72 - On God - Hike

glittering blackness

2008-05-08T06:18:00.000-07:00

There are no more countdowns.

There are no more goodbyes.

There are no more cold nights alone.

There are no more meals for one.

stand up walk out of the officebe gone for days

2007-09-18T06:30:00.000-07:00

Robert Phillips
Found Poems
#1
From a letter by Emily Dickenson

When you wrote
you would come in November
it would please me
it was November then-but the time
has moved. You went
with the coming of the birds-they will go
with your coming,
but to see you is so much sweeter than birds,
I could excuse the spring. . .
Will you come in November, and will November
come, or is this the hope that opens
and shuts like the eyes of the wax doll?

but you can look up how high heaven is and try to count the miles keeps you busy for a while

2007-09-04T05:56:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note from the land where bicycles only travel in a straight line when they're headed directly at you.

September has wrapped its big sweaty arms all around me and, at least for a little while, it feels comfortably familiar. Days are beginning to pass by with a bit more speed as work takes on a routine. Nights are much easier to sleep through after exercising through the afternoon.

Plans for the near future are starting to become solidified and flights for December, February, March, and June being booked. People often speak of the light at the end of the tunnel but I'm not there yet. I'm more excited that I'm not freaking out about being in the tunnel anymore. The tunnel sucks, it's full of nights alone and hours on the phone, spending time with people I don't really relate to, living and cooking for one in an apartment that used to hold both of us. The tunnel sucks, but at least there is a light up ahead.

more of the same

2007-08-21T12:06:00.000-07:00

Somewhere over the pacific I penned this into the back cover of a book that never was read during my flight.

OK, so I'm on my ninth vodka of the flight and we've been in the air for a scant 6.5 hours. The first two hours of waiting in the airport were spent in a phone booth without a seating assignment sobbing like a small child. Apparently I didn't need 3 hours to check in and I desperately wanted those minutes to be spent with Oriana. Once on the plane I made friends with a concerned stewardess and began to alternate between vodka and tissues. I told her my sob story and she responded with a bag full of tiny bottles of vodka and said, "Go home and drink it away." And now at 36000 feet above the Sea of Shelekhova I've stopped crying enough to take my sunglasses of and come back to reality a little.

And now the jet lag is beginning to take hold as it's 4:12 A.M. but I feel the need to be awake. In a few hours I'll be back at FIS wondering what the hell I'm actually supposed to do there. Thinking back to the spring of this year when I toyed with the idea of breaking my 2 year contract and coming back to the states to live with Oriana, I wish that I had given the finger to my boss and walked away. The school is the same, the boss is still a moron, and it's going to be a long time until I get to see Oriana again.

Our summer together was better than anyone could have dreamed. We traveled well together through Mexico and the Caribbean and spent just about every waking moment happy and content (except for the dengue fever episode). Now the band-aid has been ripped off and she's a distant voice on the telephone line again. I suppose that this will hurt tremendously now but will quickly return to the normalcy of last year.

I can only hope.

happy birthday!

2007-05-23T12:03:00.000-07:00

devin - i hope you and orianna are celebrating your birthday well. take a page out of my book and celebrate for the whole month!!!
happy birthday!

the wait is over

2007-04-20T00:05:00.000-07:00

according to my clock, which is always off, oriana should be there shortly. i hope that you two have a wonderful time together. i hope she arrives safely and the good times begin. i can't wait for the bbq you'll cook when you get back to slo. take care of each other and be good to one another.
see you super soon ...

sit on the porch in the springgive your tea a sip and I'll smoke cigarettes away

2007-04-16T06:43:00.000-07:00

Brendan put together a CD about a year and a half ago with his friend Dan. The song New York has affected me more than I had expected when I moved to Japan. Obviously it was a chance to hear my brother's voice. But more importantly the depressed mood of the song coupled with phrases like the one above gave a voice to the feelings that consumed me being so far away from friends, family, and most importantly, Oriana.

But the countdown has been reduced to a few flicks of my fingers. It is somewhat astonishing to me that as I gave away my possessions and walked away from the comfort of San Luis, I could conjure up dreams of a life with someone so far away. Our dreams seemed far fetched in August. As December approached we both felt a bit nervous that this actually may work. I don't even need to speak about the blissful winter days that passed within these walls in Japan, but it was clear that O's trip to Fukuoka solidified our dreams. Somewhere around February I received an email confirmation for a flight originating in San Francisco and landing firmly for two months in Fukuoka. Could it really happen?

And it is. It's finally happening exactly how I want it to. Sitting on our porch in the spring. Minus the cigarettes.

Lofty dreams.

thank you

2007-04-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

just got back from ojai with the reekster. he had a race there this weekend, ... he came in 7th (not too bad). i saw an invitation to your blog and thought you'd kill me if i didn't post. so while this post isn't too exciting, i hope it's just a start to add to your introspective insight. these probably won't be as deep, but hopefully entertaining.

while you thought i was just lazy for not contributing to nightly dinners, i was secretly learning. i have challenged myself with baking and cooking and have your patience, humor, and sarcasm to thank for that. a look at some little projects .... cupcakes from cammy's birthday and a cream puff tower for kari and tony's shower.

Gentle hum of the old machines

2007-04-01T06:45:00.000-07:00

I'm home safe from my trip to Thailand and have posted some pictures on flickr. I was planning on writing a bit about the trip but it seems like a chore that I just don't want to deal with right now. Work starts again in the morning and the countdown to O's arrival stands around 19 days depending on which side of the date line you live on.

I enjoyed Thailand but it was nothing like I had expected. I was shocked by how overrun and trampled by the foot of European tourism the place had become. Granted I wasn't hitchhiking through the backwaters, I flew to a couple spots and only had a few days in each to poke my head around. But it took a while for me to get used to the feeling that everything and everyone could be bought there. All you had to do was ask the price and anything could be yours.

The sense of cheap tourism based capitalism made me a bit sick. It was either that or the unidentifiable soup that I found on a street corner in Bangkok.

I flew in this morning and after cleaning up a bit I went for a walk along the river to look at the cherry blossoms that had bloomed while I was away. As I passed the familiar streets of Muromi I experienced the same uneasiness that I felt when I returned from Mumbai. I soon realized that the early Sunday morning streets of Fukuoka were missing the cacophony of the traffic and stench of burning pollution that choked Bangkok.

For an Asian city, this place is very clean and livable. I met some other teachers at the EARCOS conference in Bangkok who were teaching at schools around Bangkok and absolutely loved living in the city. They described the enormous variety of nightclubs and restaurants, the proximity to the southern tropical islands, and availability of western products.

That just isn't enough for me. I need to be able to breathe. I need to be able to look up and see blue sky instead of a greyish haze. Nightclubs will only get me so far.

Look, it's late and I am tired of writing. It was good to get away but it may be a few days before I can look back on the country with nostalgic fondness. Look at some of the pictures if you'd like, otherwise, keep the countdown running.

lips parting like a flag unfurled

2007-03-13T05:47:00.000-07:00

Michael unveiled his big secret in August during the first meeting when the school year started. The faculty, parents, and students were going to take a 10-day school trip to Greece during spring break.

Since he is Polish he's naturally an expert and was going to lead the whole thing. You could see how excited the little guy was. So much so that he didn't hear the groans coming from the staff.

Funny, nothing ever came of his little trip. The students were too smart to sign up or show any interest at all. The parents knew it was mainly b.s. As for the faculty, the cost was too high to justify spending your entire spring break working as a chaperone with Michael as leader of the longest meeting of your life.

But just like the kid that throws the birthday party that no one comes to, Michael decided it was time to get revenge on all the people who didn't want to come to his party. He planned a better party, one that was mandatory for the entire high school student body and staff. We were going to take a one-day trip down to Nagasaki.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'd love to go down there and check it out. It's been on my list for a while and I've been waiting for O to get here so we could take a train down and spend the night.

The problem is that the staff has a mountain of work on the very near horizon. The IB team left us with some pretty heavy tasks to accomplish before the end of April. One of the biggies is that we need to develop detailed two-year plans for each of the IB classes we plan on teaching. The responsibility of creating those plans falls on the head of the department for each subject area.

Most teachers will write one two-year plan. I have to write three.

The school has given us 4 "half-days" to write the plans. Basically, they got a sub to fill our last period classes for two days before break and two days after break. That's fine, we should be able to get it done in that time period but it will be tight.

I swear, I'm not trying to gripe about my workload here, bear with me.

While stressing out this weekend I stumbled upon the idea that if I didn't go on the Nagasaki trip I could spend the day knocking out all of my plans and be done with my task before spring break. It makes sense because I will work hard and then take a break.

This afternoon I presented the idea to the big guy and you could see his little heart breaking. I was telling him that I couldn't go to his party. It was almost too hard, I could imagine him wearing a party hat, with the pinata in the background, a big bowl of chips, a birthday cake and no one else around. I bet he even hired a clown.

He didn't let me back down from my position. He simply said that taking this trip and experiencing a field trip outside of class was more important that getting our job for IB done. "I hired you because I knew that you'd be able to connect with the students. I know you're doing it in the classroom," (he's never observed me), "but you need to go out and have a good time with the students outside of the classroom."

I really wanted to tell him that when I'm stressed out like this I'm a total dick to my students, my co-workers, the people at kadota, birds, elevator buttons, etc.

I'll send some postcards from Nagasaki, signed "Grrrrrr."

Blue Song

2007-03-09T18:16:00.001-08:00

-- by Tennessee Williams

I am tired
I am tired of speech and of action
If you should meet me upon a
street do not question me for
I can tell you only my name
and the name of the town I was
born in. But that is enough
It does not matter whether tomorrow
arrives anymore. If there is
only this night and after it is
morning it will not matter now.
I am tired. I am tired of speech
and of action. In the heart of me
you will find a tiny handful of
dust. Take it and blow it out
upon the wind. Let the wind have
it and it will find its way home.

as our slight returns diminish

2007-03-05T22:40:00.000-08:00

I wish I had something other than weather and work to talk about but I'm reeling from the last deadening punch of both and I feel like hell.

That last sentence should read 'we're reeling' because it seems like everyone I know is struggling through the same desperate minutes that I am: students, colleagues, O, friends, Marty Lapadakis.

We had a glimpse of the warmth of spring last week. Days in the sun and nights with the windows open, the sounds of Kadota filtering through the end of each night and the dawn of the next day.

Those brief moments have made the last few days so much harder. I was reminded of how nice it is to wear sandals and to stand on my porch with the sun on my bare chest. Or should that have read, bear chest. Now that the nights are just above freezing again I've turned back inside myself and resolved to just push on one moment to the next.

I've learned something during the long hours of cycling alone in this country. There are times when the wind blows you to a stop when you are 30 kilometers from home and you have no choice but to push forward. When you have no one to pull you or to call for help and hitch hiking is impossible, you have to find something inside that will turn the cranks over one more time.

I'm not sure I've found that something today. But I'm going to turn the cranks through another meeting, another lesson, another night alone, another kanji that I can't understand.

the same thing I would want today I would want again tomorrow

2007-02-20T03:13:00.000-08:00

I hope you've all had a fantastic long weekend. Must be nice to have a job in a country that takes time off. You'd never find that here in the J-pan. It's all work work work. And an ungodly number of meetings. They're everywhere in the society.

For example, I want to cancel my cable. Instead of canceling it and returning the box, J-Com sent someone to my house today to sign a paper saying that I wanted to cancel the cable. This was after I called and requested that I cancel my cable. So they just wanted to double check.

He couldn't have come at a worse time either. O and I were just wrapping up the second chorus of "Somewhere Out There". We sing it to each other all the time to stay close and the doorbell rang right when we got to the "pale moonlight" part. Fuck, I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking about it.

Anyway, I sign the paper and the guy wants to then schedule another meeting in a week for a guy to come out and disconnect the cable box. Disconnect the cable box? I don't think I need a specialist for that. It's not like there's some risk of personal injury here. Let me disconnect it. Please? Maybe I'll rig up a booby trap of some sort so that when the guy comes to disconnect the box his finger will get a shock and I can laugh a little.

I enjoy so much of this place, but I can't stand the meetings.

They are a constant nuisance in an otherwise idyllic existence over here. At work it started with the 4 week Wednesday afternoon meeting cycle. It took a while to get used to it, but after a while I came to understand the futility in complaining about the loss of my Wednesday afternoons.

First, to start the month off right, a full faculty meeting. During this 2 hour smilefest the entire faculty sits down to listen to Michael drone on about some amazing program that he's brought to the school or how he's working hard to make sure our kids are respected. It's a bit of flag waving that gets tiresome after the first quarter hour.

If you pay attention during these full faculty meetings you can usually catch a few gems out of the bullshit that endlessly flows from this guys mouth. The other day I was talking with him about upgrading my chalkboard to either a whiteboard or a smartboard. He couldn't believe his ears when he heard that I still had a chalkboard.

"No way, it's time to look towards the future. I'll make sure you get a whiteboard." Wait, correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't whiteboards been around for a few years? Wouldn't looking towards the future mean implementing a touch screen whiteboard that is linked to your computer and the Internet and all the other wonderful things a smartboard can do?

But I digress. The point is that he didn't believe me that I still had a chalkboard. I literally turned around and showed him my ass so he could see the chalk that is always below my belt from leaning on the chalk tray. So during the last full faculty meeting he said, "I know every corner of this facility. I know what needs to be upgraded and what is top of the line. You don't have to go grumbling around about upgrages. I know what's happening here."

No you don't.

The full faculty meetings are a chance to talk with members of the faculty and discuss school-wide issues in an open forum.

O.K. that statement was a lie.

We have one of those 2 hour beauties every first Wednesday of the month. But don't worry, we also have a half-hour love fest every Tuesday morning. Again, those are just a chance for the guy to talk at us for a while. The best part is the glazed over look on everyone's eyes.

Just when you thought you could go home, there's another meeting every second Wednesday of the month. These are the division meetings and it just happens to be my luck that Michael is the head of the high school so he leads our meetings as well. Again, another chance for us all to sit in a room and listen to him drone on for about 2 hours. These are brutal because you really have to pretend like you're paying attention.

Every third Wednesday of the month is the PTA meeting. Yes, I have to go because it's written into my contract. I don't really mind though, I usually just sit in the back and grade papers. Wait, what the fuck. Yes, I mind. Why do I have to be there? Anyone?

So.

The whole point of this little rant is that at our last high school Wednesday afternoon meeting Michael decided that since these meetings are held so seldom we should meet more often to stay a cohesive group. He suggested that the high school teachers all meet for lunch once a week on Thursday. Location? "Let's hold these in Devin's room."

What the fuck?

Why? Oh come on!

Now I can't even pretend that I am too busy and can't show up all the time. Everyone is going to be sitting there in my room. I like the other teachers, but why does this have to happen in room 8?

For those of you who have been paying attention, now I meet with Michael in some capacity, three days a week. When am I going to have any time to play freecell and talk to O during school hours?

Just to recap:
Tuesday morning: Full Faculty
Wednesday afternoon: Full Faculty / Division / PTA / Bye week
Thursday lunch: high school teachers lunch in my room

Only one more month until Thailand.

the sunshine award

2007-02-11T06:30:00.000-08:00

It's official. We've got email confirmation for Oriana's flight to Japan, part 2.

She arrives on April 20th, flight 9702. I swear, I'll be waiting at the right terminal this time.

The best part about this trip is that she won't leave the country until June when we fly back together. I've got my return flight booked as well. We'll have seats next to each other on a flight from Japan to San Francisco on Friday, June 15th. The two of us will head down to Santa Cruz for Brendan's graduation ceremony and Morgan's belated graduation celebration. After a week or so in Santa Cruz we're going to head south, stopping along the coast at all our friends' houses and maybe throw in a little camping trip too. Around the first of July we're going to hop on a plane down to Mexico and take about a month to travel around and see all that we can see together.

There are more details that we've dreamed up for this spring and summer, but things are still a bit far off to try and be all concrete about it. What I want you to come away from this lecture with is the simple fact that after waiting for what seemed like an eternity, I finally get to have my O every morning, noon, and night.

This may just be the end of the headset and my freecell addiction.

Ladies and Gentlemen

2007-02-02T20:35:00.000-08:00

As January came to a close my dreams began to wander towards the warmth of spring returning to the streets of Fukuoka. Days became noticeably longer, the low temperature during the dead of night started to climb towards 4 degrees, and I swear I saw some of those migratory birds packing their bags and looking North.

Life was getting better, the plane was gaining altitude and we were looking toward the horizon.

Today I'm afraid I have to announce, the wings of that plane have broken off. The temperature has dropped to below freezing, it's snowing, my apartment is 9 degrees inside and there's ice on the windows.

Looks like it'll be a long time until spring.

funny you should ask

2007-01-29T16:00:00.000-08:00

The topic for today's meeting?

Oh, well of course, let's talk about intruders! Yes, today Saff came in to talk about "only three little things, they'll be short."

He spent 10 minutes talking about the saftey measures he's put into place to make this school "much more like a fort than a school." Then went on to mention that we have a full-faculty meeting next week. Then decided that the meeting was over and apparently, there wasn't a third topic. Fooled you!

My favorite quote for today?

"Stereotypically, terrorists look for a way in and a way out."

Runner up?

"The measures we've put in place have thwarted many intruders. Most notably, a month and a half ago we stopped someone trying to steal a bike."

Honorable mention?

"Terrorists have taken one look at the front door to the school and have gone on to attack somewhere else."

Ah... the sweet smell of the circus. A mixture of cotton candy, desperation, and elephant dung.

the truly random hearts under the sun

2007-01-28T06:22:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm happy to say that you can disregard the sense of panic that you all must be feeling after reading that last post. It seems that the bird flu outbreak is nothing that we need to worry about. Well, that's according to Ritsu. So we'll take it with some degree of speculation.

I went to the Fukuoka City Museum today with Ritsu to check out the exhibition of historical documents about the formation of the cities of Hakata and Fukuoka. It was very informative and fun to see these century old maps of the cities and the documentation of how the two were joined and expanded into what we call Fukuoka today.

I asked her if she was scared about the bird flu outbreak in Miyazaki and she didn't seem the least bit concerned. She has a 4 year old daughter and the threat of an epidemic on the island of Kyushu didn't make her nervous at all. She did say that I should be scared because I come from America and that is what we do over there. So that's kinda funny.

We kicked around the museum for a while and then headed out to my home away from home away from home, Kadota. She took me on a tour of the aisles I had walked a hundred times and pointed out products that I never knew existed. Well, maybe I had seen them but had never known what they were used for. I can say now that I have a much better understanding of the place and what it has to offer. We might get together again next weekend and cook some more. I'm very excited to learn more about Japanese cooking and all the things I can make from the ridiculously over-packaged products lining the walls of Kadota.

What's even better than all that, she helped me get my very own Kadota Point Card-o. I can see now why those guys were laughing at me earlier. The application process was kind of intense, but the payoff will be huge. Actually, the card has already paid off quite well. I received a gift for signing up! My very own 8 meter roll of alumi foil. Does it get any better?

I'm happy to say that I'm finally relaxed. I don't think I really had any time to calm down since before Oriana even got here. I had been running from place to place for the last 5 weeks and it was catching up to me. But after sleeping in until noon both Saturday and Sunday, I'm actually ready for work tomorrow.

So with that, goodnight peeps. It'll be snowing tomorrow so wish me luck on my bike ride to work.

um...

2007-01-27T05:53:00.000-08:00

Does anyone want to come visit? We could take a quick 3 hour train down to Miyazaki and grab a bite to eat. Come on, it'll be great.

Japan confirms deadly bird flu strain in new outbreak
from PhysOrg.com

Japan confirmed Saturday that its latest outbreak of bird flu was caused by the H5N1 strain which is potentially deadly to humans.

Chicken or fish?

and I know winter will pass by slow

2007-01-25T03:31:00.000-08:00

Can someone remind me that at one point or another I have made a statement that closely resembled: "I'm never going to go out on a school night again."

I could have sworn I said that before, but for some reason I can't find it in my memory.

So, I guess I'll just have to go out tonight and see what all the fuss is about.

Chelsea, one of the people from the other night, sent an email that basically read, "I'm going out tonight, I'm going to sleep on your couch, so you may as well come out too."

How can I say no to that kind of logic?

I guess we'll see in the morning when I have to face the sunrise and my students.

great big drain on the power grid

2007-01-21T23:27:00.000-08:00

I went about 2 months without really going out on the weekends. The weather was too cold to support the idea of Kego Park or street beers and my mood wasn't very supportive of the idea. Finals week was over, grades had been submitted, I finished designing the freshmen class yearbook page, and I was ready for an outing.

On Friday morning I was contacted by a Dutch guy named Roel who was traveling through Japan and needed a place to crash on Saturday night. Someone had just mentioned couchsurfing.com to him so he thought he'd give it a try. I saw it as a perfect opportunity to really go out big.

Roel showed up at my apartment around 6 p.m. on Saturday night. Right off the bat I knew that he was a mellow guy and I was pretty stoked that a bunch of other people were on their way over to my house for dinner and drinks before we went out.

Four hours, a case of beer, bottles of wine, a bottle of vodka, and some yakisoba later we finally stumbled out of my apartment and caught a train down to Tenjin. One bar led to another and another and another. Somewhere around there Roel, Daryl, and I lost TL, BL, REL, and the others. Instead, we started picking up other strangers and adding them to our posse. The night progressed and more strangers joined our traveling party until about 6 a.m. when a group of us caught cabs back to my apartment to end the night.

I woke up around 2 p.m. or so and glanced around my apartment. Aside from all the shit everywhere I saw a tuft of blond hair poking out from underneath a blanket on the couch. My heart skipped a beat because I thought it was O lying underneath that blanket. It didn't take more than a second to set my mind straight but the damage was done.

All the peeps started to get up around the same time and we made a big breakfast, drank blendy, and laughed about foosball. Around 4 or 5 everyone had left and I was stuck with the fantastic job of cleaning up the apartment with a splitting headache. It was worth it though. I met some fun people who live outside of Fukuoka and one girl in particular will prove to be a valuable asset. She's an Indian living in Oita. That doesn't seem to be all that fantastic until you hear about the fact that there is a Mexican living in Oita and he has a restaurant! But then, keep thinking, she's Indian. So if I get my happy ass to Oita I'll be able to eat both Indian and Mexican food! I'm going to try and get out there near the end of February. I can't wait.

My headache is gone, the apartment is clean and I think it's time for bed. Goodnight peeps.

the two hands of my doomsday clockjust got closer to the zipper of my pants

2007-01-18T05:37:00.000-08:00

I know the world is going down quickly but I'm still focused on people laughing at me. It's like I never got past being teased in middle school and I get really defensive when people laugh in my face. Is that strange? Do you enjoy it? Do you tolerate it?

The other day I was talking about living above Kadota with Mika and Ritsu, they are Japanese women who work as the librarian and elementary art teacher respectively. Sometime during the conversation they brought up the Kadota point card. The thing about Japan is that every store has some type of point card and you collect points and get discounts after you spend 1,000,000¥ on toilet paper. They convinced me that I should get a Kadota point card because I live there and shop almost every day at that mess of a store.

Every time I walk up to the register I am prompted with the same question, Karudo desu ka. Which roughly means, do you have a point card? I always shake my head and mutter something but today, emboldened by my conversation with those two, I tried my best to use really poor Japanese, shitty English, and sign language to ask the guy for an application for a point card.

He looked at me, looked behind him at the other register and said something to his co-worker. They both turned, looked at me, and broke out in hilarious laughter. Oh wow, did they have a good time with that one. I think I saw one of them wipe a tear from his eye.

So in my most eloquent English I told the guys to fuck off and went home to sulk.

And here's another fun one.

I ran out of face lotion and picked out some new stuff at the pharmacy. I got home, washed my face and applied the lotion to my face. It didn't really rub in all that well and my face got kinda sticky afterwards. It started to burn after about 15 minutes so I took some water and tried to remove whatever I could.

You'll never guess what came off my face.

That's right, bubbles. Soap suds. Awesome!

I still don't have anything to moisturize my face now that I really need the lotion because I had soap caked on my face for 15 minutes.

Oh boy this is fun.

tie down the sails tonightwe're going downtown

2007-01-13T05:49:00.001-08:00

The dust has settled. I'm sorry for my absence but I couldn't wrap my mind around life. Too much was happening for me to write clear sentences that would represent the past few weeks.

And even now, with a little booze flowing through my cold veins, my thoughts are muddled and confused.

Where to start?

It began back in September when O finalized the reservations for flight UA 9702 from Nagoya to Fukuoka on December 22, 2006 arriving at 8:30pm, Terminal 2.

Four months of waiting and dreaming of what that moment would be like.

The thing about planning is that usually your plans are invalid 5 seconds in.

After a long nervous day, arranging and rearranging the items in my apartment, I went to the airport to greet O at the gate of Terminal 2. I knew her flight number by heart so I was a bit concerned when I looked to the television montiors and didn't see any flights by United. I saw a group of people walking down the terminal and through a sea of black hair I picked out some blond streaks dancing through the crowd. My heart plummeted as it got closer and I realized that it wasn't O at all. I was in the wrong terminal, looking at the wrong crowd of people. She was in a different part of the airport waiting impatiently for me to come carry her bags home.

After 6 months her face was that of a stranger when I first saw her. I remembered the familiar characteristics, the dimples and the peach fuzz on the edges of her mouth, but it took time to remember that this was the body of person that I had held so close before I left in August.

The romance was hard to ignore.

I can't continue writing.

With O so far away.

My heater is on, trying to keep the chill of January away. It doesn't feel right to be writing down these thoughts. What words can describe the feelings of the last few weeks?

I haven't been communicating my relationship very well through this little blog. It has become harder than ever to express what I feel to an audience I don't connect with much anymore. Who is really reading this? Who's reading it and why do you want to know about O and I?

It hurts to write. It hurts to write because the truth comes out when my fingers touch the keyboard. I don't want to face the truth that I will sleep alone in my cold little bed tonight. And tomorrow.

I don't want to face what I have before me. Can I live in the past, the past 2 weeks, when things were easy and I didn't need an alarm clock, when I had someone to reach out to in the morning.

Now I'm back to cold bike rides through the winter, wishing for surf, drinking to keep my head calm, wearing a headset and taking calls at all hours of the night.

I had a plan that was built on thinking too long.

Look, here's a recap.

1) O came to Fukuoka for 16 days.
2) We had a car for the time and we drove all around Kyushu.
3) Jet lag sucks.
4) Eggs are better when someone else cooks them.
5) A kiwi has more vitamin C than an orange.
6) I miss my family around the holidays.
7) My hot tub rocks.
8) O takes better pictures than me, sometimes.
9) She left.

One day we will recognize ourselves for the way we really are.

you're the sun, stars, the oceansyou're just a girl

2006-12-21T04:36:00.000-08:00

I would sweat through each night of September. I could barely sleep at all, too much anxiety and confusion. I'd arrive at work an hour early to spend a little time on the phone with O because my internet at home wasn't yet connected. Who needed sleep at that point? Andria sent some paints towards the end of the month and I had a chance to play around a bit on the nights when I couldn't understand the television and my head was too jumbled for much else.

October came quietly. The turn of the calendar was an unexpected relief from the heat of the previous month. Life at work became very difficult and I came close to losing it all. I remember that month being very dark for me. It was a time when I looked to the people around me for support and found much of what I needed. I learned how to fly under the radar and keep an eye down the hall for the boss. Duck into any open door if you see him coming. Just look busy. Now I've got it down. I wear my tie to work, show up on time, walk as fast as possible, and keep that exasperated look at all times.

November was a rush of getting ready to leave for India, being in India, and trying to pick up the pieces after India. I'd like to say it passed quickly but I know that in its own way, it was the hardest bit of time yet. It was the little things that killed me, especially the lack of connection when I was away. I found some other teachers in the same confusing place that I am and gained support from it. I realized when I came back to Fukuoka that I like this place a lot. It is a good place to live and I enjoy the people that surround me.

Oh December, you long hard bitch. It's been nice to have the holidays rushing up but I have counted each and every hour of this month.

In September I went to dinner with some friends and mentioned that I only had 100 days until I got to see Oriana again.

Recently those friends have told me that a flicker of doubt would pass before my eyes when I'd talk about the situation. Nothing obvious, just a subtle look that I would unconsciously give. I didn't notice it. Maybe they projected it onto me. Maybe I never thought it would happen.

Days turned into weeks and so it went.
Keep counting down...

It all melts away so quickly. The days on the phone, nights spent alone, miscommunication and time spent spinning the wheels, letters, postcards, packages, a sketch or painting, maybe a picture or two. I look over to the wall and see the stockings hung up next to my miniature Japanese Christmas tree and the little lights hung around the apartment. It all dissolves and I can only think that I have to wait a little bit longer to get exactly what I want.

We don't have any plans for the time. We have a car to use, friends to hang out with, wine to drink, but no plans. We'll stay up late, sleep in, walk around the city during the cold days, make dinner during the frigid nights, stay up late again.

Not much left to do now. The night is cold and I have a big glass of wine in front of me. Maybe just sit back, listen to music and look at the christmas lights for a little while.

Listen to this track. It's a remake of a New Year song that was done by Band of Horses. Click here.

One more lonely night.

drop your seeds there let them all go

2006-12-05T19:21:00.000-08:00

Somewhere around at age 16
Somewhat due to information gained from music
Somewhat due to the way partying flushed out the corks.
I hoisted my willpower
and created successful stretches
of normal relations with others and so on it went.

-David Berman

I drove to Chicago

2006-12-05T05:40:00.000-08:00

The addict at work - 1 December 2006

It's time I come clean about my addiction.

For the past 2 months I've been hooked on something I'm a bit ashamed of. Sure I've smoked a few cigarettes before, even tried drugs once or twice, but this was far worse than anything I've ever tried before. I got hooked early, tried to stop, fell back in and was swept away.

Anyone who has spent any extended time with me knows that I despise television. I don't spend countless hours in front of the tube watching some other form of reality. I'd much rather pick up a book, write a letter or a few words to myself, listen to music, go for a walk, exercise, talk to someone, drink tea on the porch... just to name a few.

This experience of traveling and working in Japan has made me do some things I never thought I'd do.

I got addicted to a television show. I suppose I'm not the only one but I never felt comfortable talking about it until now, now that it's finally over. I even avoided the topic with O, never felt that this was the real me. I don't sit and watch television for hours on end, I don't care about characters damn it! But I fell in love with The Wire.

For those of you who are lucky enough to have avoided this t.v. crack, it is a story about the city of Baltimore and all of the fun that goes along with it. It really is an amazing piece of work and if it weren't so addicting I'd recommed it to all of you.

So I'm embarrassed to write all this. I honestly am.

It started quietly.

Season 4 started in October and a friend suggested that I give it a try. I was trying to pass a little time at night so I downloaded a few episodes, one each week, and started to learn about the story.

It was manageable for the first half of that season but one day someone leaked a pre-release of the entire season 4 on the web. Instead of having to wait for the show to air each week I could download the whole thing and find out everything in a few short hours. 7 short hours.

I filled my quota, watched the entire 4th season in a few days. By the time HBO legitimately aired the 6th episode of the season I was finished. I was ready for more so I decided to look backwards to the beginning.

I downloaded the complete first season, 3 GB of data on my hard drive, 13 hours of The Wire.

It didn't take long for that season to pass. I'd stay up late, not grading papers, reading, painting, thinking. Just drinking a bottle of wine and watching 3 hours at a time. I knew I was hooked. It was obvious when I started downloading the second and third seasons simultaneously while still watching the first season.

Sure India was a bit of a hiccup in the schedule, but I managed to stay on track. I finished the 2nd season shortly after my return and settled in on the third.

Fuck, finally it's over. I'm happy to say that tonight, at 11pm, I've finished the 3rd season. I've caught up with the journey I started on a month and a half ago.

The truly sad part is that the 4th season on HBO isn't even finished yet. Basically, I watched 4 seasons, 50 hours, in the time it takes a normal person to watch half a season.

Jesus, I can't believe I'm admitting this right now.

I have a problem. Wait, I had a problem.

It's over now, I can move on. I don't care about any of those characters anymore, they're dead to me.

I just heard there is going to be a 5th season. Now I just have to wait until next October. Fuck it is going to be a long winter, spring, and summer.

above the tarmac the lights were icy green

2006-12-03T05:45:00.000-08:00

I'm feeling the cold of winter approaching quickly outside the windows of my apartment.

TL and I went to the coast yesterday in the afternoon to take pictures of the deserted waterfront. I understand now why it was deserted. We almost froze to death and barely made it back alive. The picture above is one of my favorites from the day. Something about the contrast works too well in my mind. I love it. The one below also tickles my nipple and makes me all photo happy. I hope you enjoy them. There wasn't any cropping or post-processing done on either image. It all just worked from the start. If you click on the image it will take you to the flickr page and you can see the big copy of each. As always, if you want a full resolution copy just ask.

O will be here in just about 18 days. I really can't explain how excited I am about her arrival. I feel like we've made a big milestone in this whole thing. The strange part is that we haven't just been holding on, we've actually grown stronger through despite the distance and separation.

18 more days. Two weeks of work. Holiday parties. Cold mornings. Red wine. 18 days.

Is there anybody out there online

2006-11-24T06:31:00.000-08:00

I made it back safely from India. I had some time to kill before we left so I jotted this little bit down. It gives a good idea of the various situations but it is by no means complete. It tells nothing of the airport security in Mumbai, or the entire community playing cricket on a Sunday afternoon. Sure you get a taste of the adventure on the rooftop but there's no mention of the crazy table of Australians that drove us up there.

But what you see is a glimpse into the trip. If you'd like a little more, give a call. I may be around but chances are you'll leave a message and I won't return it. Some things never change.

It's the day after Thanksgiving for me, I know I should have called home but I got up early and had a great surf. You can see for yourself, it was offshore and firing. The Mumbai story follows these pictures. Enjoy.

Mmmmmumbai

You haven't lived until you've spent a full 4 hours walking through the Incheon International Airport in Seoul, South Korea. It is the most magical place for a layover. Serious, try it sometime.

During the summer the weather in India is way too hot to imagine. So hot that the locals usually leave the country and visit their peeps back in the states while their home country melts. Around November 17th or so, all these Indian nationals decide it is time to return because the weather has improved and they all get on the same plane as I did. I've been on packed flights before, but none that were 9 hours long and without air-conditioning. For whatever reason the designers of the Airbus 320 decided that the passengers didn't need little vents above the seats to regulate their temperature. Oh, and they also decided that if you hit the seat in front of you with enough force it goes back up into it's upright position even if the person sitting there is asleep and finally comfortable.

It was a miserable flight, complete with smelly people and crying babies but we made it into Mumbai around 2 in the morning and actually got into our rooms by 4 or so. That's about 20 hours of travel to get 3500 miles. Doesn't add up, does it?

Whatever, we had a day to relax before the conference so we made the most of it. After walking through the neighborhood of Juhu beach in the morning we hired Sanjay to drive us down to the south end of the city/island to do a little sight-seeing. I wish that somehow I could have captured the smell, sound, energy, mayhem, power, desolation, squalor, heat, happiness, peace, harmony, and beauty of the place and it's people but all I could do was take a few pictures. About 250 or so. I hope you enjoy them, I put them into a new photo-set on flickr. Click here to check them out.

So with day one under our belts we got up on Friday and headed to meet our hosts at Ecole Mondaile school in Bandra, Mumbai. I won't bore you with the details of the conference. You could probably guess that it was a ton of mathtalk and geekyness. The highlight of it all was when the presenter read from the IB manual about the impossibility of graphing inverse functions on a Texas Instruments calculator and I stood up in front of the workshop group to prove everyone wrong. Needless to say, I made some friends with my GDC prowess.

My workshop group was made up of 25 people, 21 Indian nationals, 3 peeps from Australia, and me. After being in Japan for 3 months I had grown used to the quiet way Japanese people discuss topics. People will wait their turns, speak softly, and make every attempt to respect the person they are talking to even if they don't agree. I was taken aback when I saw how these Indian guys would yell at each other, over top each other, over the top of the presenter, as fast as they could possibly get the words out. There were a few times that I thought the arguments would come to a physical confrontation. Phones going off, people yelling out solutions, people yelling out if there was a mistake in some calculation. It was a mess at first and it took a bit to get used to.

After the first day on the way back to the hotel James and I met Peter, Shawn and Joanne who are teachers from Dubai. They're all young Canadians and we got along very well. Everyone had something to say or some joke to tell. But they were staying across the way and James and I needed to check out the pub in the lobby of our hotel. After a few rounds of warm peanuts and Kingfisher beers we built up enough courage to try the "pickle, pineapple, and cheese" sticks that accompanied our beers. Revolting.

The Canadians and I ended up going out that evening to mess around in the balmy evening and explore a little of what was offered in Mumbai after dark. We found some club and watched a car get it's tires deflated because it was parked illegally. I don't know if I am the only one that finds this counter-intuitive but if you want someone to move their car, maybe you should leave it drivable. But a few Kingfishers and it didn't seem to matter anymore. The night got a little fuzzy later on because I was still dealing with a fair bit of jet-lag but I remember sitting by a pool and drinking more than I should on a school night. I made it home and somehow woke up at 6:30 for the next exciting day of IB-ness.

Waking up in my hotel room was one of my favorite parts. My room would glow radioactive orange as the sun came up through the smoky haze that never seemed to lift from the city. I would roll out of bed, walk to the window and slowly drop my gaze from the surreal skyline to the top of the broken-down hotel full of squatters, to the ocean with lines of swell rolling in, and finally down to the slum that existed in the space between two hotels along a brackish stream. Mmmmmumbai.

At the end of the second day of the workshop you could tell that the other teachers were beginning to get excited about the end of the show. To add a little more fire to their pants the school hosted a dinner reception with free booze and food to all those involved. Before we went to the dinner I went to get a haircut. It sounds strange, but if you really think about it, why would you pass up a $4 haircut from someone who can speak your native language when you could just go home and get a $40 haircut from some guy that can't speak a word of English? I thought you'd agree.

I look good. And the best part was the 5 minute head massage that followed the cut. The guy had some pretty amazing fingers and he really got into that scalp. I tried my best to keep from laughing as he was going at it, but now that I've made it through the experience I would recommend it to anyone.

So now that I'm all kakuii with my new haircut I met another teacher from Hong Kong who was staying in the same hotel. The staff had messed up her reservation so to compensate they gave her access and free drinks up at the club on the top floor. She invited James and I to join her friend and her. How could we resist?

We should have.

It wasn't all that bad, but pretty boring conversation, one weak drink and that was about it. I got to tell a few lies and James followed my lead so at least it wasn't a total wash. But we left Wendy and ... um... I don't know her name but I think she was wearing a helmet. Anyway, we left them at their strange little club and went down to the party. Great food and a beautiful setting. We met people, drank a bit, talked some shit to Ros and Jo, met some crazy Australian women who were really really really ready to let loose, talked some more shit to the Indonesians, and then found the good old Canadians.

Shawn and Peter were both a few sheets down but Jo still had her wits about her. The four of us stayed at the party until it was just about dry and then stole some beers and found our way up to the roof of the hotel. Not a roof-top bar, but the roof. Mumbai actually looks nice from 8 stories up. I was just glad that neither of the two guys wound up falling off the roof.

Anyway, the last day of the conference came and went without much fanfare. The night wasn't all that exciting because the previous few had finally caught up to me. I was knackerd by the end of it all and passed out quickly after a spicy night out.

Monday morning we met up with the Indonesians; Puti, Pia, and Ranny. They're all early elementary teachers born and raised in Indonesia and living in Jakarta. I couldn't have asked for a nicer group of strangers to kick around Mumbai with. We hired Sanjay for the day and headed out through the streets to take pictures and kill a little time.

I should fill you in on the schedule, it will make all this seem a little more awesome-o. We don't fly out unti 4:30 am on Tuesday morning so we have many many hours still in Mumbai. Our flight leaves at 4:30 am, gets into Seoul at 4:30 pm, and then we should leave there by 6 and arrive home around 8 pm. So, we'll be up traveling from 7:30 am Monday morning until about 8 pm Tuesday night. Perfect.

Anyway, we had a great time with the girls and we're hoping to set up some type of exchange program so that I can stay in Indonesia for a month or so and they can come up to Fukuoka. I don't know if it will happen, but we can only hope. Regardless, I met some peeps that I can stay with if I ever make it down to Jakarta.

So it is about midnight and we're still at the hotel. I'll post this and all the pictures within the next few days. Take care peeps.

... and so it begins ...

2006-11-22T13:34:00.000-08:00

my parents will be here in about 3 hours. i will take my mom to african dance and then after my brother will suprise them with his presence. (well he has to actually get on the planes, there are 2 so it could get tricky, and then get here).
tomorrow patrick's brother and sister-in-law will come back from their trip to san francisco. then we'll have dinner tomorrow ... all of us ... both parents ... together ... AGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!
i'll keep you posted with a play by play, hoping that there is just enough wine to make the pain go away but not too much where you offend someone.

i hope that you are having a great time in india. we'll be missin' you at dinner.
happy thanksgiving!

another one goes by

2006-11-06T04:26:00.000-08:00

I think I am going to stay here for a while. Things are becoming more 'normal' and it seems that each day brings a new little surprise to say, "hey it's not so bad."

I was just making dinner, nothing fancy, just a warm meal for a cold Monday night. The doorbell rang and as I swung the door open I was face to face with a solicitor. My pulse quickened, my pupils dilated and I got ready for a fight. I was prepared to go toe to toe with this guy and deny every product that he placed before me. He wasn't going to get my hard earned cash, no way.

He took one look at me, his pulse quickened, his pupils dilated and then he started apologizing for disturbing me. He quickly turned and ran away from the gai-jin. Ha. I'm the big scary white guy, watch out for me!

Chotto

2006-10-29T01:00:00.000-08:00

Repetition
-anonymous

I am a behavioral scientist.
He spoke to a familiar configuration of facial features
about the effects of repetitive sound on the human mind
as they waited for a bus to the west side of town
next to a woman with flowers the same color as her dress
and another woman with a dress the same color as her flowers.
The bus pulled out from underneath the half-moon
its better half showing
with a trip
her mind lost the details that meant nothing without paper.

twins: like danny devito & arnold schwarzenegger

2006-10-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

you see the resemblance don't you? ... (payton at her mom and dad's wedding)

you're caught in conversations you don't even know

2006-10-23T16:14:00.000-07:00

A Careless Angel
-Paul Poissel

A certain Petit, who works as a gymnast in a traveling circus, dreams on January 10 that an angel comes down from heaven and bets that it can climb up to the peak of his roof with its eyes close. "Go on," says Petit, who would never dare such a feat himself. The angel closes its eyes. "I'm going," it says. The angel climbs up to the peak of the roof. "You want to see me come down with one leg?" he asks. "Go on," says Petit. The angel tucks one of its legs up in its white robe. It climbs down from the peak of the roof, but slips and falls into the street. Petet goes out: the angel has broken its leg. "Must happen to them fairly often," Petit thinks.

passion don't fade

2006-10-18T19:13:00.000-07:00

Coming Forth by Day
-- by Phillip Whalen

I must get up early in the morning
Let all the insects out to air and feed
They come back nightly, ever faithful
Even this cold weather when I wished
They’d all be dead

Small victories keep my days rolling past. I have a few weeks before my IB training in India and then it should be an easy slide down into winter break. The leaves are changing, days are getting colder, and I found a stack of photos on a friend's coffee table. Thumbing through I saw pictures of myself from the past few months and realized that I have started a history here. However brief, I have put enough time into this place to be part of the history told in a stack of photos. It makes me wonder how many coffee tables hold pictures of me.

Can I spread this face all over the world?

I came here for a good time and you're tearing me apart

2006-10-12T23:46:00.000-07:00

Think back to high school.

Remember those days, the hard ones when you were stifled by your powerlessness. Parents made rules that seemed to be hatched from some delusion factory, teachers chose arbitrary moments to freak out on you for doing things you didn't think to be malicious. Sometimes you could trust the people around you to help you through it but they were as powerless as you were. Those days bred a feeling of hopelessness that stemmed from the inability to improve your situation. Education was compulsory, parents lived at the same place and couldn't be replaced, the money you brought in from some shit job was never enough to do much more than buy the occasional chocolate shake and bag of weed to help you cope with the mess. You didn't have a car, or a voice, or any recourse to fight against the forces that inhibited your life.

And college came one day. You finally turned 18 and were able to leave the house. You remember that feeling that gradually you were becoming powerful in your own life. It was an awakening.

It is hard for me to fully express my feelings about work at FIS but I feel the analogy of high school is a fairly accurate depiction of how fucked it is.

I guess I'm stuck somewhere in junior year of high school.

I have that same feeling of being powerless to establish myself as something or someone of worth. I am the Head of High School Mathematics at an International Baccalaureate Institution. You'd think that would mean something. Sadly it means nothing when your boss can lose his composure over something meaningless without fear of repercussion. He can belittle and threaten. You are as powerless as the kid in high school that gets grounded because his parent had a bad day.

I stood in the kitchen area at school in a state of shock cleaning my coffee cup under scalding water. Letting the water turn my skin red, trying to take my mind away as the drops ran off amongst a few rosy freckles. As I dried the cup I had an urge to hurl it through the window so that I would regain a bit of power. Power over something inanimate but still it was better than what I had.

I look to my peers for support but get no more than a shake of the head and the statement, "yeah, he's crazy isn't he." They've seen it before. They've been alone in that room waiting for the chemical composition in his brain to fluctuate. Waiting for the irrationality. Waiting for a pop. And they've gotten used to feeling powerless to better the situation. It has become something that is lived with and tolerated. Expected. They are the teenage friends that do all they can to live under their parents' thumbs without being squashed.

So I return to my apartment. Exhausted and lonely. Wondering if I can make it through this. Wondering if I can tell my boss that our meeting needs end because my class starts in 2 minutes without fear that he will raise his arm as if he's about to strike me.

All this because my class was starting and I had the nerve to say I needed to go.

You can keep telling me that I can't change the situation but that doesn't give me any power back. I am without a voice against the administration that is in place to support me. Please, keep telling me that I can't change the situation and watch how long it takes for me to stop listening.

elevator

2006-10-11T04:15:00.000-07:00

elevator
sleep soundly
on his couch
sad eyes sting
the smoke of each cigarette
burns between lips
and fingers have lost their touch

mailbox choked
letters requesting remittance
sifting for familiar words

beer begins the rant
no one can listen
to the sound of confusion
frustration
this has no end.

the clock on the wall reads a quarter past midnight

2006-10-09T06:27:00.000-07:00

The ass-clown comes back tomorrow. Last week was something out of a dream because my boss was away at a conference in Vietnam. There weren't any unnecessary meetings or conversations that were off-topic and steeped in unending contradiction. We could wear jeans without looking unprofessional in front of the parents. I suppose we could all breathe a little easier.

But as my favorite song always seems to end before I'm ready, this dream must end tomorrow morning. I'm sure we'll have a meeting first thing in the morning. It's the only way.

I spent Sunday riding out to a fishing village towards Keya. Brian told me that there was going to be a fisherman's festival around the harbor there so I packed a backpack and rode about 25 km to the village. Turns out he was wrong. Just a bunch of fishermen doing what they do best. I spent a couple hours there trying to take some decent pictures and doing my best to talk to people but eventually called it a wash and came home.

It was still early and I hadn't completely killed myself so I threw my shoes back on and headed down to Tenjin on my bike to try and get a better idea of how the place is laid out. It's like a huge mall that is choked with people, cars, busses, trains, and whores on bikes. Every time I've been down there before I've either taken the subway, come at night, been drunk, or a combo platter. I cruised around for a few hours and got my bearings down pretty well and was getting ready to leave when a fellow gaijin stopped me and introduced himself. He saw my bike and figured that I was fairly serious about cycling so he wanted to know if I wanted to do any group rides with him and a couple other guys. Things were going well through this conversation until he hit the re-boot button in his brain and stuck his hand out to introduce himself again. We started the entire conversation over again. I pretended not to notice but it was just flat out strange. Regardless of his bizarreness we're going to go for a ride next weekend. I'll do anything for a new peep right about now.

We didn't have to work today so Ariel and I went to a barbecue that was being hosted by this group of Argentinean dancers. Finding the place was a bit rough but a few bumps aside we finally made it out to a camping park that was far removed from the city up in the hills to the south. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. There was a cool autumn breeze blowing down from the hills, fantastic food, and the musical stylings of "The Latin Latinos". None of whom were either Latin or Latino. But we met a bunch of fun people, practiced a bit of Japanese and gave a few English lessons as well. One of the better afternoons that I've had here so far. It didn't start off as much but I'm glad that I went out of my way to find the greatest Latin band in all of Fukuoka.

Hopefully this week will seem as short as it is and I'll be back again with another weekend full of fun and adventure in just a few short days. I know I haven't been writing much these days but none of my adventures seem to be worthy of the post lately. School is settling into a fairly decent routine and my social life hasn't thrown anything too wild in my plate. I'm getting used to life here.

In an apartment that still seems empty with a loading dock below my bedroom window.

Relentless thoughts about childhood.

Dodging trucks on narrow roads and inadvertently my sister's birthday as well.

But thankful for the new start because I've covered up past mistakes with 7000 miles of distance.

What's next.

The chill of autumn through the window at night, waking up with you in my thoughts and moving patiently through another day.

The Latin Latinos

I forgot her name, but she is 34 years old

as we plan our slow descent

2006-10-04T16:13:00.000-07:00

The days are growing colder. As the plants cease growing for the winter I feel myself following in the same path.

Freedom, Revolt, and Love
-- Frank Stanford

They caught them.
They were sitting at a table in the kitchen.
It was early.
They had on bathrobes.
They were drinking coffee and smiling.
She had one of his cigarillos in her fingers.
She had her legs tucked up under her in the chair.
They saw them through the window.
She thought of them stepping out of a bath
And him wrapping cloth around her.
He thought of her walking up in a small white building,
He thought of stones settling into the ground.
Then they were gone.
Then they came in through the back.
Her cat ran out.
The house was near the road.
She didn't like the cat going out.
They stayed at the table.
The others were out of breath.
The man and the woman reached across the table.
They were afraid, they smiled.
The other poured themselves the last of the coffee.
Burning their tongues.
The man and the woman looked at them.
They didn't say anything.
The man and the woman moved closer to each other,
The round table between them.
The stove was still on and burned the empty pot.
She started to get up.
One of them shot her.
She leaned over the table like a schoolgirl doing her lessons.
She thought about being beside him, being asleep.
They took her long gray socks
Put them over the barrel of a rifle
And shot him.
He went back in his chair, holding himself.
She told him hers didn't hurt much,
Like in the fall when everything you touch
Makes a spark.
He thought about her getting up in the dark
Wrapping a quilt around herself.
And standing in the doorway.
She asked the men if they shot them again
Not to hurt their faces.
One of them lit him one of his cigarettes.
He thought what it would be like
Being children together.
He was dead before he finished it.
She asked them could she take it out of his mouth.
So it wouldn't burn his lips.
She reached over and touched his hair.
She thought about him walking through the dark singing.
She died on the table like that,
Smoke coming out of his mouth.

(cricket, cricket)

2006-10-02T22:32:00.000-07:00

you've been quiet lately ... but, your pictures are amazing! thank you for sharing. i have a few questions for nick burns if you see him ...
take care

oh and p.s. should i still be waiting for the marty lapidakis shirt? i still run to the mail everyday.

mirror images

2006-09-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

If you have a moment, go to my flickr page. I just got back from taking a ton of pictures at the annual lantern festival along Muromi River.

It was a beautiful autumn night, perfect for the community to come together and look at the thousands of paper bag lanterns arranged in patterns along the river front. Some of the pictures came out wonderfully and I'd love it if you would check them out. I plan on doing a little post-processing on some of the images within the next few days but you'll get a good idea from this first offering.

Goodnight peeps.

the pounding of your steps

2006-09-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

With this coffee comes inspiration and a desire to write. I should put that statement into the form of a question for Alex. I don't know if it will work but I have to try. The page before me has been blank since I got off the phone with O. She called and woke me up just in time to watch the sun come up this morning.

The conversation was on par with most of our exchanges but there was one small point that stuck out in my head and sent me to this page to try and write this morning. With any luck my cup of blendy will jar these thoughts onto the screen.

We will spend my first christmas away from my family together. It's not as huge as it may sound, my family has been making feeble attempts at abolishing the holiday for a few years now. They made similar rumblings this year and whether they get together or not remains to be seen.

There are a few little things that I'll miss this year.
1) Dad drinking a lot and making an attempt at trying to get everyone over to the neighbor's house late on christmas eve
2) ...

Ok, maybe there's really only one endearing thing that I'm going to miss. As I try to enumerate my thoughts I begin to realize why I don't really like the holidays. The uncomfortable lunch / dinner with the old folks, trying to buy presents with money I don't have, trying to guess what people want to possess, focusing on the possessions as symbol of the strength of our relationships, drinking away the sadness of winter, realizing that winter never comes in los angeles, unanswered prayers for snow on the front lawn, driving home unfulfilled and dreading the next week, new year's eve, getting somewhere 'fun', paying for the 'fun', kissing a stranger out of tradition, kissing a friend uncomfortably, trying to get the date right on the first rent check of the year.

But there was something else I wanted to write about, Thanksgiving. I know I am going to miss cooking with mom and making certain that everything comes out just perfectly and right on time.

Sure I will miss that, but it isn't going away any time soon. In a few years we may have the chance to do all that again. I mean, we did it 26 years in a row, that has to be some kind of a record or something. How many families have all been together for both thanksgiving and christmas 26 years in a row. We're the 'family of the year', but we have to relinquish the title sometime.

So I will spend thanksgiving with people here and O will be here to give me a present on christmas morning. It will be a very good holiday indeed. I can't wait to take the subway to the airport on December 22nd and find her walking out of customs.

I turn the lock on my door and sometimes I can feel her standing behind me with her bags with airport baggage tickets hanging from the handles. Turning the lock, opening the door, and letting her back into my life.

the wind of venus on your skin

2006-09-17T03:38:00.000-07:00

A typhoon is passing over Fukuoka as I write this. The windows are clattering in their frames, pictures are attempting to fly off the walls, the vibrations of the wind's energy come through the concrete walls and cause tremors on the surface of my tea.

I went for a walk before the gusts began to max and watched a refrigerator blow down the street as I held onto a utility pole. The city is inside tonight and I am alone in the candlelight at my desk. Exhausted from a long night out and a good although sketchy surf this afternoon. Brian and I went to check the pre-storm conditions out at Sunset and Keya. The winds were offshore with driving rain and overhead surf. The water temp was still warm enough to skip the wetsuit and we paddled out into the small dedicated surf crowd. The waves were surprisingly good but the wind and currents were so strong you couldn't help but get dragged down the coast towards a rock outcropping. So we did laps, paddling out next to the headland in a nice little offshore current, into the lineup, on a wave and then back inside to run up the beach and paddle out again.

After a few hours of survival surf in the pounding rain we headed in. The plan is to get out again tomorrow around 5 in the morning and hit it before we have to go to work for the day. Students have the day off but we have a WASC workday ahead of us. With any luck we'll be able to get out a bit early and catch some more waves in the afternoon.

I've spent a month in Japan and I feel I've done a fairly good job documenting the highs and lows through this blog and in some more personal journals. The pictures on Flickr help to illustrate the stories I try to tell but I know they aren't always enough. You can't capture this weather with a photo, you'd miss the power, it would be just out of frame. I titled the first month's pictures 'first month away'. Now I am starting the next bit of time here and I don't have a title for the photoset.

-----
K.C. Accidental

People are pressing record to see if they’re still breathing.
Notes are dominating the puddle circuit while fingers keep adjusting the usual frequencies.
Today is yesterday but with a broken shuffle button.
Nothing’s wrong with big swimming pools and lifeguards who listen to descending scales.
In fact loud and soft is pay per view in our ears. Loud and soft is everything we feel.
33 x 67999 = 2243967 ---- those numbers are a lovely song.
Buy an album and discover forty more. These are circles we sit in.
Time presents itself as if sound is sleeping over for the night.
But sound has it’s own bed and needs to sleep with dozens of duvets.
It’s necessary for its complexion to be rested.
And the rest is why we listen.
The rest is why we need saturation.
Maybes and should’ve dominate a lot of listening space.
Too much focus on what might be before be is comfortable.
This is the way.
Welcome to the instrumental brunch. We all eat with our mouths closed and our are guidelines close by.
Some will kill you with a movie but in real life it’s just a commercial.
Home recordings have won the contest of hide and seek.
Living rooms are getting consumed with hands while distribution helps bring the theme music to the show.
The show that is currently being translated into a box.
We love boxes.

This album is two people pressing the record button.
It’s very big.
It’s loud and soft.
It’s an ode to everything that has visited their ears.

Keep listening

a memorysome sense of touch

2006-09-10T23:46:00.000-07:00

Not much new over here in the land of sweaty nights and rainy days. Well, I guess it's news that I fell asleep in a chair on top of the roof at a friends' apartment this weekend. We had started drinking early in the afternoon at a place that offers 100¥ beers for an hour. Can't go wrong with that.

Well, I guess if you don't get much sleep the night before and you finally catch a cooler evening and a belly full of beer, something can go wrong. You can fall asleep mid-conversation on top of a roof in the middle of Fukuoka.

But if that's the worst I did I must be alright because I woke up in my bed and for some reason there was a small bowl of water on my nightstand. Honestly, I haven't done peyote in a long long time. There's no logical conclusion that one can reach with these few facts.

I've managed to spend quite a bit of money this weekend. I purchased a new camera, the Canon Digital Rebel XTi. 10.1 megapixels of totally nerdy aperture controlling fun. I got it yesterday and went out for a 3 hour walk through the neighborhood last night shooting away. I posted some of the results on flickr if have a second. Keep in mind that these pictures were taken with only reading the Japanese version of the owner's manual. After I got home I was able to download the English version and I swear that I'll get some better pics posted soon.

But I am stoked because I have the opportunity to capture some of the sights that surround me these days and show all you back home. If you want any of them in a bigger size I can email the originals to you.

So for now, bye. I got my Gaijin Card today so I am officially an alien in Japan. With any luck I may have internet at my place within the week. Just try and shut me up then! Ha!

fire drill in a concrete building

2006-09-06T00:44:00.000-07:00

I stumbled upon this card one day that simply read, 'your life is beautiful.' The image of it is in a folder on my computer and somehow made it onto my work computer as part of the screensaver.

Some days it is easy here. It feels like the OC. Clean, safe, anything you could ever want is at your convenience at the stores and malls located around the city. There's even a Costco here. Some days I work and smile and get things done. I can communicate with relative ease with the people that make sense back at home. I have my bike, and I am going to join a gym within the next few days. Hell, I even can listen to CNN (even though the picture is scrambled).

And some days it is hard. Some days the uneasiness creeps up behind me and startles me into a brief panic. Am I really here? Is this a situation that I enjoy? Can I handle the challenge that this job and this country puts in front of me. If I were somewhere else, if I had chosen a position somewhere else in the world, would I be happier?

During the day, my screensaver cycled to the aforementioned image and I happened to look up at that moment. I almost lost it. I have such a tenuous grasp on civility these days. After about a week of riding high I have come crashing down because I am tired.

I awoke somewhere around one in the morning and spent the rest of the night turning in my thoughts and restless in my bed. It set me off at the start of the day and so far it hasn't gotten much better. I am only 3 weeks into this.

The problem is that I don't have my little support structure that allows me to smooth through a minor inconvenience like a bad night and the long day that follows. Without the people I can turn to I am stuck in my own head and unable to get past it. I don't have the comfort that comes with arriving home to familiar faces and an easy routine of asking what to make for dinner and hearing only one word in response. As aggravating as that was, I could count on it. Like a song I've heard too many times, I know the beat and exactly when the tempo changes. I can follow something like that.

I need to learn this new song. I am impatient, but that is what comes with a situation that doesn't make sense.

riding west towards the good surfing beaches

Catching up

2006-09-04T15:42:00.000-07:00

I just found out that everyone in the states is on vacation celebrating Labor Day. Somehow it slipped through the cracks in my mind and now that I am sitting here on a Tuesday at work I am kicking myself for thinking that I'd be able to wake up early and catch a few people on the phone.

Everyone I try to talk to is completely drunk right now. Good times America, good times indeed.

So I took a second to catch up on a few posts that didn't make it online but were written in the previous week. I should have my very own internet connection within a week or so if all goes as planned. Well, that is if I can somehow negotiate my way through a phone conversation in broken Japanese/English to try and get a service guy out to hook up my apartment. That should be a source of hilarity if I've ever seen one coming right for me.

I'd like to take a moment to tell you about a student that seems intent on my destruction. Brian and I are taking a few students out to the beach to teach surfing as an elective. I don't know how long this will last because of school politics and such, but for the meantime it is a great way to leave early on Friday and have a school sanctioned moment in the waves. Last Friday was the first running of the newbies and it proved to be an adventure and the start of this kid's focused campaign to 'off' me.

The surf wasn't all that big, but there was a long-shore current that was pretty strong. I showed the kids which way it was going before we paddled out but somehow one of them still got moved over towards a bit of a rock outcropping. If he had stayed outside he wouldn't have had a problem but he was intent on catching waves so he kept getting deeper and closer to the exposed rocks. I moved over towards him and alerted him to the situation yet he was not alarmed in the least bit. He thought everything was fine and didn't heed my calls to paddle out of there. He kept saying, "but it's hard to paddle."

A set came through and he got completely pushed into the rocks and was just standing there with the board banging around behind him. He couldn't get out by himself and I went in after him. Of course, I consulted the Red Cross rescue handbook and noted that the first rule is: Your own safety first. Whoops. Anyway, I got in there, calmed him down and with Brian's help we got him to paddle out into a cove and onto the sand. When we reached the shore he noticed that he had a long scratch down the front of his leg that was bleeding everywhere. I had cut open the bottom of my foot and that was filling with sand too. He looked at me and said, "wow, surfing is dangerous." I almost slapped him and called him a moron for putting me into that situation.

Surfing isn't dangerous, but when you act like an idiot you can get hurt. I tried to make a life-lesson out of it for him, but I think the amout of salt-water he had swallowed was making him gag and he couldn't really hear my lecture.

Oh, but didn't I say that he was trying to off me? Right, last night I was riding along a bridge to this store and there were a few pedestrians in the way. I rang my bell and one of the people just walked into my path. I almost took it over the edge of the bridge to avoid a collision and when I looked back guess who it was that I saw.

Anyway, I hope your hangovers aren't too bad. Read through the earlier two posts as well, I know you're bored and don't really want to do any work right now.

Now that you're back on your feet you don't even talk to me

2006-09-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

Sunday night and the work I brought home to finish this weekend is still sitting in my bag. This is me, procrastinating.

So, to that end I decided to change a picture out of an old frame I've had for years. Behind that picture were about 10 others that had been saved there, hidden from view but important enough that I need to keep around for posterity. One stuck out because it was taken a short time ago in the fall of 2003. The other people in the photograph are not relevant, what matters to me is how young I looked. What I see in this picture is not what I'm used to looking back in the mirror or the reflection in a passing car window.

I cleared off my desk and laid out a mosaic of recent shots and a few old ones that are still around and with a glance in the mirror I placed above the table I confirmed it. I look considerably older now. It is obvious that I age every day, I just think that three years isn't a very long time and to have such a change occur makes me think about what has happened within those years.

And with that thought, I declare that I have successfully pissed away my time tonight thinking about all the stresses, work, punches in the gut, days in the sun, miles I've put on in just a few years. I hope the next few are a little more gentle on me, or you may not recognize this face when I stop by next.

Can you drink explosives?

2006-09-04T15:37:00.000-07:00

This is a post I wrote a week ago but never got a chance to put it online.

Beth, Teri-Lynn, and I took the school van out to the Costco this afternoon.

You want to talk about a surreal experience. This was a thousand times stranger than watching Justin get married.

Going from the small streets of Momochi through the tollroads on the expressway to the other side of town, getting lost and stumbling into a shopping center that looked more at home in Northridge than Fukuoka was a little much for the senses. All the signs were in Romanji but the slogans made absolutely no sense at all (like most things written in Romanji around here). The parking lot was huge and I bet you could have found anything you'd ever need within the two city blocks that comprised the center. After stopping for the cup of coffee that is still keeping me awake right now we entered the store and I was instantly transported back to any Costco in America. The place was laid out in the same exact fashion complete with photo processing, bakery, pharmacy, and snack bar hosting the usual gourmet pizza, hot dogs, and chicken bake. I don't know what a chicken bake is, but somehow it got through customs.

I grabbed an oversized cart and started wheeling my way through Kirkland, throwing 5kg jars of peanut butter and 18 packs of deodorant next to cases of beer and those wonderful cookies. I felt excessive once again, I felt American.

The strange part about the place was that it was empty. There weren't more than 40 people in the entire warehouse and it seemed they were the same type of people that frequent the store back home. The same people that I loathed and avoided in America were here shopping with their nasty children and obese spouses only now they were all Japanese. It was such a strange sight. All the experiences I had up to this point did not prepare me for the shock of a Japanese Costco. When I return to the states some of you may say, "wow, I see how you've changed, that teaching experience really showed you something about the world." But no, it was just Costco in the middle of Fukuoka that spooked me and sent me reeling.

Now I just have to get this coffee to release my head. Maybe I'll take a fist full of peanut butter and 24 cans of tuna fish to bed with me.

I try to sayI miss you tonight

2006-08-31T15:40:00.000-07:00

Teresa sent an email near the end of May in an attempt to introduce me to the people I would be staying with in Las Vegas during our little adventure. I remember looking at the picture at my desk in San Luis, my safe little spot with my plants and a few personal items scattered about. The faces that smiled in this photograph were all a little out of focus but I could clearly see O's grin apart from all others in that scene. I knew something then that I still believe today.

Two months have passed since the morning when we met in the parking garage and after only 20 minutes in the car she felt comfortable enough to put her feet up on the back of the front seat right next to my face. Those ridiculously long toes.

We're 7000 miles apart yet we talk every day. I put little notes in the post almost daily to let her know that she kept me up the night before. Riding past the box every morning on the way to work as if it were her locker and I was hoping to meet her some time during lunch to ask her if she wanted to go steady.

We talk every day even though it hurts to do so. Yet even with such separation of time and distance she still has just the right words and perfect inflection to calm me down when this all seems to overwhelm me.

I've come halfway across the world but my heart is still in apartment #c. Here in #202 the furniture is arranged just so that when she walks in this door she will have a comfortable spot to sit and watch the day begin. I've purchased two chairs for the table so that one day, months from now, we will be able to sit closer than 7000 miles apart and share a meal.

One drunken night in Santa Cruz I sat in my brother's room and cried for the confusion of all this. I cried because Brendan was going to be miles from me, and I cried because O would be too. But above all, I knew that both people who give me the most support would be absent through all of this. As scared and confused as I was, Brendan put his hand on my shoulder and said a few words to quell the anxiety. O came out after he had left and laid next to me for that was all she knew how to do in that night. In the morning, she looked at me with eyes that spoke the entirety of her heart and I needed nothing more. Walking away from Brendan that afternoon she held my hand as I shed a few last tears for the absence of my brother. And I needed her more than ever that day.

She slept most of the drive to San Luis. At one point she stirred and I mentioned where we were. She told me she knew, as if she had been paying attention all along and not drooling on my sweatshirt that was her pillow for the afternoon. She never would admit to not knowing the way.

We turned a corner that weekend and we'll never go back. As hard as it was to travel under such duress, we strode through the strife together and were emboldened by it. Now we just have learn to live like this, being apart longer than we've been together. I know it will be hard because it has already been more excruciating than I had expected.

I have this picture in my inbox. It's a couple of Teresa's friends grinning like drunken fools. And it is of the woman that I love. The one in apartment #c.

If I never said it before, I'm sorry for the whole blow-gun thing Brendan. I'd like to say it was Mike's idea, but I'm sure I played a part in getting you to be our test dummy that afternoon years ago. It was easy to think you were a king when your entire world didn't stretch past the end of the block.

sit around and clean their face with it

2006-08-31T01:05:00.000-07:00

You're reading this wondering why I am still at work. I know you are I can see it on your face.

Well I'll tell you my good people. It is because it is raining. Pouring actually. It hasn't really let up all day. So I have been waiting it out, trying to find things to do around the classroom but I am going to give up and venture out on my bike. So I bid you all farewell, wish me luck because in the few blocks I have to pedal, I will get utterly soaked to the bone. Bye.

Let's forgetwhen forgetwhat forget how

2006-08-29T16:20:00.000-07:00

After a long drunk conversation with Oriana this afternoon I left school. Wait. She was drunk, I was at work. Let's get that straight. So she's a little tipsy and I'm just loving the words she's slurring. I left the school in a cloud of bliss and instead of riding south towards my apartment I headed north to the coast to stare out towards the islands and enjoy the afternoon. I rode the frontage road along the Muromi River while watching the clouds grow darker and the sound of thunder approach out of the mountains. I didn't stay long at the coastline because the weather was deteriorating rapidly. I turned and headed south for home and saw the enormous dark cloud moving quickly over the mountains towards the city. By the time I had ridden the .5k to the Kyushu Expressway overpass the rain began. I hunkered down under the massive bridge and decided to wait out the thunder cell along with a few other people who happened to be out that afternoon, caught without shelter and forced to hide beneath this mammoth construct of steel and concrete. Lightning was flashing every minute and the thunder wouldn't crash more than a second after each flash. The rain came down in torrents and the entire area was drenched in a matter of minutes, I'd expect about a half inch of rain fell in just those 15 minutes I sat under the freeway.

But the skies cleared to the south and the cell moved past. The rain stopped and the refugees under the freeway continued on their way through the steaming puddles of rain.

I want to suffer in your arms

2006-08-28T00:35:00.000-07:00

My classroom has taken a bit of a step back. I've given up the Smart Board with projector-fed touch screen attached to my computer for a big black board and two boxes of chalk. None of you have seen me teach but you could imagine that I get excited about it and start dancing around wildly waving my arms in the air and scribbling whatever thoughts on the board. Well now imagine that in a cloud of chalk dust and you get and idea what I look like today. I have chalk in my hair, on my shirt and pants, coming out of my pockets, and in between my toes. As messy as it is, I enjoy the tactile feel of the chalk in my hand as it scrapes across the board. I've just got to learn how to manage my mess a little. I suppose I should get one of those chalk holders, but I couldn't imagine where I could get one around here. It's not something that people really stock in the average 100¥ store.

It seems that the students aren't everything I was sold on during the interview process. Michael wants to take this school to the IB level next year but I wonder if these kids can handle that type of work. I was doing Algebra 1 work in my precalculus class today which shook me to the core. I was expecting to be running to catch up with these kids but my lesson plans have all been moved back by a couple days and it's only the first real day of school. I suppose that they will start to pick up steam when they get back into a more scholarly mode. I mean, they all just got back from summer and unlike me they aren't chomping at the bit to get back into the math class.

Last night was rough and I woke up with little ambition to do much. I knew that it was Justin's wedding day and I wished that I could have been there to witness all of that. I suppose that was part of it, but a general malaise has spread across my life these last few days and it felt incredible to shake it off this morning. The few phone calls I made this morning did little to change my mood but as soon as I dusted off the overhead projector and began to talk with my Calculus students about their weekend assignment my day began to transform into something much more productive and positive. My momentum built through the first few classes and I am feeling strong and doing well. It is good to find a groove.

And yes, you could say that I am sort of a dork. But whatever, it makes me happy.

stars will always hangin summers bleeding fangs

2006-08-27T00:23:00.000-07:00

Tonight the heat feels like it is about to burst. Humidity, heat, tension. It is all coming to a head. Walking through the streets of Nishijin past flashing neon lights and screaming street vendors I felt sticky and confined by the heat pushing down from the clouded sky.

This place is terrible for a hangover. After a few drinks and a swerving bike ride home I lay in bed sweating the last drops of water out of my body and I awoke with a splitting headache. After forcing a few liters of water down with some drugs I decided it would be best to get a little exercise before I was to meet Brian to drive to the coast to go freediving.

There is a road that leads out of town into the mountains to the south. It begins as a dash through swerving motorbikes, cars, and busses along the flatland that comprises the city and climbs through the foothills. As the city recedes you begin the steep ascent along switchbacks up into the forest and eventually over the mountain pass into Saga.

I left at 10 but the day was already sweltering and I probably sweat about a liter before I had even begun to ascend the foothills. By the time I reached the mountain pass I had exhausted all my liquids and was just hoping to make it home alive.

The clock on my speedometer was about 20 minutes slow so I didn't have but 10 minutes to clean up before Brian got to my house. I showered quickly and tried to force down some fruit and peanut butter. While I was sitting in the kitchen I drank as much as I could but the water was running out my pores as quickly as I could put it it. I couldn't believe how much sweat was pouring out of my body. I saw Brian pull up downstairs and I grabbed a 2L bottle of water and thought that would suffice to replace the fluid levels in my body.

The water was gone by the time we hit the coast and I was beginning to feel a little better but as soon as I placed the mask around my head I developed the most excruciating headache imaginable. I had to fight through it though, thinking that this guy had gone out of his way to take me out there. I didn't think about the pressure of 20 feet of water above my head though and after a few descents I realized I could not go any further.

So there I am sitting at the shoreline on the verge of vomiting from the pain. The sun was relentless and the humidity wouldn't quit either. I've been in some miserable places before, but this is one of the worst.

But I am alive, a nap and some air-con did a world of good.

And it is about 10pm on a Saturday night. I can't even think about going out right now, but the extra sleep and the heat are keeping me awake and I don't know when I will find sleep tonight.

School started earlier this week and it is a bit strange to have only a few students in each class. There are two courses with class count above 10, but the other three are creepily small.

Everyone has been telling me that it is only a matter of time before the weather begins to cool down and become quite comfortable. Until then, we're all stuck sweating through the days and into the nights like tonight. There will be a few things that will happen in about 2 weeks that will make my life much more comfortable. The weather, an internet connection at home, cable television, and a phone. I will just have to make it through a few more of these hot lonely nights practicing Katakana quietly in my huge apartment.

This experience has been strange so far and I wonder if I will ever become used to this place, comfortable with life here. I have had a near constant feeling of uneasiness ever since I got here. That, coupled with the anxiety before leaving and I haven't really felt normal in about a month now. It is beginning to wear on me and I can say that I am not happy. I can't place where my uneasiness comes from so it is hard to take steps to calm it. Is this part of the experience, feeling like crap?

Brian told me that it will be quite some time before I feel more comfortable here. It is a hard place to get used to especially since I am constantly thinking of someone back at home. He's been here for a decade and has been away from America for 20 years. One of the problems with life abroad is that as you become comfortable with one place, you lose your comfort level back home. So now, when you go back you feel out of place and long to leave again. But as you jump around to different places you lose the feeling of comfort for any once place at all.

But that is one man's opinion and my reaction to all of this will be as unique as I am. I can't think about it too much or I start to scare myself.

A new lamp arrived

2006-08-22T02:25:00.000-07:00

I think that everyone left the school about 4 hours ago and I am the only idiot still here working. I am about halfway through the planning for the first month but my room is still a mess and I haven't seen the last of my boxes from DHL yet. They say they're on the way, but I'll believe it when I see it. The folks down at customs had quite a time with my stuff though. They broke the few picture frames that I had packed away so gently and for whatever reason they decided that the Calculus books I brought probably contained some sort of contra-ban. I just wonder what my bike is going to look like when it comes. But, don't tell Abraham I said that.

I am getting used to things here. I know it's only been a week, but I think that I am finding my way around well and getting the hang of things like showering in a tub and sweating like a pig. The thought of returning home to an empty apartment is a little saddening. Maybe that's why I don't mind being here at work until 6:30. At least there is air-conditioning, internet, a task, and a coffee maker. How nice would it be to walk in the door and find Oriana standing there. Maybe she'll pass a glass of wine into my hand as I give her the groceries for tonight's dinner. And we can just sit back and relax together.

Sometimes I wonder why I put myself through such thoughts when I know how much they will tear me apart.

Enough of this, I've got to get out of here. Goodnight peeps.

and when I can't look at youI can paint your picture perfectly in my mind

2006-08-21T00:38:00.000-07:00

I'll start with a bit of an apology. This will be long because I haven't had internet access for this computer for a while. When I do get online it's from a kiosk so I don't have the time I usually have for posts to this little blog.

The short of it is that I have my apartment, my classroom, and a few buddies to go drinking with. I have to wait a few weeks to get a phone, interent, and cable so I won't be all that reachable for a few. But I can still check my voicemail every once in a while and I love to hear from you guys. Even if it is a drunken message from a baseball game, I still love to hear familiar voices.

The long of it is...

The flight was uneventful for the most part. Peanuts and beer and only a half hour of sleep. I was picked up by the head mater Michael and the 'tour guide' started. The guy is nice enough but he just has the personality of a tour guide on meth. He seems to have a story for everything and needs to tell you all of it as if it was the most important thing ever. But then each story starts a tangent to something completely unrelated.

But he took us back to the school and led us into the dorms to meet the keeper of the dorms, Daryl, a Canadian hockey player that met a woman in Fukuoka and never looked back. He's been here for 14 years and loves it. Anyway, we got our rooms and I suggested that we head out for a drink before the jet lag set in for the night. He thought for a minute about the time and day of the week and decided that we head to the Jamacian bar in Nishijin. The place is run by a big Jamacian man whose name eludes me because we sat there and talked about Japan and such for a few hours and more than a few drinks. By this time things were beginning to set in. Walking through the streets and realizing that I couldn't read any of the signs at all was a big indicator that I really didn't know what I was getting myself into.

That night there was talk of the typhoon that was headed towards us. No one seemed to mind because it was forecast to pass along the eastern edge of Kyushu and we'd only see a few hours of rain. Daryl even had a tee time set up for the following morning. That night there was cloud cover and a bit of wind but nothing seemed to indicate anything was really going to happen.

The next morning proved all forecasts wrong. The storm was heading due North for most of its life but then some time around 2am it decided to make a left and head straight for Fukuoka. The storm lasted until midday today. About 36 hours all together but very ill-timed for my needs. I would love to move to Japan, I would love to see a typhoon, but let's not do both on the same day, ok?

I met with Yukari and was taken to my apartment. There really is nothing like trying to move into a place during a typhoon. She kept trying to get me to come back to the school to hang out but I insisted on spending my few free hours moving in and unpacking a little. She finally left and I was able to inspect my new home. This place is huge. Probably about 700 sq. feet. There are three rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom complete with biday. Considering that I will only sleep in one and that I spent most of my time leading up to this trip getting rid of my possessions the apartment is empty. Very empty. But huge. Seriously, if you've ever thought about coming over here, do it because I have enough room for a family in this place.

The woman that lived here before me sold me most of her possessions. All the kitchen gear, desks, bed, couch, TV. All of it. The property manager wanted to redo the tatami flooring before I moved in so all of the things Tabitha left were tucked into the closets. So I've been systematically going through things, pulling out what I need and leaving things that don't make any sense at all. It's kind of like when Yukie moved out of 83 Tassajara. There's a bunch of stuff packed into closets and most of it has Japanese writing on it. Is this Japanese Febreeze? There is a cartoon character with a sparkling couch in the background on the bottle, it must be Febreeze.

After a few hours of moving in I headed back to the school for another 'tour guide' meeting with the other two new teachers. Nothing was accomplished during this time and I quickly headed home to continue moving in. We were scheduled to meet up that evening to go out to dinner together. I tried to make it to dinner but after walking about 3 blocks in a typhoon I realized that I looked like a drowned rat and headed back home but stopped at the Kadota High Mart and grabbed a bottle of crap red wine.

And it was then when I made my most prized discovery. I don't know Tabitha, but now that I live in her old apartment I have some idea who I'm dealing with here. I found a small container filled with Japanese/American porn DVDs. I don't know if it was intended that she leave these for me, but it was a welcome surprise. Needless to say, I didn't get anything else done that night.

The tour guide picked right back up this morning though. The Habels, Ariel, Michael, and I all took the subway to Tenjin which is the heart of Fukuoka. I thought that it was going to be an enlightening experience but it turned out to be absolute torture. I hate guided tours and this was one of the worst. Way worse than anything that Princess Tours of Alaska could dish out. After a few hours of being dragged around and spoken to I took my leave from the group and headed home. I was feeling pretty low at the time, lonely, disconnected, and bored. I tried to muster the strength to go out and exercise but couldn't really get that motivated right then. I hadn't had the chance to make any vocal contact with my family, friends, or Oriana and I was starting to kinda get weird about it. There aren't internet cafes all over the place like in the states so I couldn't just go and put my headset on down at Uptown Espresso.

I happened upon a publication that mentioned a 24/7 internet cafe in Nishijin which was only a few miles away. I headed straight for it.

I was greeted by smiling faces and one of the girls at the desk spoke enough English that we could do a little business. I was told to fill out a form to register and she asked how much time I needed. She looked at the form and realized that I had come from California and was living in Muromi. She started talking with me and told me that she had recently spent some time in San Diego and that she lived in Muromi as well. She told me that if I had any needs I should come directly to her. I couldn't think of any needs I'd have using the internet but I figured it was her way of saying that she was intent on being the best customer service representative she could possibly be. I bet she wanted to put this on her resume for a job at a Dell Computers Service and Support Call Center.

When all of that was taken care of I was told to head down to booth number 46. She showed me a map but I still didn't get it so she led me to it.

We walked into a large darkened room with rows and rows of cubicles. There were two large signs that clearly marked the two areas within this room as Mens and Womens. I thought it strange but in time it all made sense. We found #46 and she opened the plexiglass door. She said that she had to leave right then because she couldn't be in that part of the room because it was the male side. Again, I still didn't get it. Inside I found a TV, computer, monitor, leather couch, trash can, and a couple individually wrapped wet naps. It really didn't take more than a few seconds to realize the main purpose of this place was. I should have noticed the rows of DVD porn on the walls leading into the place but I didn't. Anyway, it was only slightly uncomfortable and I was able to place a few calls back to the states where it was 1am and surprisingly everyone I called was wide awake.

So that's all true. It's about 8:30 on Saturday night and I don't have shit to do. I may just try and pass out right now but the likelihood of sleeping through the night from this point on is slim. Maybe I'll put some pants on and go snooping around Muromi after dark. It's either that or I keep writing and I don't think either of us want that to happen.

Sunday August 20th

Well, I finally slept through the night and it is a welcome sign that the jet lag may be over. I woke around 6 and after a short run and quick breakfast decided to head west on my bicycle to the edge of town. The edge of the city came quicker than I had expected and the day wasn't all too warm yet so I continued out along the coast following cars with surfboards on the roof racks. It was a good sign that there may be surf around here yet. Although most of the cars were sporting long boards I was happy nonetheless. Another good sign was that I was passed by quite a few groups of guys in full road kits on very nice road bikes. I can't wait to get my Salsa from the shipping company so that I can join them for long rides out into the rice fields.

I continued on without much direction and soon found myself lost out in the country with the sun coming up quickly and the temperature following. Still I pressed on West and eventually came to signs indicating a castle ruin up ahead a few km. I never found the castle but did ride through some beautiful country and my spirits were riding high. A few twists and turns later and I came to the base of Mt. Bishamon where I dismounted and began a bit of a hike. I didn't get too far up the slopes but was able to catch a view of a surfing beach down below. It seems that the typhoon that I had cursed days earlier had left us with some short period swell that the local surfers were taking full advantage of. It took a few hours to find my way back to the city but I made it in one piece. It is very nice to have drivers give a funny looking white guy on a girls bike the right of way. Everyone is so used to bikes on the road that they give all the space you'd ever want as you chug along the shoulder. I really can't wait to get my road bike set up.

Back at the apartment I took a shower and decided it was way too hot to try and cook anything so I set out alone for my first real restaurant experience. It was Sunday so most places were closed but I found a noodle house that looked inviting and headed for the entrance. Even though the sign indicated it was open I couldn't get the front door open. I stepped back to investigate the structural design of the door and realized there were no hinges anywhere and so I tried to slide it open like a screen door. Who knew?

Anyway, I pointed to something that looked like food on the menu and sat back to listen in on all the conversations around me that I couldn't understand. When my food came the waitress gave me a little jar of red stuff and said something that sounded like the word 'courageous'. I thought it was a funny Japanese word and gave it a try. Holy crap. This stuff was born from the deepest reaches of hell it was so hot. I mean, hot. Deep down burn your face off hot. My shit is still tingling from those first couple bites.

After stuffing myself to the gils I headed home and passed out for a long nap. It's about 8 now and I'm getting excited to meet all the other staff tomorrow. The first of three days of prep begin in the morning and the first day of school is on Thursday. I'm stoked to have something to do and some other people to interact with. Even more, I register with the local ward tomorrow so I should be able to get internet access in my apartment within the next few weeks or so. It's funny how useless this computer is without a connection to the outside world.

Unstop the dayYou'll rise again

2006-08-16T16:08:00.000-07:00

I thought it'd be a good time to post a little something. I still have about 12 hours of traveling to go but this flight shouldn't be more than another 8 hours and the good folks at Korean Air are taking fantastic care of me. I just think it's fun to walk around and not understand a damn thing that anyone is saying. Not the people sitting next to me, not the flight attendants, not even the pilot. For all I know, they could be coming over the PA telling us to bend over and kiss our asses goodbye and that we're going down. I'd still calmly take my headphones off and smile ignorantly as everyone prepared for death and I just anticipated the next meal of hot udon noodles.

We took off an hour late so I may not make my connecting flight to Fukuoka but I'm not all that worried. Michael is supposed to pick me up at 7:30 at the airport and if I don't get off the plane he may sense something is wrong. Either that or I just really wanted to finish the in-flight movie.

I think that the airline ticketing office is working some kind of conspiracy here. I got sat in the fat white person section of the plane. Maybe my short military haircut didn't quite classify me as part of the servicemen section of the plane and my gringo nose definitely kept me out of the Korean National section. So here I am, sitting next to the fattest person from all of Texas. I've been keeping a pretty steady scowl going so she hasn't bothered to try and talk let alone even attempt to put a hoof on our shared armrest. Now that she's asleep I finally get to write about her without fear of eavesdropping. One thing I learned during my time in the wilds of the suburbs is that you don't want to piss off a rhino. But seriously, I know I'm white, but am I that fat?

I'll probably get bored in the next hour or so and feel the need to post some more minutiae about life in seat 31H. So there.

Waiting For the Drop, Part 2

2006-08-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

After almost 6 months to the day, I'm finally at the point that I've been preparing for. My possessions have been reduced to a few boxes and bags and everything is sitting next to the front door. I've got about 15 minutes before Bobby Joe wants to leave.

I have to say that I'm quite relieved that today has come. There's been so much anticipation and anxiety wrapped up in this so now that I am at the point of no return I finally have relinquished control.

I don't have time for a worthwhile post so let's just get some of the details taken care of. You may notice that there are a few things on the sidebar that have changed. I have a Skype phone number located in Los Angeles so if you'd like to give me a call you just have to use your cell phone or land line and call (818) 574-7664. You won't be charged any overseas phone rates, just normal minutes for a call to the valley.

For you computer savy people out there, if you get Skype on your computer then we can do completely free calls back and forth using the computer. You just need to download the program, sign up for a free username and then find me on there. My username is devinjoncarlson. Also, once you've got Skype you can click on the little green button to the right and it will automatically open Skype and attempt to call me.

So that's all true. I'll talk to you all soon enough, I've got to get through security one of these days. Bye.

Waiting For the Drop

2006-08-14T21:35:00.000-07:00

Oh crap.

Just about 36 hours to go now. Oriana left this afternoon and I've just got to get the last few things together before the flight out. I'm supposed to be at the airport 4 hours early to get through security so I'll bring a few books to pass the time. I love terrorism, don't you?

The weather forecast calls for hot and humid temperatures in the 90's with humidity that will push the feel of the air into the 100's. But that's all fine and good. I don't need to worry about that, there are too many other things on my mind.

I wish that I could have been writing more these last few weeks. There are things that happened that I would have loved to document but my mind has just been completely out. For one, I've been drinking a bit more than usual. My grammar never really works out too well after a few drinks and this little post is falling into the same trap.

So I'll leave now before I make some retarded statement that I'll have to edit out tomorrow morning. I just want to say that I'll be around. I'll write something a bit more coherent and interesting tomorrow.

Darling you will always be around

2006-08-02T23:35:00.000-07:00

My mind has been wound up tight for a week now. And you wisper in my ear to relax and that whatever is happening will work out. She says, "It will all be ok, you just have to give it a moment. You have to let your mind go so that your body can catch up." And you know she is right. In the deepest reaches of your mind you know she is right. But you still can't let it go. You still can't move on. Something must be wrong.

In time you're proven wrong. It really wasn't anything to worry about after all. And your mind begins to unwind and grasp the greater situation surrounding you.

There's been talk of a war.

The religious tension on the opposite side of the world has infected the residents of happyland. The people have taken arms. Choose your side wisely, you don't want to be on the losing side of all of this. As if any group could actually win.

But what point needs to be proven?

Someone with a flag just walked past my window and shouted the slogans for the opposition:

"Don't count on the newsman to take down the act!"
"I kind of liked Clinton!"
"Thanksgiving is gone?"
"No one dissents!"

And I just give a nod of the head at the absurdity of these claims. What a strange little party. They obviously don't drink scotch in their parents' guest room with only two dufflebags of possessions left. They obviously don't dream of the pet bunny rabbit being devoured by a raging doberman pinscher.

So many things are obviously wrong with this.

saturday morning thunderstorm

2006-07-29T10:15:00.000-07:00

I've got a penguin on my head.

Everyone can see it but no one wants to mention a thing. They give a glance and make a comment about current trends of the fashion of hats but ignore the squawking monstrosity with fish breath upon my head.

I saw a television program about orcas that ride a surging wave towards a shoreline filled with penguins. In a single bite they can snatch up two or three of them.

Maybe I should stand on that beach and see if an orca can take care of this guy for me and welcome the side-effects of the orca's bad aim.

bright turquoise t-shirt

2006-07-24T17:57:00.000-07:00

We made it home in one piece. Well there were two of us so technically, two pieces.

I saw my brother in Santa Cruz and had to say goodbye to him for an indefinite amount of time. I wish that I could describe the emotions that passed through me this weekend, but it is still fresh and overwhelming. Oriana slept through a few hours of the drive and I had time to think and calm my head down a bit.

The goodbyes are beginning to annoy and I'm losing sight of their importance. I may regret this feeling later, but I don't see the huge fuss of it all. I am excited to leave. In fact, I want it to happen sooner than it is scheduled. I want this to get underway. I'm ready and I don't want to spend any more time messing around with cups of coffee and uncomfortable dinners. I want a home. I want my new home. I want to run into the waves and swim for myself.

So why freak out about leaving? Why does absence matter to you? You've got your stability. Let me leave so that I can surprise you with a phone call at an inappropriate hour or so that you may open your mailbox and find a postcard from Japan.

Or somewhere else. Further away, further from here, further from my possessions, further from my car.

I'm feeling frustrated by the formalities of selling this car and shipping these boxes. I want them gone. Do I need any of that stuff? The calculus books, yes. The small wooden statuette that reminds me of a time of stability, no. Not right now at least. Maybe some day soon I'll find those trinkets necessary to remember the times that have passed but today they seem to get in the way.

But the bike and the surfboard, I'll need to bring those. Some items are worth their shipping cost.

come through the light

2006-07-21T11:28:00.000-07:00

We're about to leave. Just thought you'd want something to read in the meantime.

Yes Yes
-Charles Bukowski

when God created love He didn't help most
when God created dogs He didn't help dogs
when God created plants that was average
when God created hate we had a standard utility
when God created me He created me
when God created the monkey He was asleep
when He created the giraffe He was drunk
when He created narcotics He was high
and when He created suicide He was low

when He created you lying in bed
He knew what He was doing
He was drunk and He was high
and He created the mountains and the sea and fire at the same time

He made some mistakes
but when He created you lying in bed
He came all over His Blessed Universe.

don't come down here

2006-07-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

Nothing to write (nothing of consequence)

Anxious (the windscreen, the rearview mirror)

Waiting for Oriana to show up (the sound of the doorbell)

Drinking in the afternoon sun (tecate, white, red)

Packed (pants, shirts, underwear, socks, wetsuit, toothbrush)

Ready to leave (San Luis==[karla, brandon, kj], Santa Cruz==[brendan], San Francisco==[laura, cheryl])

Waiting (27days, visa application, overseas shipping, sell the car, 27 days)

Relief (the doorbell)

put me in your dry dreams put me in your wet if you haven't yet

2006-07-18T21:25:00.000-07:00

About 13 hours into this little 'job' and my mind starts fluttering around. Nothing to keep it tethered to reality as I slowly make my way through another window. Sanding, cleaning, painting, scraping, re-painting, cleaning, repeat. I have about 28 little black flies buzzing around my head, landing on my eyelashes, checking out my nostrils to see if I have any boogers up there. And I start to think about how these flies represent all of the little lies that I've told throughout my life. Little annoyances because I remember them. Well, most of them.

But they're in my head and these ideas fly into the annoying spots every once in a while. Just long enough for the thought, the moment, to be drawn in my head. And I sit in a chair at dinner and the conversation swells around me. I can't hear their voices because I'm stuck wondering about how and why I did what I did back then. If I hadn't, would I still have all of these flies buzzing around my head right now?

Who can see them? If a stranger walked by could he see the lies that I've told as easy as he can see the cloud of flies in my face? Can he read them on my face. Can you?

Sure, some of you know more than others. Can you see the big flies? The ones that feel like a fist when the wind blows their approach off a little and they come careening into my temple.

Right. So this is what happens when you work for 15 hours straight breathing paint fumes. No wonder I didn't really sleep last night. But the job is done, and my mind seems to have rebounded and I'm in a particularly good mood about the approaching few days. Oriana and I are driving up to San Luis on Friday. It's been almost 4 days since I've seen her last and I'm starting to get all weepy. I'm not actually to tears yet, but it will be fantastic to see her and go on another little trip with her.

After San Luis we're going to Santa Cruz to see Brendan before he leaves for Europe and eventually we'll make it up to San Francisco to see Laura and Cheryl.

But that's neither here nor there. You want to know more about the crazy thoughts I had up at the cabin. You want to know that I was thinking about J's bachelor party and wondering why the movie 'Old School' never addressed the bachelor party that Frank must have had. Was the party as good as the other parties they threw later in the movie? I mean, would Vince Vaughn's character have stood for a mediocre party?

I really don't want answers to these questions. Just voicing a fraction of the strange shit that went through my head yesterday and today.

Oh, and I got an email about J's bachelor party that said that we're booked to go to Vegas. I don't want to go to Vegas. Can I skip out of this? I feel like a dick, but I really don't want to go. There are so many other things I'd rather do. Like eat ice cream.

like some empty dress you lay out

2006-07-16T23:57:00.000-07:00

One night in Los Angeles, and then to the cabin.

I'm starting this project for my parents tomorrow morning so I'll be generally unreachable until it's finished.

I'll talk to you all once I get 'home'. I'm just not feeling very creative tonight.

green painted cement

2006-07-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

I woke up with a clear head. Finally. I'm off to Oxnard to hang out with my parents and hopefully get a few waves. In my absence, here are a couple poems that were posted on 'falsedawn'. I hope you enjoy them as I have.

nineteen ways of looking at a women
-- by david lerner

and her wind full of promises and desert
and her glitter of her wild and tender mind
and her broken watch
and her window full of exotic curses
and her ineffable drugs
and her poisoned wisdom
and her busted serenade
and her thin gold heartbeat
and the shrug of her silence
and the watchfulness of her smile
and the edge of her stillness
and the chill of her turning away
and the rustle of her winter
and the black silk stockings of her disbelief
and the charred elegance of her thinking
and the cold charm of her obsessions
and the briliance of her longing

the only poem
-- Leonard Cohen

This is the only poem
I can read
I am the only one
can write it
I didn't kill myself
when things went wrong
I didn't turn
to drugs or teaching
I tried to sleep
but when I couldn't sleep
I learned to write
I learned to write
what might be read
on nights like this
by one like me

a new key takes you into a new door

2006-07-15T02:39:00.000-07:00

The dates only correspond to when this was written.

Wednesday - July 12th

We made it back from Alaska today but I still can't find my way out of San Diego.

Somehow I've misplaced the key to my car and I don't have the means to get out of here until I receive a key in the mail from mom. Karla said that it was probably done intentionally so that I didn't have the means to leave. Not like I really want to go anywhere right now.

But the mail comes at noon and I'll be on my way shortly after that.

Thursday - July 13th
Still in San Diego, still no key.

So Alaska was big. I've looked at maps countless times before and seen the little land mass to the north without ever truly looking at the sheer size of that state. We were given a truck to drive around the Kenai Peninsula for a couple days and I was shocked to see how many hours would pass with a yellow line dividing the road into two rivers of cars with equal speed but opposite velocity.

We took a flight across the Cook Inlet in Uncle Cleve's single engine cessna to a much less inhabited area of Southwest Alaska. We flew low through a valley and saw little brown fuzzy dots along the horizon that turned out to be Black, Brown, and Grizzly Bears. After climbing up through the mountains we landed on a glacial plain to relieve our distended bladders. To the west was the massive Alaskan Range.

I walked towards the range. Not more than a few yards really. I felt uneasy so I stopped and turned to my right to face the lake formed by the run off from the glacier a few miles to the west. After a few paces in that direction I suddenly realized that my uneasiness was caused by the futility I experienced by walking. I could walk for hours and be just as lost as I was right at that moment. I could travel on my own power for a considerable amount of time and not make any progress towards a goal. I felt humbled like the ant that stumbles across the patio table without realizing just how far the edge really was. I could barely comprehend just what was before me.

Friday - July 14th

We got back into the plane, Cleve took off and then handed the controls to Oriana. We weren't 100 feet off the ground when he gave her a quick course on the controls and instructed her to follow the river that was before us. I found an aerial photo of it on google maps. Looking at the picture it's hard to realize just how small the canyon was and how steep she was banking the plane around the corners.

It was amazing to experience. The first few turns were a bit shaky, but she got her confidence quickly and was whipping that plane around enough to make Sarah completely freak out in the back seat. We were all nervously chattering on the radio about how well she was doing and Cleve was floored by her skill and confidence.

But we made it back to Anchorage and back out to the bars one last time before we caught a red-eye back to our quasi-reality.

Saturday - July 15th

And now I'm home, back in Los Angeles. This took a few days to write because my mind wasn't in the right place. I suppose that it is now, at 2 in the morning after a few warm Tecates and a walk around the old neighborhood.

I'm listening to slow music and thinking about the month that lies ahead. This convoluted sequence of days and nights strung out like a cassette tape unwound and wrapped in a tree's branches. I need to keep my timeline a mess so that I can deal with the concrete date that is fast approaching. It's easier to ignore the truth when you keep moving.

I wrote out a calendar on a scrap of paper. Not just a piece of paper, a receipt actually. And it was also used for some directions. This piece of paper has done so much for me, I should do something for it one day. Maybe give it a permanent home, a frame or a slot in the folds of my wallet. Honestly, most pieces of paper get only one use, but this little buddy keeps on coming through for me in a pinch. Hell, it's actually being a bookmark right now. I really need to buy this paper a drink some day.

But I wrote out this calendar on the best piece of paper that I've had in a long time. We were sitting on the tarmac at Seattle International Airport waiting to take off. I started with the 12th of July and continued on until August 16th. I circled a weekend to go up to San Luis and a few days to do some work at the cabin. I put a little star around the day of the party on the 12th. And I sat back for a second, with Oriana's hand in mine, and I felt a certain degree of panic flush across my body. Maybe panic isn't the right word. Maybe I don't have a word for it, but it was the feeling that I was about to lose something that I desperately didn't want to lose. That feeling when your keys fall out of your pocket while you're peering over the railing of a bridge across a deep lake. You know that it's too late to change anything, that the future has been written and you've no choice but to watch how it will unfold and how it will feel.

The feeling stayed for the flight. I didn't buy it a ticket, but it decided that first class was where it wanted to sit, right there in seat 3C. Who was I to kick it out? Somehow it found the key to my car and came up to LA with me. It sat in the back seat during the drive, but decided that it wanted to spend the night in my bed.

So that's why I'm still up writing this. I don't want to go to sleep with that feeling. I don't want to know that I'm really going to walk away from this.

But I don't want you to think that I'm hesitant to go. I am still completely behind this adventure and all of the opportunities it offers.

It's just that I know I'll be searching for those keys forever.

caution is thrown to the wind and I think I'm stronger for ityes I do

2006-07-06T16:18:00.000-07:00

This next set of thoughts comes from a mind adrift in the heat of the San Fernando Valley.

It's Thursday afternoon and the day is just beginning to cool down. I've got fish cut into small pieces and floating in a bowl full of lime juice. The citric acid is working its magic and as soon as I'm done here I'll finish making dinner for my parents, Andria, and myself. A cool ceviche tostada sounds perfectly in line with the heat of today. And a beer. Don't forget a cool beer by my side.

And all of this reminds me of one of my favorite poems by David Berman called the charm of 5:30. Some day I'll read it to you, all you have to do is ask.

I've been reading to Oriana and she's been reading to me. It started as a way to keep her mind alive during the endless feverish nights. The simple act kept her from succumbing to boredom and the rampant spiral of lonely thoughts. An unintended consequence came out of this though. Reading by myself is a bit more lonely now. No longer do I have her warm body, ear, and soft voice to guide me through this novel. The story is missing its audience. I'm missing an ear to speak into. The words lose permanence. They pass through my head and are lost amongst thoughts of doctor's offices and long drives in the desert.

Come infor one last dinnerthat I will make you

2006-07-02T20:19:00.000-07:00

What am I doing?
(sitting on a couch)(trying to make some improvement in the situtation)

Where am I and how did I find myself in this situation?
(i am anywhere I want to be)(I've put myself here)(generosity, romantic ideas, hope, need for connection)

Is this where I want to be?
(i thought so)(i still think so)(sometimes)(i'm becoming frustrated)(progress happens)(slowly)

I'm free as a bird trapped in cage #4.

get high just a little

2006-06-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

So, one of the dangers of not knowing where you're going to sleep each night is that you may come across a not-so-nice bed/couch. After being spoiled with nights on clean couches and in comfortable beds I spent last night sweating on a couch in Pacific Beach. I passed out at 11 but woke up two hours later sweating with the feeling that there were things crawling all over me. My first thought was fleas, but after searching my body with the light from my cell phone I didn't find anything.

I managed to pass back out for a few more hours but continued to wake up at odd hours with the same creepy feeling. I somehow made it through the night but can't shake this feeling that there are things crawling all over me. Disgusting.

The conference begins it's third day today and tonight I'm going to watch T act out her fantasy as a pool shark. With any luck I'll find a clean bed tonight that may have a fan located nearby. I'm getting excited about Alaska. It's coming up very soon and I can't wait to travel with Oriana. I want to see how she adapts to the stresses of travel. It shall prove interesting.

I posted the pictures from Vegas on my Flickr account. You can see them here, or you can wait for a few to show up on the site.

Sarah "Crazy Pants" and me

Save the Last Breath

2006-06-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

And this is when I'm supposed to write about how good this feels. To arrive home with this woman, late, drunk. Candles lit and the slow undressing, showing her perfect form, her amazing frame supporting the most precise ratio of skin and muscle. You never thought that you could find someone as perfectly proportioned as this. Everything is in its place.

As if you're not completely blown away by her physical presence, her words reveal the perfection of her mind. Intelligence that intimidates and excites. Compassion in the way she thinks. She speaks to a stranger driving a cab, asking about his night, talking about how the neighborhood has changed and grown. She shakes his hand through a tiny window at 4 in the morning and wishes him a safe drive home to his family.

She lights a candle and plays the song that nearly brings tears to your eyes with nostalgia. A song you've heard so many times before as a kid. You used to think about how it would feel to have someone so dear. You always wondered why he sang such a sad song and who could have put him in such a state. You always longed for what made him feel so strongly for a person.

She tells you that you have awakened something inside her that has been asleep. She is awake now. She is alive.

And there you are with a stranger who you feel you could trust with your life. Lying on her bed watching her undress before you. It all comes together in a flash. This is actually happening. Have you found what you've been looking for?

But you're about to leave.

Last night we sat in the dark humid night and cried about the irony of the journey that has brought me into her life and will ultimately tear me away in a few weeks time.

We're flying to Alaska on Saturday. There's no sense in being rational now.

72 - On God - Hike

2006-06-08T16:12:00.000-07:00

72 - On God - Hike
Spilled beans and other fallacies...

I've "Spilled the bean" to mom and now you've gone silent?
I've checked this blog daily for weeks now to find it silent and wanting, wondering whether or not you would ever post again, wondering if you'd forgotten that we look to this as a source of inspiration (okay, maybe that's a stretch). Definitely a source of entertainment - perhaps that's a little more accurate.
Let's talk about how much mom can remember. Given the relative obscurity of the title, compounded by her relative lack of internet saavy, I fail to see how she has tracked down your blog by one fleeting reference during an alcohol infused meal. This is also assuming that she is curious enough to take the time to find it in the first place.
I've got news for you little brother - those of us who are reading this (most likely mom included) are only interested in your thoughts because we love who you are, not because we are interested in finding fault in you in any way. We know who you are - we've had decades to find this out now - and we love you for it.
Remember that it takes more than a few late-night ramblings about lost-love and shaving to shock us at this point.

they slow-danced so the needle wouldn't skip until the room was filled with light

2006-06-08T09:35:00.000-07:00

I've stopped shaving.

My kids keep asking about it and I've come up with the best response... I'm shedding my Catholic upbringing and I'm off to join up with a militant Islamic group.

Because of the high clouds in the sky I could tell that the wind wasn't blowing very hard so I headed out to the coast and checked all the usual spots. There was a bit of south swell in the water still and Cayucos was working well during the high-tide flow.

I paddled out and found a little peak for myself, surfed for a while and had a fun time doing so. The smile on my face diminished slightly when I realized how being right there made me perfectly happy and that it's almost gone.

The high clouds hadn't quite diminished so the sun was filtered and the water took on a dark slate hue. The wind was lightly blowing from the south-east so there was a slight bump to the water which only added to it's darkened look. With the setting sun causing a bit of a glare you couldn't see any of the details on the other surfers' faces. They were black silouettes bobbing in the grey water. All three of them looked out to sea, waiting for the next wave to hit the sandbar and jack into a brief moment of physics, momentum, and inertia. Although the water at a distance was dark, looking down I could clearly see through to the sandy bottom. As waves passed over my head, I could open my eyes in this green world and watch the turbulence punch my face and twist my body.

It was all perfect. Every last detail screamed of summer. Those long evenings surfing with friends, whistling for Kova as I got out of the water. I'd find her walking along and popping the seaweed. Kova would come bounding towards me and we'd wrestle around in the sand for a bit before J would catch just one more wave. I missed it. Right at that moment I missed all of that. I thought immediately of when I got my job at Santa Maria and I told myself that this was all it would take to keep me happy.

And it was then when I felt this pain of regret for accepting the position in Japan. For giving all of this up, for walking away. For leaving San Luis.

But I know that I have to go. I've overstayed my welcome in this little town. In a few days my college friends will graduate and I'll be left with a bunch of people my own age, everyone all coupled up and cozy at night. I think I'll go crazy here alone.

But it was wonderful out there last night. Absolutely beautiful.

Let's pretend we're in Antarctica

2006-06-05T11:23:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the lack of posting here. I was just testing you, trying to see who would keep checking even though there was no activity. I need to know that the people who read this are the die-hard fans, those who would never be swayed from their allegiance by a few weeks of blanks.

It was hard to keep up. I feel that I hit a climax and couldn't keep up my pace. I had to relax a little. It was getting tough to go on.

Well, there's another reason too. My sister spilled the beans to my mother a few weeks ago that I was using this site as a dispatch of my thoughts and soon to be travels. So, in order to twart any surveliance by mom, I've had to silence the keyboard for a bit. But I think the air-raid is over, the city is safe again tonight.

So I'll read to you.

Untitled by David Ignatow
I sink back upon the ground, expecting to die. A voice speaks out of my ear, you are not going to die, you are being changed into a zebra. You will have black and white stripes up and down your back and you will love people as you do not now.

That is why you will be changed into a zebra that people will tame and exhibit in a zoo. You will be a favorite among children and you will love the children in return whom you do not love now. Zoo keepers will make a pet of you because of your round sad eyes and musical bray, and you will love your keeper as you do not now.

All is well, then, I tell myself silently, listening to the voice in my ear speak to me of my future. And what will happend to you, voice in my ear, I ask silently, and the answer comes at once: I will be your gentle, musical bray that will help you as a zebra all your days. I will mediate between the world and you, and I will learn to love you as a zebra whom I did not love as a human being.

Listening left us also with the knowledge that, once you stop to look, everyone has the most beautiful eyes.

2006-05-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

From Harper's Magazine June 2006

Constance at the Home: Yes, Frank. I'm here at the home of a family we believe may have fallen victim somehow to the event of night, down here, tonight.

The scene is quiet. The lights at this simple one-story home are all off.

A sprinkler,on a timer, waters the lawn in long, even sprinklings of water.

The scene is dark. In the darkness, a floodlight, activated by a motion detector, will periodically flood the lawn and drive with light. What is felt most here is the mystery. The unspectacular mystery.

What remains for us to feel - after having knelt down to feel the worn-out welcome mat, looked up at the humble shape of a simple house - is, again, the mystery. The feeling that there are deep, deep things in the world. Structures, vacancy, people, departures - and all of the strange-sounding names of things, to name only a few. We just a moment ago learned that it was only so long ago that the residents of this modest off-white home gathered on the perfect lawn here, to throw horseshoes and eat food. Also, lather that same day, they made a human pyramid. Which, still a little later, in laughter, collapsed. Frank?

--Will Eno

talk to me

2006-05-14T01:10:00.000-07:00

days are slipping by and only a few more to count on.

I want the anticipation to come to an end. I want to leave and start something new right now but there are days left to spend in the sun. Very long days. Twilight filtering in past 9.

And although it should be wrapping up, finishing, I continue to wrap myself within the tangles I started months ago.

The weather shows no change. We've settled into the long chapter of summer. 72 degrees, fog clearing to partly cloudy skies. Weather to sit idle in and wait it out. Perfect for removing the excess skin from my life. Pushing away the tired memories and looking at the gloss of the past. Waiting for a chance to see something other than the thousands of similar pictures I've got in a box in the back of my head.

The Boy Scouts of America handbook gives a few clues as to how to survive a mess, like quicksand for example. The first bit of advice is to stay calm. Don't agitate the substance surrounding you because it will only make the problem worse. You'll only slip deeper into the very situation you are trying to extract yourself from. Don't move. Don't react. Stop struggleing against the forces that you've put yourself in contact with.
Just stop.
Wait.
Look for something you can pull yourself out with. Look for a passing animal that can help pull you away from your tangled mess. When it comes close, grab hold and hope that it has the strength to pull you clear. With that said, choose your animal wisely. There's no sense dragging another innocent being into all of this. That, of course, would be against the Boy Scout code of honor.

I've no one left to wish a good night.

Light me with your candleWatch the flames grow highIt doesn't hurt to try

2006-05-10T11:35:00.001-07:00

She spends two hours on a sunday
choosing the plants and flowers from the store.
She whistles as she places them firmly in their new homes
and gives each a blessing of water before closing the door.
And I am left to watch them die
as she vanished and summer came.

** wake me up witb a call late at night **

Technically, I only have to go to work 6 more days this year.
I've still got 15 sick days and there are only 21 days of school left.

So... anyone want to go on a road trip?

Yesterday afternoon I was presented with an opportunity to go to Salinas, Santa Cruz, and Monterrey. After carefully considering my alternatives (bike ride in the wind, surf in the wind, reading, writing, eating) I decided that I couldn't rightly pass up the chance to endure the agony of a long car trip with no immediate purpose. Zach had a few errands to run, and the prospect of In n' Out in Salinas was more than enough to sway my opinion.

Although we started a half hour past schedule I was optimistic and had no idea what kind of mishaps and changes in schedule we were in store for within the next 400 miles. We had a timetable for the meetings and exchanges that were to take place and we were determined to stick to it even though we were late out the starting gate. Both of us are educated people and I should have anticipated this more than anyone really. We arrived at the tuxedo rental shop in the Salinas mall to find the place packed to the gills with high school boys and their moms. How I overlooked the upcoming prom season is beyond me. We were about resign ourselves to a couple hours in line with a mix of Salinas' finest contradictory t-shirts (my favorite was "this is my sit around the house and do absolutely nothing shirt") when Zach decided to talk the one employee into believeing that we had an appointment.

So with Salinas in our rearview we headed towards a meeting in Santa Cruz that lasted about 2 hours longer than it should have. Zach had some pants that belonged to a friend that came into town the week before. We went to drop them off and got suckered into making dinner, drinking a bit of wine, and trying to find an antique bottle in the attic of her house (I'm a collector). The only part of the trip that went as planned was the stop at Zach's sister's house in Monterrey. After getting lost in the back streets of Marina we finally made it back to 101 and started the long trip home.

I woke up this morning at 6:30 like usual. Strangely, I wasn't as exhausted as I would have expected after 4 hours of sleep.

After Saturday night I made a silent promise to myself that I would put work/school first until the end of the year. I mean, theres only 21 days left. The least I can do is make sure that I am as prepared as possible to show movies in my AP Stats class and play around with my Algebra 1 students for an hour or two each day. But... As the last few days have, once again, proved I am not focused on anything. I'll blow with the wind, wherever it goes. So, if you're bored, need someone to come by for dinner, look in your attic, drive across the state, county, or country with you, pick you up off the side of a dark highway at 11pm, go out, stay in... what I'm saying is that you may want to think about calling me.

it's not until something is gone...

2006-05-07T09:28:00.000-07:00

It's not until something is gone that you can truly appreciate what you had. I tell myself this about the state of silence and a comfortable ride as my car refuses to stop beeping a loud, persistent reminder that I am driving with the emergency brake on. I am in fact not driving with the E-brake on - it is most definitely in the off position, but according to my car it is on and it is the car's duty to warn me about this in the form of an ongoing tone at 1.5 second intervals. Imagine, if you will, driving around like this. I consider my options - which range from hitting it with a hammer, to rolling it off a cliff (will insurance pay me for that?), to getting in the fetal position and sobbing (with the car off of course, because the beeping is becoming simply too much to bear). I call my mechanic who, like most people with a truly useful skill,l receives and ignores such phone calls at 10:00 p.m. on a Saturday night. No one wants to be bothered in their off time with such nonsense. To me it's an EMERGENCY!, to him alas it is not.
I call Christie, who advises me (laughing hysterically) to take the bus. She also has a Volkswagen, and consequently is also having car problems; she has been riding the bus for the last three days, and relishes the fact that I may be joining her on our city's smelly public transportation system. "Cool! It's all drunks, drug addicts, homeless and people picking fights with each other!" she exclaims. "It's like being at work, only you're not getting paid!"
So I am currently thinking about where in the immediate vicinity I can get my needs met for the day. Also wondering how far exactly I can drive while listening to the beeping without going insane... And scheming ways to get my mechanic to call me back...
While this is not the worst thing that could have happened in the world, it is indeed an annoying inconvenience.

something brilliant, of course

2006-04-28T22:47:00.000-07:00

oh the pressure...
to come up with something brilliant, worthwhile, readable. not sucky.
well, here it goes, although I have a feeling that since I have nothing really to say, this may turn into a rambling sort of piece. you know, I'm really not pleased that you are leaving. I know that you have to (in a way you're already gone in your mind - "I don't care, I'm leaving the country") but that doesn't mean that I have to like it does it? Maybe I'm just jealous. And scared that you won't come back.
That having been said...
I am definitely in a strange place in my life. I find myself questioning myself - what I'm doing, where I'm going in life, that kind of thing. I know that I'm not really happy with what I'm doing for a living. Actually, I'm getting so sick of the people that I could just scream: "take some fucking responsibility for yourself, stop whining, stop being a victim, stop shooting dope, stop neglecting your children, stop being such a goddamn baby!!!" Oh, that's so not therapeutic!! I don't say those things (although, maybe I should), but I sure think them. Oh yes, I'm murdering them in my mind.
My parents were married, had children, had purchased a home by the time they were my age. I still ask them for money. Is that what I want to do with my life? I don't know. What I do know however, is that sometimes, I feel like I'm sleepwalking. Like I'm just waiting to wake up and start my life, but I don't know how. Am I under water? Am I wasting my time?
I get the urge sometimes to leave all of this - to get rid of my apartment, quit my job, get rid of my STUFF, and just...just what exactly? Join the circus, become a hobo, eat beans out of a can while I ride the rails? Move to South America, "go native" wear leather sandles and live in a hut, while suffering crippling bouts of dysentary and feverous Malaria spells??
Christie plans to move to Mexico in October. Puerto Vallarta actually. Maybe she can look up our old friend with the initials M.L. Christie - Another example of someone close to me taking a leap and doing something that they want to do. I begin then to ask myself: Is it that I am scared to "do what I really want to do?" Actually, it's much, much worse than that: I don't know what it is that I want to do. That is such a worse place to be. Others are moving forward, living their dreams, and I'm still asking myself: What do you want to do with your life? Time to figure it out - before it is too late and I've missed it all. I just don't want to be one of those people who regrets wasting their lives...

i noticed you were scared

2006-04-23T21:44:00.000-07:00

Spring Break 2006! Yeah! Whooo!

I'm glad it's over, all of this travel and such. Bio-luminescent dolphins, leopard sharks, Pinback, 40's, late-night bike rides, tight blue underwear, drunken kayaking, saying goodbye. It will be comforting to return to the routine.

On our car ride home, Karla and I talked about the increasing frequency of goodbyes that last an indefinite amount of time. I realize that for the next three months I will say goodbye to all of my friends. Some sooner than others. Some people who I see very infrequently but most will be people who I rely on everyday for support and humor. This is something I expected when I signed the contract, but I'm just shocked as to how it feels. I find the particular emotion to be completely new for me. I suppose that I'll be able to describe it as soon as I feel it more and become used to it.

Caught a Norfolk & Western show in the city on Friday night. I didn't have anyone to go with so I met Laura there. While I was waiting I met the drummer who I've had a bit of a fascination with since I saw them perform in San Luis. I swear, I've never felt like a groupie before, but when I struck up a conversation and bought her a beer my heart was racing and I was bumbling like a 14 year old talking to Justin Timberlake.

So, when we got home to San Luis, I went out to the back to check on my tomatoes only to find utter desolation. Some critter had come in and decimated the entire crop, everything.

sleep outside and not take flight

2006-04-20T00:27:00.000-07:00

Made it back to slo tonight. The liter of coffee is still throbbing in my veins so I uploaded my pictures to flickr but I'll put them up here throughout the next couple days.

Here's one I took last night when we hiked up to the top of the ridge at dusk. I set my camera to expose for 15 seconds and was able to capture enough of the fading light to get a pretty cool image.

Goodnight.

i have no conscience to keep clear

2006-04-16T18:20:00.000-07:00

I know you've all grown accustom to these daily updates from my little literary world of misunderstood prose and slightly irrelevant banter, but I'm going to have to take a break for a while. The stress is finally getting to me. I need some time off. So to recouperate, I'm heading to the isle of Catalina for a few days. Frolli has been working out there for about a year at the Catalina Island Marine Institute. That's right folks, she graduated college to become a camp counselor. We'll spend a few days exploring the island, surfing, kayaking, diving, and just dicking around. Doing what I do best.

So in my absence, I'll leave you with something from David Berman. I think of this poem when I yearn for the innocence of the past. There were simpler times before all of these complications. In hindsight they seem that way. I hope your weekend travels went well.

Classic Water

I remember Kitty saying we shared a deep longing for
the consolation prize, laughing as we rinsed the stagecoach.

I remember the night we camped out
and I heard her wishper
"think of me as a place" from her sleeping bag
with the centaur print.

I remember being in her father's basement workshop
when we picked up an unknown man sobbing
over the shortwave radio

and the night we got so high we convinced ourselves
that the road was a hologram projected by the headlight beams.

I remember how she would always get everyone to vote
on what we should do next and the time she said
"all water is classic water" and shyly turned her face away.

At volleyball games her parents sat in the bleachers
like ambassadors from Indiana in all their midwestern schmaltz.

She was destroyed when they were busted for operating
a private judicial system within U.S. borders.

Sometimes I'm awakened in the middle of the night
by the clatter of a room service cart and I think back on Kitty.

Thosee summer evenings by the government lake,
talking about the paradox of multiple Santas
or how it felt to have your heart broken.

I still get a hollow feeling on Labor Day when the summer ends

and I remember how I would always refer to her boyfriends
as what's-his-face, which was wrong of me and I'd like
to apologize to those guys right now, wherever they are:

No one deserves to be called what's-his-face.

no excuse for a wasted life

2006-04-15T17:05:00.000-07:00

Shellfish

Always spend a penny
as if you were spending a
dollar
and always spend a dollar
as if you were spending
a wounded eagle and always
spend a wounded eagle as if
you were spending the very
sky itself.

too young to know, too cool to care

2006-04-14T13:47:00.000-07:00

From the positive response I've heard gotten from yesterday's Brautigan, I think it's appropriate to give a couple more.

Please don't make me go out tonight.

AT THE GUESS OF A SIMPLE HELLO

at the guess of a simple hello
it can all begin
toward crying yourself to sleep
wondering where the fuck
she is.

HEROINE OF THE TIME MACHINE

when she was fifteen if you'd told her
that when she was twenty she'd be going
to bed with bald-headed men and liking it,
she would have thought you very abstract.

point a to point b

2006-04-13T12:07:00.000-07:00

The last day of school for a while. Spring break begins today and afterwards, I've only got about 7 weeks of school. So marks the final 2 months in San Luis. I've grown tired of this town. It is a terrible paradox in that the physical beauty of the surrounding landscapes is contrasted by the vacant stares that one finds when they look into the eyes of it's inhabitants. I know that I haven't surrounded myself with the best people lately, but at least they know how to have fun. The problem is that is the only thing they know how to do. It's quite sad really. What's surprising is that I can't wait to leave. I can't wait to get back to Los Angeles. To be surrounded by heat, tension, life.

I love Brautigan

IMPASSE

i talked a good hello
but she talked an even
better goodbye

2006-04-12T10:38:00.000-07:00

Submitted my resignation letter today.

Maybe they'll give me an opportunity to come back to the district. If they grant a two year leave of absence I'll be guaranteed a position. They won't tell me what position, but I'll have a job doing something.

Not very promising considering they can't seem to fill a couple janitor positions still.

I found a photo article on slate today that documents the failed rockets that are falling throughout the country.

Sway

since i find you will no longer love,
from bar to bar in terror i shall move
past forty-third and halsted, twenty-fourth
and roosevelt where fire-gutted cars,
their bones the bones of coyote and hyena
suffer the light from the wrestling arena
to fall all over them. and what they say
blends in the tarantellasmic sway
of all of us between the two of these:
harmony and divergence,
their sad story of harmony and divergence,
the story that begins
i did not know who she was
and ends i did not know who she was.

denis johnson

leave the keysleave the keyspick up the boxes with your knees

2006-04-10T08:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, time for another dream sequence.

I'm in the Denver airport. I know that I'm running out of time before my plane leaves but I can't find the gate, and I can't find my ticket. I keep running into all of these security checkpoints and each time the security guy finds another lighter on my person. I don't understand where they keep coming from, but I've got an endless supply of them and the TSA employees know exactly where to look. Time is running out, my lighters never stop coming, and the rollerblades... I forgot about the rollerblades I was wearing.

i swear i was sober

2006-04-04T21:48:00.000-07:00

some people think cucumbers taste better pickled

bitter taste of missed opportunity

2006-04-03T09:56:00.000-07:00

Ah, the detachment of leaving town and spending a weekend with strangers in the mountains. You should all be as proud as I am of my little hybrid. She made it all the way up into the sierras during a massive snowstorm. I'll admit it was a bit dicey for a while, but the chains held traction and we made it through the dark night.

And we're back, in a rainstorm. Damp students, in a damp room. It's as if nature was our big brother and when we asked it nicely to stop raining, it just hit us again in the shoulder and kept on raining.

Nature is a jerk.

I've updated the songs on the right. I think you'll like the Norfolk and Western one. I can't get over the restraint that the vocalist holds in his voice. The guitar keeps trying to leap out from under it's controls, break the reigns and play loudly. But by not releasing a wall of sound, we are forced to enjoy the slight traces of angst that bleeds out of the plucked strings.

It was a long car ride, and I didn't have much to think about.

I'll try and get some pictures of the mountain up soon. It was one of the best days in the snow that I've had in a long time. About 2 feet of fresh powder, and no crowds at all. There was a cornice at the top of the mountain that was a quick 5-10 foot drop into a big open field of fresh snow. I must have hit it a dozen times. I was still getting fresh snow on the last runs of the day.

please relax

2006-03-31T10:37:00.000-08:00

so... we're in lockdown at school and I'm just trying to pass the time until I can let the kids out of the room. Coincidentally, I've got to drop the kids off at the pool too. So, the wait is on.

In the meantime, we're watching snowboarding movies and I'm just thinking about all of the fantastic snow I'm about to go get this weekend in Bear Valley. I'll be thinking about you all as I leave town to avoid dealing with the leprechaun. Apparently she's in town this weekend, but it's time for me to keep her far far away from me. So, off with William H. Macy and the crew from Palm Street.

For now, enjoy this little one from Hugo Williams. I hope you all have the flashing red lights above your head Saturday morning. That's all I can hope for myself too.

Saturday Morning
-- by Hugo Williams

Everyone who made love the night before
was walking around with flashing red lights
on top of their heads-a white-haired old gentlemen,
a red-faced schoolboy, a pregnant woman
who smiled at me from across the street
and gave a little secret shrug,
as if the flashing red light on her head
was a small price to pay for what she knew.

I hear a voice call out, it wants something new

2006-03-28T20:53:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since a post has come along. But I've been busy. Vacationing in Mexico with the family, thinking about math, thinking about Japan, trying to find a lady that isn't too crazy (keep trying), saying hello to strangers in the dark.

But you don't respond anymore. You all just ignore it as if it never mattered. But it does, and it will as the days pass. I've only got about 4 more months before I leave.

All Told
by Dean Young

News of her death
comes obscured with radiance
as if delivered by God's messenger.
The heart struggles with depictions,
scarves fly from her mouth
as the car hits the tree at 70.
For hours, content just lies there,
a butterfly smashed in a dictionary.
Phantom cauldrons pour molten leads
through the air. There is a narrowing,
a soaking with fiercer color.
God puts everything on the anvil.
A definition is a sorry thing but
we will all be redefined. Someone
cuts the stems of lilies
for a shallow vase. Someone else
comes home, wet from walking in the fog.

Everest

2006-03-13T22:35:00.000-08:00

I know it's long, but read through it. You'll spend two minutes and you'll see why I put it up today. Sometimes we need to work a little to understand a new way of looking around ourselves.

It's the line, "after she left, everything I did was like wading through hip-deep water," that makes me feel.

Hope you all have a good day.

Story
by Spencer Short

Lloyd shotts pool like he's standing
in a puddle being prodded with live wires.
All spasms & twitches. In Geneva, no,
in a movie, in sepia tones & subtitles,
a man & woman in Geneva share
a small glass of pear brandy.
Someone else has lost her dog.
And here, where the red lights are
cast down like eyes, demurely,
like a face blushing,
Laughing Boy is chuckling to himself
in the corner or staring at the jukebox,
a tiny web of saliva in his beard.
There are intimate questions
assailing the world like tiny pebbles
of hail. Someone whispers I love you
in a dark room but he might as well
be shouting More light! in 19th-
century Weimar or asking
his cabby where the ducks in the park
go in winter. One moment X
is standing there in a grey scarf,
backlit by the window,
the next she's in Colorado dyeing
t-shirts at minimum wage.
What I'm trying to say is, after
she left, everything I did was like
wading through hip-deep water,
learning to love everyone & no one
in particular. Things change so quickly.
For instance: you are walking to work.
The sun seems unusually bright
off of the tall office windows.
You are wearing a thick wool sweater
& the cold stings your ears, wraps its
hands around your neck. Later, sitting
at your desk, you look up, it's mid-afternoon,
you're sweating. Outside, the sound of
a landscaper's shovel could be the first bite
into a good apple. And then it's spring.
But this is not spring. The entire town smells
like dog food. The day seems so sad.
It can't even heft its own weight.
There's work to do today, it says, but why?

just for a little while

2006-03-11T19:23:00.000-08:00

Going There
-Jack Gilbert

Of course it was a disaster.
That unbearable, dearest secret
has always been a disaster.
The danger when we try to leave.
Going over and over afterward
what we should have done
instead of what we did.
But for those short times
we seemed to be alive. Misled,
misused, lied to and cheated,
certainly. Still, for that
little while, we visited
our possible life.

what i forgot to remember

2006-03-07T09:32:00.000-08:00

I am trying to remember it chronologically. Winter or Spring or Summer, they were days without change. Good for the night, thanks for the darkness, otherwise we would not have known that one day ended and another began.

-John Fante, ask the dust

If you've ever felt good about devious thoughts that could extinguish your happy life
If you've ever mocked the glue that holds you together
If you've ever seen the storm pass while your house still unbelievably stands

then you know how good it feels to wake up on a morning like today.
you know what a pleasure it is to see the light through the cheap blinds, hear the hot water heater click on, the alarm begins to sound and a complacent smile returns to your face.

now entering passive (PASV) mode

2006-03-06T08:22:00.000-08:00

Not too much to write today. Just a rainy day in SM, waiting for the kids, hoping the day goes smoothly.

I've put up a few links to some music there on the right. It's hosted through my account at school so I don't know how long it will stay up there before they realize we are stealing their bandwidth. So grab it while you can. The D.D. Scout Plane song is my brother's band, and Wolf Parade is from their first full-length album that was released in the late part of 2005. The band is from Canada but the album was produced by Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse. I think you'll like both, but I'll change the songs later this week so you have a chance to get more without triggering any alarms at SMHS.

I'm in the middle of 4 books right now and I've got to consolidate. I have four different sets of characters in four different time periods running through my head right now. It's a good thing though considering my mind isn't all that focused right now.

At uptown yesterday I filled out the first of my visa request forms. The whole damn thing was in Japanese. But I'm on my way towards my deep understanding of the Japanese language, I was able to decipher the symbol for month and day.

your voice and your ghost

2006-03-03T08:09:00.000-08:00

Ode to Hangover
-- by Dean Young

Hangover, you drive me into the yard
to dig holes as a way of working through you
as one might work through a sorry childhood
by riding the forbidden amusement park rides
as a grown-up until puking. Alas, I feel like
something spit out by a duck, a duck
other ducks are ashamed of when I only
tried to protect myself by projecting myself
on hilarity's big screen at the party
where one nitwit reminisced about the 39¢
a pound chicken of his youth and another said,
Don't go to Italy in June, no one goes to Italy in June.
Protect myself from boring advice,
from the boring past and the boring present
at the expense of an unnauseating future:
now. But look at these newly-socketed lilacs!
Without you, Hangover, they would still be
trapped in their buckets and not become
the opposite of vomit just as you, Hangover,
are the opposite of Orgasm. Certainly
you go on too long and in your grip
one thinks, How to have you never again?
whereas Orgasm lasts too short some seconds
and immediately one plots to repeat her.
After her I could eat a car but here's
a pineapple/clam pizza and Chinese milkshake
yum but Hangover, you make me aspire
to a saltine. Both of you need to lie down,
one with a cool rag across the brow, shutters
drawn, the other in a soft jungle gym, yahoo,
this puzzle has 15 thousand solutions!
Here's one called Rocking Horse
and how about Sunshine in the Monkey Tree.
Chug, chug, goes the arriving train,
those on the platform toss their hats and scarves
and cheer, the president comes out of the caboose
to declare, The war is over! Corks popping,
people mashing people, knocking over melon stands,
ripping millenniums of bodices. Hangover,
rest now, you'll have lots to do later
inspiring abstemious philosophies and menial tasks
that too contribute to the beauty of this world.

stupid haircut

2006-03-02T21:25:00.000-08:00

laying here

head's a mess

antsyexcitedspazticagitatedmanic

Waiting for something to happen. Hoping movement will come along and cause the tension to break. Can't force anything for fear that everything will come crashing down. All the little pieces I've placed strategically throughout my head could be destroyed with the slightest breeze from the wrong deviation of the azimuth. Something must come along, break this all up, because I can't do it to myself. I obviously have no idea which direction will work, I'd have tried that a long time ago.

Knots in my stomach. I can't keep a thought straight in my head long enough to see it through it's logical end. Long enough to lay it down, see it fall into place. Watch the lines of demarcation disappear as it settles amongst it's counterparts.

I can self-medicate to go to sleep. But I don't want to miss a second of this. It's too important to let this pass by in a fuzz.

Sit and listen to the piano keys playing the melody I've yet to master. The notes, thoughts I'm not accustomed to.

I won't relax. Let my guard down. Sit here, heart pounding, watching the seconds pass, hoping for a break.

I should call someone. Let them talk me down. But I don't want to come down, I don't want this tension to break. When it breaks I am left without the very concept that is holding the pieces together. When it breaks I am left holding so many broken pieces. Useless little pieces of thought and action that can never survive alone.

I need people. Strangers. Some type of life swimming around me. Supporting these thoughts with their energy. They don't need to know anything, but it may be obvious that something is drastically wrong.

But I know I can walk around them. I can say hello and respond with lucidity. Speak the phrases they expect as my head envelops their entire being for no reason other than the possibility that

racing from the rising tide to my father's door

2006-02-27T22:50:00.000-08:00

I took this picture driving through Idaho one morning with my brother

Fukuoka, Japan

2006-02-18T18:30:00.000-08:00

I've accepted a position teaching math in Fukuoka, Japan. I will be the only math teacher in a small international school. The students are from all over the world and I will be teaching everything from Geometry through Senior Level IB which includes AP Calculus AB and BC, AP Statistics, and the IB final examination. It's an amazing chance for me to grow to the highest level of high school teaching.

I leave to fulfill my 2 year contract on August 16th, so I have 6 months left in the states.

I don't have much to say about the whole situation. I'm excited about the opportunity and relieved that I made it through the exhausting interview process. I hope that we'll all get to see each other a few times before I leave, but remember that you're all welcome to come visit and experience a bit of Japan.

I think that I'm going to keep an online journal at 72ongodhike.blogspot.com. It's been a place for a bunch of us to talk since the 'team t-bag' trip last May, but I'm going to resurrect it as my own place to talk.

D

blue windows behind the storms

2005-11-29T18:51:00.000-08:00

I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it, and that is the important thing. Clouds just keep circling the earth around and around. And around. There is not much else to do.

syria

2005-11-21T09:21:00.000-08:00

So, I heard the news today that some students were killed over the weekend. I went to the staff meeting and heard their names and I recognized too many of them.

and I'm standing in front of my students this morning with tears in my eyes. I can barely hold it together.

Before this, I knew that I cared about the students that I worked with. But knowing that two of my previous students are dead hurts more than I would ever imagine. And suddenly, the routine we run every morning seems meaningless, and the segues are all out of proportion to the events they come between. I'm having a hard time with all of this. But I want to speak plainly to them but the shocked look in their eyes that comes from seeing a statue bleed makes me choke on my words. I have to go now and pretend, like a dog with a stick, that factoring quadratic equations is the only thing that ever matters in this life.

2005-07-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

I walked in the room and saw what you'd left me on the desk.

I sat turning the empty pages over,
blank white sheets

wishing you'd left me something
to remember

reading painful words
is better than turning empty pages

and missing yesterday