can keep up with everyone just by talking about ourselves.

When what I'm thinking is about updating my status to say something else, I no longer want to login.

The internet already reminds me of a VCR—worth so much at one time, now years later, even if it were brand new, you couldn't even give one away, no one would take it. It's of no more use. Besides, I threw away all my VHS tapes.

No... Wait!!!

I still have the one of our vacation... you know... the one... when we went camping and we made that movie inside the tent... remember... you were doing that thing with the flashlight...

Well, I couldn't get myself to destroy it once I remembered what was on it... and I couldn't throw it away because what if someone else found it... and watched it...

Ah yes... I'll go see if I can find it while you hook up the VCR so we can watch it. Shit! No, that won't work. You can't hook a VCR up to my computer... and I threw away my TV as soon as you could watch a TV on a computer.

There goes those memories.

Note To Self

2010-09-08T12:37:00.001-07:00

You have this fantastic imagination that has the power to convince yourself that you deserve more than you already have. It's like a curse that can be used to your advantage if you can only grasp it before it strangles you.

Stove Top Stuffing

2010-09-07T18:40:00.000-07:00

This is how mad I am right now. Mad and frustrated and screaming mad. So I grounded my body to a chair and watched myself jump up with a chainsaw, swinging it down from behind my head, landing into and through the small little end table that I use as my coffee table and dining room table and my only table all-in-one move. The table is sliced in two, right down the middle. The chainsaw sinks its chains into the floor and tears it to pieces, scattering the bits all over the pieces everywhere, bouncing and throwing themselves at my eyes.

This room is my house.
My house is just a room.
Sometimes it feels cozy.
Sometimes else, more like a tomb.

I sing these words louder, then scream them louder than I can sing. My voice grows so loud I make myself shrink, along with my chainsaw, it's still in my hand. I run around the gaping hole in the floor and slice right through the leg of a chair. It topples on top of me—knocking me off balance and into the hole. Smaller, I fall deeper, and the chainsaw drags me faster, so I let it go and stop falling, right there in the middle, then slowly I float, and grow-up, floating and going up and growing and growing and going back just in time for dinner.

Stove Top Stuffing.

It's About To Be Fall

2010-09-05T20:56:00.000-07:00

Tonight I can smell the trees letting go of their leaves.
It's about to be fall.

Snapshots

2010-09-04T17:17:00.000-07:00

-o1-
I just saw an older, soft, larger lady wobble-run across the crosswalk of Trader Joe's with her arms up in the air, held in the direction of the passing bus. The bus pulled over to the curb and waited for her, but the lady continued to run towards the open door no matter how much it seemed to hurt every bone in her body.

-o2-
I just saw a small, white butterfly flapping and flopping frantically—trapped in a spider's web—struggling to break free. I thought to help it, but there was nothing I could do. It was too tangled, and trying to break it free would just trap it more. Besides, the spider was already upon it, and the butterfly was an impressive catch for such a small spider. I thought the spider should be able to celebrate such a beautiful victory.

-03-
As I sat down on the curb to write this all down, I realized that I became self-aware about where I could and could not sit, as if there were laws lying around that I was unaware.

-04-
Soon after sitting, a bearded man on neon-yellow roller-blades rolled by, and soon after that, a mom-lady on a bike that had a child-seat on it without a child in it. Both took notice of me, both looked down at me, and both smiled.

-05-
I just discovered that two-cars-down from where I was sitting on the curb there is a young-lady sitting in the driver's seat of a parked, red four-door car eating an ice cream cone—minding her own business the same street as me.

-06-
I just heard a sound that sounded like a gunshot coming from inside one of these houses! I wonder if it was, and why I even want to find out. A gunshot sound is not something that sounds like you should be poking around.

-07-
I just saw a black bird eating salsa and share it with his blackbird friend. I didn't know that black birds like salsa.

-08-
I just saw a lady drive by and shove something into her mouth—presumably something salty—presumably french fries. There's a McDonald's around the corner, and she was wiggling-rubbing her fingers together as if she were trying to free them from salty boogers.

-09-
I just heard a little girl say out loud, "I hate to see dead squirrels."

The Reason Escapes Me

2010-08-26T18:29:00.000-07:00

Pickle. Water. Write it down. Splash some in your eyes and make them sting. It stings! It's stinging! Hallaluya! I can feel the spices burrowing into my vision, blurring and burning. The hairs on my ears tickle, and I pinch them in twos and threes and furs and rip them out completely—making the sound of dirt crumbling and roots ripping right out of the ground. Looking down to inspect them between my fingertips, the burning tear drops washes them away.

Such liquid words flower forever, covering the hillsides of the valley below—where the shopping centers are abandoned, and all the streets are empty. I've only imagined places such as this existing, abandoned, and forgotten, then discovered by chance with the lucky winner being me. Inside these places, it's easy to feel scared when where you are now looks like a place where someone else has been. It's spooky, even though they have all gone, and spookier because they are still. Gone because they had a reason to leave—leaving the reason behind, abandoned, hoping never to see it again. It's this very reason that resonates throughout the valley—silent whispers carried in the wind, racing up the mountains then sliding back down again. I can feel it on my face, and taste it with my tongue. It tastes like something happened when I feel it in my lungs. I suck it in deeper, and fill my stomach with reserve. My eyes pop open when I feel the power... Full surge! Full surge! It feels like my lungs have to pee... no... it's more like diarrhea... no... maybe I meant more like puking cause it's coming out of my mouth... and nose... here it goes...

The reason escapes me—Whoooooooosh!—blowing down the walls. I'm still blowing—the walls are still falling—one on top of the other, in vertical stacks sandwiched together. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap-Clop. Backing up the hillside, they slide up and over the one underneath—the top one sliding higher, stretching out the middle side by side together, paving a path out of walls all the way to the highest peak.

I sit down on the last one that is now the first, with my back to the mountain, I breathe in and in some more, filling my lungs up and even more than before. My eyes burst open again until they can't take it anymore, and my stomach muscles squeeze this time much harder making the wind sound more like a roar. I slide up the mountain, all the way to the top. The walls feel like glass on my bottom, as if they weren't there at all. I look down and the mountain is below me—tiny and crawling with ants. From way up here, I see the big picture that I live in, and notice that the reason that escaped me was blowing too hard.

I Can Make You Disappear

2010-08-26T14:08:00.000-07:00

I see you, but I'm choosing to ignore you. You might be able to see me standing here ignoring you, but I don't see you, or hear you. My eyes look away from you—fixed on wherever you are not. I already have forgotten you, swept away with the passing crowd. I imagined they would be coming this way, shoulder to shoulder, blurring their faces with their fast paces. All together they look like a mass of trenchcoats and briefcases, floating past and all around me like ghosts. Standing among them, I am surrounded. They brush up against me and I bounce around back-and-forth-and-around the material and knock against-and-off-onto-another briefcase carried in a hurry—gripped tight together in ghostly invisible hands.

Cold Finger Ear Ache

2010-08-26T13:53:00.000-07:00

My fingers are cold. The skin on the tips of my fingers all the way up to my knuckle sandwich are cold as cuts.

My ears ache. I wish I could massage them with exotic oils. Complementary oils—filled with compliments and oil—smelling sweet and musty, sour and dusty.

Above and beyond—because I'm making something special bitches.

Focused Breathing

2010-08-21T15:12:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to relax. I'm trying to focus on my breathing. I'm closing my eyes and looking for the deepest darkest spaces to fly into. I'm breathing in... one. Breathing out... two. Breathing in... three. Breathing out... four. Breathing in... five. Breathing out... six. Breathing in and out until I count to ten. I decide I'm not relaxed enough, so I breathe in and count again.

Breathe in... one... focus on the black. Breathe out... two... listen to the breath, it sounds like wind. Breathe in... three... wait for the wind. Breathe out... four... I'm flying toward the dark, floating forward through the darkness towards the darkness within. Breathe in... five... I can still hear muffled thoughts. Breathe out... six... further now, the thoughts sound farther. Breathe in... seven... waiting in darkness. Breathe out... eight... faster, quieter, further, farther, darker. Breathe in... nine... I could go further forever. Breathe out... ten... begin again.

Now At This Moment No.1

2010-08-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

I am going to attempt a writing exercise that is supposed to encourage you to focus on "feeling the actual." According to the assignment, I am to just let go, to sit back and relax, and for a few moments write down sentences stating what I am aware of at this moment. I must start each sentence with the word "now" or "at this moment." I am choosing to alternate between the two and see what the pattern looks like through the use of repetition.

Now I am beginning my assignment. At this moment I am listening to the sound of my typewriter. At this moment I realized that I should have used the word "now" to start this sentence, and am frantically trying to make the decision as to whether I will start the next sentence with a "now" or an "at this moment." Now I am moving on. Now I am letting go. At this moment I am hearing the music that Jason has chosen to play on the stereo. Now I am listening to the words that are trying to attack my passive observations. At this moment I am forgetting that I was trying for some structure with this experiment. Now I'm being tugged mentally.

Now At This Moment No.2

2010-08-18T17:50:00.000-07:00

Now I am starting over on the back side of the sheet of paper. At this moment I am wishing I didn't label this as the back side of the sheet of paper, as it could just as easily be the front depending on the way you approach it. Now I caught a glimpse of my water glass out of the edge of my vision, my periphery.

Now I have my attention distracted by the computer mouse that is napping on the upper left edge of it's mouse pad that is sitting next to this typewriter, on the right side. Now I am making sure to think about my right and left to be sure that I got them correct.

At this moment I am wishing that my typewriter didn't slide around so much. At this moment I am glad that it slides because it reminds me, at this moment, that I am typing fast enough for the sliding to be noticeable. Now I am feeling happy with this exercise. At this moment, I am really happy with the sound of this typewriter—the sound of the little metal arms beating their tiny fists on this page, as hard or as soft as I tell myself that I want to make them punch.

Now I am distracted by Jason's phone conversation. I was able to move past the initial ring, but at the moment I can tell that he is upset at all the racket that is coming from my typewriter. Now I am left to be in this room alone, as Jason couldn't hear his conversation over all the noise and he closed himself in the back room. At this moment I can still recall the slam of the bedroom door, followed by the silent pause, then his voice exclaiming an apology for the door's slamming. It was the draft that produced the force, not his muscles in reflex to the noise.

Now I am lost.

Now, I am realizing that I separated the start of this sentence with a comma, and ended it with one too, it can keep going on and on forever if you only end things with a comma instead of a period, there is no end to where it can take you, now I think I just came up with another writing exercise of my own, ending sentences with commas, and pulling out of them their own guts, in long stretches, for miles and miles, until you end up dragging the body-end through their own drippings.

Now At This Moment No.3

2010-08-18T17:45:00.000-07:00

Now I am going to attempt the same writing exercise, but instead of writing "now" and "at this moment" I will attempt to only write down what comes after I think about writing them, that way, where I place the period represents where the "now" and "at this moment" would have been.

I am ready to start. My fingers are frantically feeling the plastic keys, wondering which letters to press. I am hoping. I am at a loss.

I can't seem to stop myself from thinking about how hard it is to stop myself from wanting to write the word "now" or the words "at this moment." I am trying to find something else to capture my immediate interest.

I hear a car swoosh down the street. The car is much further up the hill than I can imagine, but I can still hear it. Cars are returning to swoosh again. It sounds like wind. I am getting the two swooshes confused with the other. The cars and the wind sound the same. I am associating the swoosh of the cars as hot wind, like asphalt, blown up from the tires into the wind above the street, and up the stairs of my apartment complex, through the screen door, past my living room, and through my ears, cooling my arms and neck before it is blown past and out the back door, the screen door in the back of the house. That's where I prefer to smoke my cigarettes, on the back stairs, at the foot of the screen door at the back of my apartment.

I am thinking how I was just back there smoking a cigarette a few minutes ago, and reviewing the previous writing exercise in my mind. I got distracted by the leaves that were growing between the cracks in the concrete by the stairs that lead themselves down into the basement underneath my apartment. I think the leaves are part of a dandelion that got trapped there but is making the best of it.

Now At This Moment No.4

2010-08-18T17:30:00.000-07:00

I see that my water glass is empty. The only water that is left in there looks like tears clinging to the side of the glass, with a little puddle on the bottom that looks as if it makes up the shape of a country, or more like a small cluster of islands trapped inside a glass ocean.

I reposition myself, folding my left leg over my right. I can feel the thigh stretching itself, the left one, as the rest of the leg spills over the right one, with my left foot being pulled down by gravity. My shoes feel sticky because I'm not wearing any socks today. It's hot and my feet are wet-cool, and the insides of my shoes feel cool-moist. Repositioning my legs now, kicking my feet back and under the seat of my chair. My toes are touching the floor, and my feet feel folded in half, with my heels up in the air doing a headstand—a toestand.

Stretching my back off the back of my office chair that itches my bottom and underneath my thighs, my chair squeaks when I move and sounds like a fart. I lift my left butt cheek up, and tilt my right shoulder down, and out escapes the chair-fart that is actually a squeak—the sound of plastic and metal releasing the pressure that I place upon it. The office chair holds me up. The office chair supports me.

I breath out a breath, realizing that I tend to hold it while I am typing. I might just be unaware of my breathing while I am typing, like I become aware after I use the word just to justify something that just happened. Using the word just is just something that I have become aware of lately, and I'm trying to keep myself from using it too often.

Scratching my neck. The hairs on the back of my head still feel like they are moving, unsettled, itching still, but in a pleasant way. My knuckles ache for me to crack them again. They are practically begging. But like my craving to stop and smoke a cigarette, I realize that I take to cracking them more that I should. It is a bad habit that feels so good. Sometimes I don't realize that I am doing it until I hear the cracks popping all at once, or in little rows. It sounds almost exactly like the clink of my Zippo lighter... no... the little ding of the bell on this typewriter that tells me when I have gotten to the end of the line sounds more like the little clink of my Zippo. My knuckles are definitely more of a cracking or popping sound. All my joints seem to crack and twist as I bend them out of my sitting position. I bend my elbows and the muscles in my arms feel as if they are tearing at the back of my skin—louder around the joints where things have been worn thin.

Pushing my hair back, I see my reflection in the glass of the computer monitor that I have put to sleep behind this typewriter. I pick at my eyes and rub my nose. Scratch my beard. Shift my weight. Now my right leg has found itself crossed over the left. I push my shoulders forward, and tilt my head back, watching my reflection lean in and lift my chin towards the ceiling. My mouth opens and my breath escapes. "I'm watching you."

I tell myself "I'm watching you" without even having to move my lips. I can understand what was said because I said it to myself.

I hear the second hand on the clock ticking in between bursts of tapping on my typewriter. I wonder how many words I am making appear in between the clicks of the clock, but I can't hear the clicking once I start typing.

Blue Eyes Close

2010-08-17T17:07:00.000-07:00

We spent a warm day out on the lake,
isolated and alone.

Just us.

Nobody else knew we were even there. No boats passed. No hiker’s foot was to be heard. It felt as if my wish of having him all to myself had been granted.

The lake was so calm it felt unnatural—smooth on top and crystal clear all the way through to the bottom. I asked him if he had ever seen anything like this before, and he looked at me and smiled—his eyes reflected bluer than the water’s reflection of the sky.

He took off his shirt—peeling it up his chest with his forearms, then over his head by lifting his hands toward the sky. I watched the sun rise gently up his navel, then across his chest, and appear to slow down suddenly as it reached up his neck. He smiled when the sun kissed his lips, and closed his eyes while the last of his shirt passed through his hair.

I took off my shirt—lifting it slowly in front of my eyes, so I could still watch his movement through the tiny holes in my clothes, slowly peeling them back until the sun would bleach them close.

Shirtless, he appeared closer. I stood still to see if he was approaching. His eyes seemed to grow bluer and closer, and closer, and bluer, and bluer.

I felt the hair on his chest touch mine, as he leaned in to tickle my ear with a whisper. “This is beautiful.”

He kept his head close, and breathed gently through his nose, brushing my neck with each breath. I counted four warm, and five cold before he leaned back to show me his blue eyes close.

Lung Hole

2010-08-13T12:02:00.000-07:00

Taking a drink of water.

AAAAHHH!

I made that sound after the water slipped past the lung hole in my throat.

I left out the the little gurgle that escaped before the AAAAHHH! Then I put it back in once I remembered it was there.

What Just Happened

2010-08-01T21:39:00.000-07:00

Cleanse. Cleanse. Cleanse your thoughts. Clear your mind of the things you did today. Let go, and write down the first thing that you happen to hear in the back of your thoughts—something trying to escape and surprise you. Words of wisdom or even words of a ridiculous nature. Making sense is not the point. Making something happen is happening as if it just happened.

Danger Zone

2010-07-29T14:24:00.000-07:00

I am drawn to the power of words for their ability to create images that you can only see with your imagination. I see it as a challenge to make reading worthwhile, even if you only read the first couple of lines.

I stand on this stage singing my heart out, hoping my friends will at least show up for support. I can instinctually tell that most of them don't like the idea of friends who ask if they would show up to an open mic night in a venue they have never even heard of. Most will forget based on the unfamiliar name of the place you are trying to tell them actually exists.

I sing this to the crowd of one, and since you are the only one who decided to show, I'm dedicating this one to you.

Laaaaaa, la la la. Whatsoever.
Whaaaaaa, whaaaa, whaaaa. Whatsoever.
Clap-clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.
Clap-clap.
Danger Zone.

Two Weeks Notice

2010-07-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

Damn you internet! Damn you for the unnatural habits you have formed in my thoughts. Damn you for the false sense of entertainment that beguiles me into checking up on you constantly—like a newborn child—you whine, even though you do not have a voice to call your own. Your very birth into existence fell from heaven unexpectedly, when I too was still a child—too young to know any different, without parents for a guide. I thought it was the right thing for both of us, to embrace your innocence, to feed and clothe you, to coddle and take proud pictures of progress along the way. We're family, with a relationship as neurotic as any other.

I existed before you. I had a whole life without you, full of friends, youth and good-health... well... what I'm getting at is... you need to get a job and start helping out around here, or... let me make this clear... you need to move out. Consider this your two weeks' notice. That means you need to figure your shit out, or... well... I'm changing the locks.

A Spontaneous Moment

2010-07-21T15:42:00.000-07:00

I saw you pass by my house and seem startled to see me sitting outside. I waved, but you had already ducked behind the neighbors house. I went to chase you down, but alas, you were not to be found. I roamed the streets wondering where you had been, where you were going, and where you were headed. I wanted to think that you were remembering how we had only had known each other for a few days, yet those particular few days seemed a bit more interesting than the few days before, when we had not yet known the other. I wanted to think that you had to pass by where I might be today just because it would make the day feel more interesting—that since you happened to be in the neighborhood, you decided to take the route that was guaranteed to provide a jolt of adrenaline—and with the rush of chemistry, induce such a fantasy to make your heart caress the back of your breast and cause the hairs to tingle your lips.

A spontaneous moment.

Cloud Vomit

2010-07-20T12:28:00.000-07:00

This morning I went downtown to pick up some more tobacco, and during the train ride there my stomach felt like it contained a small pool of acid that was stinging its way through my insides. I wanted to puke, but didn't want the stinging to spread to my tongue and cause my teeth to fall out. Ironically when I got off the train and began to cross the street, there were two piles of vomit on the curb at the crosswalk. It seemed that I might not be the only one that feels the bugs crawling around inside them. I wonder if something is going around. At least on the vomit front it feels like something is happening. Nothing much is happening outside of my sick stomach.

I picked up some more coffee, which I thought was going to be a bad idea, but it turned out fine, and actually soothed my stomach with its warmth. It is unusually cold this morning for July, and overcast with the threat of rain lingering just below the clouds. Not hard rain, just a few sprinkles. It feels as if the clouds have a burning inside their stomachs as well, and would splash us with their vomit if the right combination of smells wafts up from the streets and tickles their nostrils.

String of Thought

2010-07-17T12:50:00.000-07:00

I can get thoughts twisted up so tight, that they feel clogged in my brain for days, and the simple action of writing them out can be all I need to untie them. The thoughts just have to be pulled out in whatever tangled mess that are in and laid on a clean sheet of paper, then I can start to work on the knots until the string of thought feels untangled.

Vintage Photos

2010-06-09T21:08:00.000-07:00

Vintage photos represent forgotten moments being remembered again.

And all the people pictured in them are either dead, or completely different people than they are today.

And all the photographers have no names, but are very much present... often in shadows... and always in reflection.

And the photo itself... the wear of the paper spills layers of liquid history between your fingers.

And the smell of dusty things reminds you of treasure.

Why I'm One Of Those Artists That Starve

2010-05-24T17:29:00.000-07:00

It seems absurd to foresee a museum containing a digital archive for Interactive & Digital Art. And even if it were so, a museum would not be paying for the pieces they decide to store on their acid-free servers when the very nature of the digital medium is duplication.

The digital medium is the mass-medium.

With just the click of a button, an artist can be seen by millions... in an instant... hanging their art on electricity inside millions of plastic frames.

Making art with a digital medium is this.
Helping you recognize this as art is design.
Making no income from this, while being compelled to keep making this, is bad design.

This is why I'm one of those artists that starve.

Stuck On The Plane

2010-05-20T18:18:00.000-07:00

:: Originally written 29.6.2009 7:17 PM

Stuck on the plane, typing a way out of boredom.

Hey neighbor. What do you want me to write about? How about an alternative to waiting to get off the plane? How about a chance to wait on what words might appear next on this screen?

Being bored is pretty much the state of most of our lives. It’s the being confined part that crawls under our skin while we are waiting for a plane to land and unload us all into tubes and ports—where we will wait some more for our baggage to be unloaded next, so that we can take it home with us.

People on the plane. Listen to this. The lady that is walking down the isle, "stretching her legs," is looking for leftover Frito’s. She loves them, and is waiting to glean them from the seat pockets. She puts them in her large Frito bag of a purse. She is anxious for a taco salad.

People on the plane. Listen to this. The television that grabs your captive attention is feeding you the dreams that you will have tonight. Beware of the three dogs and the fat boy with the fro. They will only keep moving their lips and telling you nothing.

Only two more hours of the five to go. Only two more. Just keep the fingers moving in the case that they will speed up time as they tap out the minutes.

People on the plane. Listen to this. We were all fed chicken wraps for dinner, and we ate it. Don’t we all feel better?

People on the plane. I am typing this to you. We are all party people. Old and young. Shaking our asses with the turbulence. Bobbing our heads to the rocking of the wings. High above the ground… above the clouds… trapped in a party plane. Crawling through the isles waiting for our turn to go pee. Some will shit and flush it away inside, stored below our feet.

Born That Way

2010-05-20T17:54:00.000-07:00

He was born without the ability to get wet. When you spray him the water bounces away from him just before it touches his skin. When it rains the water looks like it is falling around him. And when he goes swimming he glides around on the surface as if he were on top of a giant water mattress that was made of a skin so thin you could not see it once it was filled with water. Surprisingly, without being able to take a bath, he never gets dirty. His sweat leaves his body without ever touching his skin. Yet he can drink normally, because “once the water’s past the skin, it can go in.”

Daydream Day

2010-02-18T17:14:00.000-08:00

Either I woke up tired, or I’m still asleep and dreaming that I am tired. If you go to sleep in your sleep, would you dream in your dream?

Face Guts

2010-02-18T13:25:00.001-08:00

I will peel your face back and watch your eyeballs roll around in their sockets, and listen to your crooked teeth click as you try to express how you feel without your lips.

Disgusting.

Your face looks like guts with eyes and teeth.

Everything Must Go

2010-01-10T16:35:00.000-08:00

The week after she died in her sleep, her bed was sold at the estate sale.

- for Mary

Writing Gives Me Bad Posture

2010-01-10T15:44:00.000-08:00

My back is folded in half and my neck hangs to the floor. Slowly, in inches, I touch my toes to my nose.

Inside Guilt

2010-01-10T15:43:00.000-08:00

I am getting nowhere. I am still inside.

I should be outside right now. I should be soaking in the sun and covering my private parts with the clouds. I feel dirty inside.

Voyeur is me

2010-01-09T18:44:00.000-08:00

I don’t have much sun left. The sky is a pinkish blue, which technically is a shade of purple, but what you see are pinkish shades of blue, which are fading fast too.

I want to try and tell you what I am seeing through my window. For those that have seen it, I wonder if my words will be able to construct and accurate image?

The apartment that I live in stares across a grass courtyard at the mirror image of itself. There are six units attached to each other that look like six little white tents in a row—with the window of each unit located where the tent flaps would meet. All six white tents look like they are covered in a large, black rain blanket and are huddling close together for warmth and safety—staked down at either end by a brick chimney, because the ones on the ends have fireplaces. I live in the one that is in the middle of the row on the left—where there are two blue doors facing one another. My door is the door on the right—the one my back is facing, with the window to my right—the one where you can see the guy inside who has been staring at his reflection in the window ever since it turned dark outside.

No, wait… it looks like he just closed the curtain. I didn’t say anything about it to him. I just kept my mouth shut and kept typing. I am guessing he thought it was getting dark enough outside to begin seeing inside—and being that close to the window, he might frighten the people outside.

Unbecoming of Us

2010-01-08T00:29:00.000-08:00

Enemies become neighbors
until
neighbors become enemies
because
what is ours
is part yours,
but also part mine.

Yourself versus Myself

2010-01-04T16:02:00.000-08:00

When I write to myself, you can read it for yourself.
When I write yourself, you will read in yourself.
When you say yourself, you are talking about myself.
When you ask yourself, you listen to yourself.
When I ask myself about yourself, we both get confused.

Ultimately, finding a meaning for writing this is ridiculous, when the meaning to what I have written can only be interpreted by yourself.

Me Neither

2009-12-29T17:30:00.001-08:00

I aaaammm not sure I waaaannnt to know the aaaannnswer why I wrote this like thiiiisss.

My Little Lady

2009-09-02T20:25:00.000-07:00

Little Lady

Little lady

little lady

'lil lady

Man, that's a little lady.

Dear Grandma,

2009-05-30T19:14:00.000-07:00

Don't cry for me anymore. I have collected enough tears to finish working on our masterpiece. Forty-five Ziplock bags later, and here we are at the unveiling of a life's work. A Book of Tears.

Keep me in your prayers,
in your thoughts and memories,
in your pocket and hair,
in your heart and guts,
forever and ever,
your grandson.

Opening Scene - Three-Inch Boy

2009-04-26T02:03:00.000-07:00

The credits roll and spin. Names of people that are called someone else for as long as you will know them. Casy playing Benjamin. Eva playing Jordan. The list goes on and on, with extras at the end.

Click. Click. A camera snaps a few close-up photos from far away. Click. Zoom. Click. The person in the photo does not know they are modeling. The person in the photo will not know that this photo even exists.

The photo is printed out and tacked to a wall. One of hundreds. You would think this to be the beginning of a suspense thriller, but then you notice that the photos are tacked to the wall of an art gallery. Gallery 1058. It’s one of those galleries that uses the address as its name. It’s the same as the one on the next block. Gallery 1165.

The name of the art show is written in vinyl lettering on the front glass window. The letters stop the sun, and the words “Art is so competitive” shade the floor. The artists inside tread across them, forward to the wall, backwards to observe proper placement. The show is going to start soon. The artists look frantic. I hope that someone comes to the show that will recognize themselves in one of the photos. I want to see their reaction. Without this hope, the opening is going to be a flop. Just ordinary photos of forgotten people stuck to a gallery wall.

The doors open. It’s already crowded inside, which is weird since I did not see anyone go in yet. Either time skipped, or this is part of the show. Maybe that was a fake window? The camera pans and it looks like I can see out of it from inside. It looks how I would imagine.

Panning the room, I am anticipating which one is going to be the main character, or possibly the lead in. I am disappointed to follow the camera to one of the photos on the wall, zooming in slowly until it fits the frame. The crowd noises are turned off, and the picture goes silent. I am left to hear the buzzing of my refrigerator as the only soundtrack for this scene.

The picture is of a boy in a red coat. He is stuck in mid-swing on a swing set. I would expect the silence to fade into children’s screaming and chasing each other around a park. Then the wind in the trees, followed by the occasional bird or car. And just as the sounds take you into the mindset of the park where the boy is swinging, the photo suddenly plays, and you are watching the next scene. Possibly a flashback.

Instead, the camera is still. Focused on the photo on the gallery wall. Still silent. The boy in the photo is still stuck mid-swing. His feet are blurry. I can’t tell if he is moving up or down, or forward or backward. I’m not sure which direction you actually go on a swing. I think it could be both.

This has gone on long enough. I am tired of looking at this picture. It’s too quiet.

Just as I was about to pick up the remote and decide whether or not to fast-forward or stop, the sound returned and the kid fell from his swing. The crowd gasped and backed away. The boy lay on the floor just three inches long.

“He’s breathing!”
“Is it real?”
“It looks so real! Is it a projection?”
“How’d he do that?”
“What’s the name of the artist again?”
“He’s moving!”
“His eyes are opening!”
“AAAAAAHHHHHHHH! He’s running! AAAAAHHHHH!”

The artist screams, “Close the door! Don’t let him get out!” But the door is practically ripped off by a couple of middle-aged women who tripped on their heels and were pushed through it. One of them tore her dress on the hinge. The other got a bloody nose.

I laughed. The actors were really convincing. The combination of scared for their lives and scared of a three inch boy was flawless.

Dust Storm

2009-04-14T19:35:00.001-07:00

I was buried with my eyes still open.
I was lowered into the earth
deep enough for it to rain dirt from above.
The drops filled my eyes
and I drowned.
Buried under a waterfall of dirt.

Living with RMS

2009-04-14T03:40:00.000-07:00

How can I be too tired to read, but wired to write? My eyes are tired, but my fingers are still wide awake. Restless Mind Syndrome.

Will I be staying up until morning? The morning that starts when the rooster crows, not the morning that starts when the clock starts over. The rooster’s crow marks the second day. The day after the night. The clock’s click marks the second this day started and yesterday began. I haven’t heard a rooster in the morning in years though. Roosters are illegal in the city limits, unless you have a permit and permission from your neighbors. Neighbors hate roosters. That is why roosters live on farms, where farmers hate clocks and neighbors. Farmers and roosters are soul mates. They go together like neighborhoods and clocks.

Future Saturday

2009-03-28T02:14:00.000-07:00

Friday night I had a vision of the future. The future on Saturday. Not the Saturday that is tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow instead of the day after today. I woke up after only being asleep for an hour. I heard cats screaming out back. I think they were fighting, but they could have caught the cat fever and gone screaming mad. I went outside to see which it was, and all I saw was a bundle of cat hair. It looked sticky, so it could have been a hairball. I think one of the cats could have screamed so much that they threw up the hair they had licked off themselves earlier that day. It still looked fresh. It was only covered in two flies.

Looking ahead, I saw a lady behind the fence. I could only see her eye peeking through the fence, but I knew it was a lady, because she had a Betty Davis eye. She screamed at me when I noticed her. She screamed so much that she threw up. Some of it splattered through the eye hole. I told her to leave me alone, even though she was only minding her own business. It was the only thing I could think to say. Leave me alone. I waited for a little bit, then I just turned and walked away. I went back inside and had a bowl of cereal, then I took a shower and went to the studio to think about what I should do with the rest of my day. I sat there for about ten minutes before I had to go pee.

My pee smelled funny. Sort of like Confunction-Junction right after all the kids have gone and left. Right after it turned five-o-clock and turned again into the time to close. My pee smelled like being open turning into being closed. It was a shock to my smelling system. Electrifying. I peed lightning bolts from the future. Tomorrow's lighting bolts flushed away today in my vision of the future Saturday that takes place in the day after tomorrow instead of the day after today.

Shhh

2009-03-24T02:10:00.000-07:00

Shhh. The longer I can whisper, the longer I have to figure out why I am whispering. I cannot shush you anyway. But I have every right to whisper, and you have every right to speak loud enough for someone other than me to hear. If I speak softer, will you lean in? Will you wait for me to write my thoughts down instead? It takes a little longer, but you can take it with you after I am done, or even leave it here for someone else to read instead.

Shhh. We say shhh when we are trying to get someone’s attention, while at the same time telling them to stop making noise. Shhh. Stop what you are doing and give me attention. Shhh. Now it's redundant. Shhh again and the shhheep wind up eaten by the wolf. There were three shhheep and one wolf. That was a really hungry wolf… or more likely a really gluttonous wolf. He puked while half-way though the second one, and then dipped the remaining shhheep in his special shhhauce. The third one actually stood there and waited her turn. She waited to be dipped in the shhhauce of her shhhisters and then chewed shhhowly into little bits. She stood there, knowing that she was shhhoon to be shhhwallowed.

Saying shhh means that no one will ever take your words shhheriously again. Your words will not be believable even if you can point out the real bits of shhheep in the puddles of special shhhauce.

Go Figure

2009-02-22T10:44:00.000-08:00

Today is Sunday, February 22nd, 2009. Yesterday I found myself wondering what day it was. It's not that uncommon to lose track of the days, the weeks, the months, and end up getting lost in the present. But in that moment I must have also been thinking of how I was wanting to write more, and through the clashing of the two teams of thought I was able to tackle down the idea of starting out the day by writing what day it is each and every day... unless I don't feel like it that day and talk myself out of it.

Today is Sunday, February 22nd, 2009. I seem to have needed to write it down twice. Its a good mnemonic device.

Today is Sunday, February 22nd 2009. Third time's a charm. I have not yet started thinking about tomorrow. So far, it is still early enough that I can only think ahead into today. Tomorrow still seems a whole day away. Far enough, that when I say "Tomorrow I will eat mashed potatoes," the words echo across the hours of today. I wave at them as they leave my mouth. Maybe I will see them later. Maybe I will see them tomorrow, or the next day after that. Maybe I won't see them at all. Maybe I will find them broken into pieces. Maybe they will get attacked and I will turn a corner today and find them covered in blood and guts... mashed to bits. Maybe they met someone instead, and when I see them next, they will introduce me to their new word-friend and tell me about how they met and how happy they are together. Either way, something is going to happen today.

Maniacs in the coffee shop

2009-02-11T08:29:00.000-08:00

Last night, I realized that I need to exercise my imagination more. So this morning, I decided to take my laptop to the coffee shop and write. There are quite a few people here with laptops already. No, actually, I never left my house, and am still in my pajamas. It’s too bad that my imagination only took me as far as a coffee shop. You see, I still have some exercising to do. It’s not that a coffee shop is a bad setting for something to happen, its just that I quickly returned to my home and the reality of myself sitting at home in my pajamas. So many things could have happened in that coffee shop this morning had I given myself the chance to stay. A person sitting near me could have been reading a book whose pages were just sheets of color. Her face glows red for a moment. She looks up and turns her head directly to me. I must have been staring. She turns the page and her face reflects a shade of green. She holds up the book to shield herself from my stare, offering up the book’s title, “Reading Color: Understanding Color Blindness.” I’m not sure why this gesture made me feel aggressive today. Instead of realizing that I had been looking at this girl long enough for her to feel uncomfortable, I wanted to pierce that book with my stare, shove my eyes right through those colored pages and stab them through the back of her head.

Deflected instead. My stare ricochets around the room, hitting an innocent bystander in the leg. Who wears legwarmers anymore? Apparently this guy. He’s waiting for his morning coffee, standing patiently by the counter next to the sugar looking like a maniac… a maniac on the floor. Waiting like he has never waited for his coffee before.

Ghosts

2008-11-22T02:11:00.000-08:00

I dug this up tonight. It feels resurrected.

:: Originally written 12.2.2007 10:50 PM

At various moments in our lives we come upon the question, “What am I doing with my life?” As a child looking toward embarking in the adult world, we might phrase the question, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” As an adult, we ask ourselves, “What did I want to be when I grew up?” We first catalogue the things we enjoy doing in our lives, and then translate this interest into a compatible way to make money under a circumstance that we can tolerate.

Once again, I have reached another crossroad in my life and have now found myself brooding over this very same question. Only this time, I have found myself stalling on accepting an answer just yet. It is very frustrating to feel myself at a stand still. Part of me urges a decision, while the other part poses more questions to process before I take a step forward. It feels very much like a paralysis brought on by fear.

I find myself balancing on the tip of my toes, straining my eyes to see what might lie ahead of me hoping to get a better view, or a glimpse as to what might be laying in wait along any given path I choose to take. I relax my heels and feel the earth on which I have been hinged. Looking back from where I had just been, I realize that no matter how far away something looked before, it never looks the same as you had thought once you have arrived. I close my eyes to see what this spot looked like from where I had just been. Comparably, they look different but feel exactly the same. Being there and looking here, and being here and looking there, I wonder to myself how I ever took a step in any direction at all. In fact, maybe I have not moved an inch, and while I have been standing here growing older it is the world around me that has changed.

I open my eyes and sigh. I must move on.

Something does not exactly feel right. It feels as if a ghost is haunting us all at the same time. We are afraid of it, yet know that it cannot harm us. Some argue that ghosts are invented by our thoughts, and harm could actually be accomplished if we believe for a fact that the ghost is real. After all, our thoughts are real, and they haunt us all the time. From birth, we are taught to fear this ghost through stories and legend. "If you don’t go to college, you will never get a good job." Ghosts are the great protectors of secrets. Ghosts are the paranormal, conjured by those who are beyond what we define as normal. We spend our whole lives avoiding them out of our fabricated fear of them. Ghosts do exist after all.

When I'm grown up, I will be able to conjure ghosts of my own. How exactly can I learn to conjure a ghost? Well, it’s simple really... my ghosts can only exist when people believe in them.

Smothered

2008-09-23T18:37:00.001-07:00

Breathe in. Shwoook. Breathe out. Pheewww. One more time. In... Shooooook. Out... Pheeewwww.

My fingers feel as shaky as my thoughts. I think I drank too much coffee. I think I want this... no that. This and that. I want to find a bigger house to live in. I want to feel that I have more space to move in. I want to take more photos. I want to write. I want to draw. I want to do them all, and collect them into books. I feel like I should have started one of them already. I feel like I should be doing one or the other, or the one after that, instead of writing this right now.

I just want to feel satisfied, despite our human nature to feel otherwise. Backspace. Backspace. Delete. Delete. Delete.

Just click publish already. Get it over with and move on.

The Bike Ride

2008-09-15T23:54:00.000-07:00

There’s a knock at my door. It’s Christopher Meloni. I open the door and invite him in. He asks, “What you doin’?”

“I was just sitting here writing about wanting to do something.”

Christopher smiles. “Well, that’s why I stopped by. Let’s go ride bikes.”

In one swift move, I close my laptop and slip on my shoes. “Let’s go!”

We ride off down the street, and just as I am about to say how nice it feels outside, Chris says, “Its nice out tonight!”

I look up. “There’s a full moon!”

“Indeed. There it is.”

He is riding just ahead of me. I watch him pedal. We are peddling at the same pace. He must be in the same gear. I look at the houses creeping past us and feel as if I am watching the Showcase Showdown on the Price is Right. I calculate their closest values to the actual retail price, and place my bid.

Chris cheers me on. “That’s a big TV. You can see what those people are watching from the street.”

He rides up into their yard and I follow. We stop right in front of the window and see a whole family sitting in their living room. Their backs facing us. Their eyes glued to a television set.

Watching the people watching the television, Christopher puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “I feel like we are in that Christmas movie... A Christmas Carol... with the ghosts that haunt Ebenezer Scrooge. I’m the ghost who shows you the present, and you are seeing yourself as you are now.” He raises his hands in front of his face and wiggles his fingers. “Ooooooooohh…”

He stops, mid-oooh and freezes.

I hold my breath and jerk my head back to the window expecting to see someone alerted to our presence.

“Wait!” Christopher pauses, holding the moment’s silence captive for a few more seconds. “How can you see yourself in the present, if you are presently with a ghost? They should have called that ghost the ghost of Christmas a few minutes ago.”

I chuckled... relieved to know we were still invisible. I turn my attention back to the window and the people in their living room. “Look!” Christopher leans forward and squints. I rap the window and feel the adrenaline shatter through my veins. We take off laughing into the street. I hear people yelling behind me in the distance but can't make any sense of it due to Christopher’s laughter and my squeaky gears.

We twist and turn through a few back streets, ride through a park, bomb a hill, then duck into a shadow. We stop to catch our breath.

"Hey, Christopher!"

I lift my hands in front of my mouth and wiggle my fingers.

“Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhh!”

Nothing Is Unreadable

2008-09-14T19:31:00.000-07:00

If nobody reads the words that I have written, then they never will have existed.

Words unread are words that don't exist.

Blue Bird

2008-09-14T18:12:00.000-07:00

While sitting outside smoking a cigarette, I was visited by a strange blue bird. He said, "Hello."

I put the cigarette to my lips to see if the smoke tasted like a dream. I exhaled a reply. "Hello and how do you do?"

"Fine just fine... feeling blue... and you?"

"Feeling fine and feeling blue? How can that be true. Is it because your feathers are blue?"

"Are you rhyming because I am a bird who happens to be blue? I was born that way... blue through and through."

"Oh, I meant you no insult. It's just that I have never had a bird speak to me."

We stared at each other for a moment. He turned his head. I thought he was about to fly away. Instead, he looked back at me and chirped.

I laughed, "You're a funny little bird. I like your chirping. What does that mean... I mean, how would you translate that sound into words that I would understand?"

"You will never know."

"Is that what the chirps mean, or are you being difficult?"

I was confused now, and could see that the blue bird knew I was confused too. He could not smirk or smile, but I could see it in his eyes. He was waiting for my next move.

Waiting still.

I flicked my lit cigarette at his beak, and immediately felt guilty for this smug reaction. The ashes sparked. The feathers fanned. The smoke swirled. I fled as the blue bird flew.

Spout It Out

2008-09-14T16:55:00.000-07:00

Words used to pour out of my fingertips. Unfiltered, rusty words. The source of the words must have dried up recently, as my fingers only seem to be capable of coughing up dust. I hear the pipes rattling and moaning. I am half-expecting a spurt of letters to rush out and surprise me. I crack my knuckles, turn the knob off, then back on. Off and on. Another moan. Things just might be happening. A trickle of letters has already formed a puddle of words. It's not much, but its something.

Battery Powered Words

2008-09-13T20:17:00.000-07:00

Battery powered words last the same as those written by hand. Forgotten when the current expires and the lights go out. Here are some words to add to the rest while things are still illuminated. The time will come when one of us will forget the other. I can say I will forget you first, but one can never forget until nothing can be remembered. Today, for now, we are here in front of each other. Making a memory to be forgotten.

Rattle Brain

2008-06-02T01:05:00.000-07:00

Rattle. Rattle. Rattlesnake.
Shake rattle and roll.
Roll over and over and over again.
Over and rattle again and again.
Rattle brain.

My eyes are getting heavy. I can hear their thunderous movements scraping against my dry sockets. I am hoping that these hands will follow, and slow down under the weight of straining to keep a train of thought on a weary track. Prepositions become too much effort to go back and correct. Just keep typing and watching the thoughts get more sporadic and lethargic. Slowing to a sputter. Breathing steadier. Breathing steadier. Slowing to a sputter. Breathing steadier. Slow sputter.

These lines of lotion… random slips of words… silky smooth, mean nothing. Written for the sheer sake of misfired synapses. Smith & Wesson. Forty-Five caliber, semi-automatic. Twenty-two seconds to two. Wait, while time waits for no one. Time is money. Money waits for no one, yet we all individually and collectively wait on both the time and the money. We wait on something that is not waiting at all. What are we waiting for then? Because waiting is time. Time is waiting. It’s time to go to bed. The ebb and follow the leader of the pack of cigarettes, Lucky Strike, to be exactly in the place I can only ever begin to imagine. And the pinky pricks the period marking the end of the last words on earth to be written on nothing at all or nothing as nothing is all there is to be written. Period.

Sleep you godamned body. Other people can turn out my lights while I can do nothing about it. The light switch is lost somewhere in the blinding light.