Heavily armed window-dressing

I went to the courthouse recently - to get the approval of some mammal in a black robe - and had to pass through the security checkpoint at the door.  The cop looked at my keychain with it's tiny, red Swiss Army knife and told me I couldn't take it in because it was a 'weapon.'  He had a waste-basket ready to receive it.

"Ok, then," he says... "You can go stick it on the wall between the bricks outside, then get it again when you leave. So that's what I did... but oops... wrong courthouse.  I collected my knife from the crack, then ran to the other courthouse.  By the time I got there I'd forgotten about the 'weapon' in my pocket and passed through the metal-detector without a single beep.

I coulda carved up all they all's carcasses when I was in there.

Bicycle diaries...

It's been a long, flabby winter, but I'm back on the road.

My ass, once a magnificent specimen, is now soft and doughy.  My lung capacity is embarrassingly tiny, and I get winded at the slightest provocation... I could say it's for money, the environment, to prevent crowding... it's really because of exercise.  I was fearing a long break-in period (and goodness knows, I'll be sore) but my first day out felt as if I hadn't put my bike away at all.  Then it started snowing.

I like the idea that I get my exercise from my simple movements from here to there... like a wild animal.  Driving makes me feel so domesticated sometimes.

It's a real 'seat of the pants' experience around these parts.  You take your life into your hands riding a bicycle on the street in this city.  There are two ways I can ride my bike to work, and neither of them are any good.  Both have extended portions where the streets make no room for bikes - and big segments of these don't even have sidewalks to ride on.  Hands down, I feel safer on these streets on a motorcycle than I ever have on a bicycle.

We're not welcome on the roads by most of the drivers around here (even when there's a bike path,) and in Salt Lake proper it's illegal to ride on the sidewalk... last I heard.  The reality then becomes that you ride wherever you have to just to be safe.  I stick to the street when I'm not going to work, and use my best manners with traffic so's to help avoid a brutal squishing.

But no... I will not sit at a stoplight with the car people when there's no cross traffic, I'm going to keep riding.  I yield to pedestrians on the sidewalk, but those who don't want me there are invited to fuck off.  (Like that guy I always see 'round 9th South and West Temple who likes to shout, "Ride on the street!"  You ride on the street, dumbass, and if you don't get splattered like a grape under an SUV by some idiot on a cell phone, then you can lecture me.)

Yes... I'm feeling a little pissy today, but I promise, it's completely genuine.

I came across this picture today on the internets.  The same amount of people with cars, bus, and bikes... three pictures are worth a thousand words.

Move with the energy...

A torrid affair with a new phone... consumer electronics make me horny.  Fending off Bouncing Betty... 'crazy bitch' it turns out, is not just a locker room pejorative.  Falling off my schedule how many times?  Methinks there's something rotten in Denver.

When has there not been something rotten in Denver?  It was two years ago since my depression subsided, but even then I knew full well I'd go right back there if things didn't change.  I began writing, adressed my medical problems, came out from under my girlfriend's bed and figured out what it feels like to be 'happy.'  I kept the dead-end graveyard job for the security and the freedom... And why not?  It's a scary world out there and I'm one of the few I know who actually has health insurance.

So for the past year, at least, I've been attempting to do my creative projects while working a job with no potential for satisfaction while dating casually.  It's clear to me that my schedule is really putting a damper on my creative energies, and no matter how good the sex is, my relationships are (very) far from satisfying, and socially, I've only succeeded in alienating the interesting people I've met.

I did have one failed attempt as the bold entrepreneur, one that gave me a taste for working with my hands at something artistic, that ended when my partner ripped me off.  I've even been in and out of school in that time.

But last weekend, after much soul searching, defining what I want out of life, and consulting the oracles (presided over by my most favoritest Moon Goddess...) I finally internalized a notion that came to me when I first snapped out of my depression: I have quit my job.

If I'm trying to maximize my energy, then I need to be sleeping at night and getting up in the morning.  I have to move with the energy and not against it.  As it turns out, I've an excellent opportunity for learning a real trade with artistic overtones and unlimited potential for expression. I'm going to apprentice in my roommate's shop (which is about 50 feet from my bedroom door) and do all I can to make myself indispensable to her.  When they roll out the latest round of lay-offs in what I expect will be the next year or so, I'll volunteer.  I'll get a couple grand in severance and will drop into my new work full time.

That's the plan, anyway.

My writing projects are still there in my mind, of course.  I work on them when I can - which is all I've been able to ever do anyway.

Part of this realization came a few weeks ago when I became entranced in the gaze of Big, Green-Eyed Trouble...  If you've never had the experience of looking into a girl's eyes and suddenly figuring out what's important to you, I recommend it highly.  It put the image in my mind of my last LTR, all the closeness of shared goals and a shared bed, doing nice things and nice things done for me.  ...And a real 'bed' too, and not some afternoon nap together because I have to be at work by 10pm... a relationship not weighed down by years of depression.  All that sounds like home after the last two years...

It would definitely be what I'd call a leap of faith, but I'm certain that my health, mood and energy will do nothing but improve.  I've just never had the courage before.

It's been my experience that nobody really knows what will make them happy, and this realization is speculative, just like any other.  And if it is that the rest of my life is to be spent flailing about trying to find something that fits... so be it.  But if the last two years have been any indication, I'm on the right track and only getting closer.

The last few months have been the happiest I've ever known.  I emerge from my little shack and see the purple-orange sky and I'm filled with such gratitude that I can't contain it. The moon overhead stirs my soul and opens my mind to accept a world I've so long rejected.  I entered this life with all the advantages, got mangled, mutilated and spat out the bottom with virtually nothing, but still I can't believe my luck.  At my age, with my past, it's almost as if I've been granted a new life completely.

I'm healthy, happy, and have spread before me many fat, succulent opportunities at which I can succeed or fail spectacularly with minimal interference from all the old, bad things.

So it is true... wonders will never cease.

Desisted...

I can pay attention to one thing at a time, at least.

So... through legal wrangling I've been able to get my garnishment stopped for now. For a week after the court desision it felt as if I had a gallon of extra lung space.  Each breath felt like a rebirth, or a college graduation or a new job...

I took deep breaths until I couldn't contain my emotions... I deserve those good feelings.

Hidden behind little girl's eyes...

Evil, women, irony, money…

Here I sit in my favorite coffee shop next to a hot, mug of green tea. The one solitary dollar I had left in the world - supplemented with the Kennedy half-dollar I’ve had sliding around in my ashtray for the last two years - went to pay for the tea. Payday isn’t for another seven days, and all the food I have at home is a half-bag of Bachelor Chow and a half-jar of peanut butter.

I had another hearing with the implacable gods of the kleptocracy… Last time I was able to squeeze out a concession that stopped the garnishing of my pay for now. In return they demand tribute. Fine… tribute. Only they did NOT stop the garnishment, but still the tribute was demanded… Irony bites back sometimes, I had won the right to pay less, and as a result, I was paying even more. This last hearing was just a formality, but that doesn’t put cash in my hand.

It took six weeks before, finally, the tax services stopped carving up my paycheck. My lawyer’s secretary told me that they are bound by law to pay that last six weeks garnishment back. I’ll believe it when the check arrives.

I’ll get paid soon, a real, no-foolin’, non-garnished paycheck. And my refund should be enough to catch up on my bills and maybe even go to see a real dentist, but until then, this is probably the worst off I’ve ever been.

And so here I sit… thinking on all that’s happened, and it reminds me of a woman.

She swung those big eyes around like spotlights, that first day we met. She had a manner and a mind that would have slain me anyway, but it was those eyes that clinched it. Before I knew what was happening, I was in love with her. Before that had a chance to sink in, she was gone.

Once we walked in City Creek canyon on beautiful fall morning before she had to be at work. At more than one point in the hike she stopped me in the middle of the trail and threw her arms around me. She said it was a kiss she couldn’t resist.

This is how I remembered it:

In her name is a melody


That rises and falls with quiet breath.


I sing to myself when no one can hear.


Close my eyes and feel the music.



Her heart is as old as the earth and sea


Hidden behind little girls eyes.

The fact that what happened next was not a HUGE red flag for me is a testament to my mental state.

Down the last stretch of the path before the guardshack and the parking lot… we were trotting happily and smiling puppydog love when suddenly she froze, looking off into the distance, her mouth slack, “Is that my husband?!” she said. I looked up to see a tall man disappear around the corner.

If that wasn’t bad enough, I found myself wondering how well I could hold my own if the shit came down right there on the path in City Creek. It was a kamakaze daydream, however… He had been teaching Kung Fu for fifteen years.

Well, it wasn’t her husband that day. And it wouldn’t be long before she came to her senses – and by the time I came to mine, those eyes were for me no longer.

We had many connections and quite a lot of that magic that only comes out when the connection clicks and the air is thick with that exuberant, mammal energy. The moment that’s most on my mind now is one day when she took me to lunch. She knew of my IRS problem and was very supportive in my futile efforts with lawyers… as we stopped for gas, she rummaged in her purse and pulled out a Tesoro gift card. She said she didn’t know if there was anything left on it, but here… buy yourself some gas or something. It was a very sweet gesture, but I ended up never using it.

Eighteen months later and a few levels deeper in poverty, I have come across that card again. It still had $50.00 on it.

Now, swimming in irony already, the only reason I have food in my stomach and gas in my car is because I had the temerity to kiss a married woman.

So, with tongue firmly planted in cheek (...that Tesoro sandwich was the worst tasting thing I've ever been glad to eat.) I say: Wonders will never cease.

Bachelor Chow

I'd sit in art class and want to write letters, In English I'd draw pictures, in church I'd write stories... I never wanted to do homework.

Just about the moment on Thursday when I thought I couldn't type another word, it was suddenly the weekend... the schedule says, 'manual labor.'  Just what the doctor ordered.  My job completion rate was about 20%, but there were other factors... a sudden, ugly dust-up with the ex-wife.  I was confrontational and mean and I made her cry.  Then I felt like complete shit for the rest of the day. 

Then, a reexamination of my finances (dip into the pocket, un-wad the bills... is that all there is?) put my grandiose painting plans off until more money appears.  I went to Smith's instead of Home Depot and spent all my money on Bachelor Chow.

I wonder if it will stretch for ten more days?

Back on the schedule, I go. Tonight, draft vision of the sultverse and animated character v2.0.

Blogging for the ages, right here.

Wounded and Smoggy.

Yesterday I just felt detached and reclusive.  I started writing, drawing AND painting yesterday, at various times... and I just didn't feel like doing any of it.  So consequently most of that time was spent sitting, looking at my materials, while some kind of video droned away in the background.

I feel like this some days, I'm sure everybody does... but it puts me in mind of the time when the whole world was just a black pit of hopeless blackness without hope.  There was no outlook, no prediction, no daydream that wasn't swimming in doom, no spring morning worth a notice, no full moon that wasn't faded, run down, tarnished... did I say hopeless.

It's hard, as you might think, to maintain any kind of livable life when everything smells of decay and death.  I hadn't been 'contemplating' suicide, as much as just thinking about death a lot.  But even that was not lost on me, I've worked around the mental cases enough to know that's a really bad sign.  Go on like this long enough and you'll be left with entire forgotten years of time, and whole repertoire of bad habits.  Take 2003, for instance.  I don't remember anything from that year that doesn't involve the ceiling of my room, the television, or wishing I had more energy for my loved ones... I don't think I did a single piece of art, attend any cultural events, nor wrote a single passage that didn't begin with, "I think I'm losing my mind."

Finally one day, as I was complaining about something else, somebody said, "Well, here's your problem..."  He reached into my central nervous system, felt around for a switch, click.

The lights snapped on, the moon was beautiful, the spring was magnificent, the future couldn't get rosier.  The world had changed for me.  But it wasn't the world that changed, was it?  It had been that way all along and I just didn't know it.  I had been building my thinking and entire worldview upon what I thought were the more objective parts of my perception, but I was way off.  If the chemicals aren't right, then nothing else will be.

I could spend hours contemplating what the meaning of that might be. Like being unplugged from the Matrix, except the 'real world' is just like the Matrix, but better, brighter and happier.  It put my human perceptions of reality into a very different, and more realistic context, I think.

A few weeks ago I was reminded again of my whole legacy of depression, and how I'm not depressed now, but the seeds are still there...  I had been stressed to a boiling point over the hemoraging of my life force... a melodramatic way to put it, but accurate when I'd work 50 hours a week just to live the life of the semi-homeless.  I went into Ms. DeMille's back yard and lit up a big fat one.

Normally I don't smoke the whole thing in one shot, but this time I did.  There was nothing I could do about the situation at that moment except just calming the hell down, so I did.  As it worked it's magic I vividly remembered when I was living every few hours like this.  Four or five a day... it was expensive, unhealthy for any number of reasons... not even to mention the diminished returns of high tolerance.

Standing there in the yard, I was very glad those days were past...

The world is a beautiful place, wounded and smoggy as it is... and I'm one of it's biggest fans.