Because Epistolary Never Really Died

The rain turns the gray dessication into verdant apocrypha and I dream of you.  On this mesa, where once a river lived, I can see the skeletons of the ancients rising above, rising against.  The giants, the remnants of islands and semi continents and steaming coal swamps, lay mounded on each other off to the West where the white phosphorous sun ignites the sky in a death plume a hundred shades of exploding gold.  And you remember that day sitting up on that canyon wall watching me watch the sunset behind me in your eyes?

I hope not.

Your life is not your own, not now.  You’re given forever away to your blissful duty and that stranger I never knew but was always around.  I’m better left as a memory than as a love and better still as a faded unaccounted for passage of days.

But when I lay awake at night, with the moving cottonwood leaves snarling secrets outside, I remember waiting on you to get out of the shower.  The spectre of you on my sheets and in my clothes and hanging around the air.

I dream of you.  In those dreams, I find myself forever walking down a long stretch of riparian road.  Along Dominquez creek.  Along Plateau canyon.  Then some nights I dream a highway back to you. Sometimes hundreds of them.

But you are no more alive to me than the hundred carved stones subsiding and listing and capsizing into this cemetery of eons.  I hope you are there forever, or what passes for it.  As one more corpse I drink into quickness.

As a dreamed highway and a path.  As the clouds heated liquid soldering the flux of the end of the day.

We were all dead anyway.

All I got

This is why, Teressia:

I have never believed, totally, in altruism. All acts, even the most helpful, are inherently selfish. If the person had no sense of pride in their being a good person, or no fulfillment in following some tenet or another of their personal BS (Belief System), then they wouldn’t do a fucking thing.

Giving yourself away makes you feel good. It bolsters up your sagging ego in the face of the serious, sucking, terrifying fear that if you offered the most precious gift of a fraction of you, it would be turned down. That it would be forsaken for a fraction of another. Or for null and void.

In our shiny object monkey brains, we can’t help but assign value through the perceived consensus of others. When you go to a barbecue and everyone is afraid of your potato salad, it hurts. You tell yourself that Gorgonzola and fresh grated thyme are just too high brow for that crowd when you take home the full bowl, but that’s not true in that sick little shiny object monkey brain of yours. You know, deep down inside, that they don’t like it because it wasn’t good enough. It couldn’t be good enough. The opposite, in that case, of good is not bad, it is simply wrong. And you brought the wrong bowl.

You suck. That’s why it hurts. Because what you brought had no value. The ribs had value, they were hoarded inside the boilers of the steaming vessels of capitalized ego piled on the patio. The chips, cheap and greasy and worthless, had value; they were eaten until the remaining morsels were too small to grab. Your potato salad was worse than bad. It was wrong. Wrong for the people you wanted to want it most.

I can tell you that these weeks of waiting and stewing and hating every third word of that fawned over and picked over and never quite done final draft is worse than any failed dish, any failed drink, any failed love. Checking the mail everyday hoping for and dreading the reply from the submissions editor. It’s marginally worse than having the girl say no, were I to ask.

I remember my first rejection letter. It came quickly and without pretense. Rather, it was nothing but pretense.

“Not our style. Too rife with cliche…”

It was supposed to be rife with cliche, I argued with the faceless, obese, zit ridden asshole with the candy jaw and the ugly hanging fat nerd face and the floppy greasy hair. I may not have ever met him or seen him, but I knew. I knew he was taking out his inadequate education and his intense distrust of artists and true writers by typing angry things in his little SciFi magazine editor cubicle where he collected action figures.

But deeper down, I knew something more. It was wrong. Whatever I had written, right then and to that person, was wrong. And it hurt me.

So I wait, now. I wait to see who gets selected in this magazine to rumble up into the winner’s circle of love and warmth and affection. I hope so much it’s me, but I know that there are probably hundreds of other pretend writers like me waiting, too.

If I worked up the nerve to ask her, it isn’t that she may say yes and it would fizzle and fail and we would hate each other, it’s that she may not even want to try. And that hurts. It hurts in places infantile in nature and Permian in age.

And I offer it anyway. It’s all I got.

When I Had Thee Least In Mind

1.

It’s been a rough night is all.
Why is that?
I just figured out, I guess, that I’ll never be a non-violent, safe person. I can’t get away from it.
You know that’s why we like you.
Why who likes me?
Us girls.
That makes no sense. And I know one who wouldn’t.  It makes me want to be a better person.
Good luck.

2.

I just met you and I think you’re one of the good guys.
Of course you do, drunk chicks love me.
Stop it.  You’re one of the good guys, you just don’t believe it, yet.
I’m sort of an asshole.  Not sort of.  I am all the time, but not on purpose.
So is everyone else.
I don’t want to believe that.

3.

God. You’re a healer, you know that?
Funny you say so.  It runs in the family.  There’s a long line of faith healers and prophets behind me.
I don’t care as long as you’re my prophet.
I thought you needed a healer.
No, not after whatever that was, not anymore.

4.

I’ll wait for you.
No you won’t
Yeah, I would wait for you.  I decided.  I’m going to wait for you.
I wouldn’t do that to you.  I never asked you to, either.
Maybe it won’t matter.
Maybe it won’t.  I find out next week.

5.

All my friends think you’re beautiful.
That is not what a man wants to hear, hon.
They do.  They like you.  They think you’re a really good guy.  But mostly they just like looking at you.
That counts for something, I guess.
Hey, old ladies need danced with, too.
My mission is stated, then.

6.

I don’t know why it should even bother me.  I mean, I obviously quit caring if I started cooling off on them like that. Making distance.  It shouldn’t bother me when they take off after I do, but all of a sudden, I care a lot.
Do you think you start cooling off becasue you start caring about them a lot?
Huh.  I’m trying to find a way you’re wrong about that.  But you’re not.  Huh.  How did you figure that out?
Because you did it to me.
I’m really sorry.
No, I knew what you were doing and I accepted it.  Besides, you were supposed to be leaving.
I was.
Are you still?

It’s Not Body Drama When You’re Awesome

News: I am at 13% body fat. 

Sure, that’s a good number, I mean, it’s about 10% less than average.  However, I still weigh 193 pounds and am 68 inches tall.  No, I will not convert that to metric.  Ok, fine, I think it’s a little more than 85 Kg and something like 170 cm.  I’m too lazy to run a calculator, but I sat here for about two minutes staring at the ceiling counting on my fingers.  Huh.

Anyway, the point is that I am overweight by quite a bit.  In fact, I am closer to ’obese’ than healthy, going strictly off BMI standards.  

But I don’t really care about all that.  Call me obese, motherfucker.  I will annihilate you.  Not really.  But I may choke you out on general principle.  

The saddest part of my research today was the reams of Yahoo Answers queries from kids that were young teens, or even preteens, asking if they were overweight.  A lot of the answers were yes.  A lot of the questions were sad.  A lot of the responders were ignorant at best and abusive at worst.  

Yeah, I was chubby as a kid.  Shit, most people were chubby as kids.  It’s called padding.  Because part of being a kid is being a complete retard.  You’re supposed to land on that padding, use it to stay warm because your dumb ass has no concept of cold, use it to float because you’re too dumb not to jump in that high flowing creek.  If you’re talking aesthetics, I can’t think of one skinny kid who didn’t turn out sort of weird looking as an adult. 

So no, I’m not a Calvin Klein model, which is good news as the price of heroin has skyrocketed with the weakening of the dollar against the peso.  Neither are you, most likely.  Most people aren’t.  I read an article that was made up almost entirely of quotes by women about their shape.  It made me think about my teenage nieces and the struggles they have with our family’s genetic tendency to be built like trucks.  It was saddening. 

I tell you this:  you know that shape you were born with?  It looks good on you.  Are you heavier than you should be? Then lose it.  Don’t kill yourself over five pounds men don’t notice anyway.  Shit, a little jiggle looks damn good under some smooth sun (or genetically) browned skin. 

Which leads to other news:    

At first I was ignorant.  Then I suspected.  Then I was sure.

The pregnant chick was flirting with me.  Like, throwing it out there.

I have to admit, I considered the efficacy of her ill-concealed offer, and found it suitable until I found out about her already born toddler son. 

Hey, I don’t mind flipping someone else’s burgers, long as I get to start ‘em from scratch.

Unreasonable?

I think not. 

I suck at blogging lately.  Shit, I should have took her on a date just to get a decent entry out of myself.

Tom Waits Wrote the Bible

She’s a wild rose, not settled. She’s a cold gun and ice blue metal.
She’s got one of those rearends that only seem minimal till you have a handful of it in a corner.  That’s when you catch the rebound.  The stiff posture.  Dig into that body once and you know you’re gone for good. It takes a couple tries before you got her.  Use your weight, load up, sit back, let the brakes off.  She doesn’t scream, just lets out one long sigh.  She won’t do it all for you, but takes direction well.  She ain’t easy to handle.  You feel raked over. Your core muscles scream.  Get in the groove, follow that track, she’ll go for days.  

She’s something to see.  

She’s green clover and jimson weed, red leather skirt way up above her knees.
 
Oh yeah, my baby’s low down.

Then there’s the other one.  Yeah, she’s got an ass like a Dana 60 four link.  It’s maximal, it’s too much, it’s obscene, it’s beautiful.  Flexing and torsion out of fucking control.  It’s like her body is just some primitive transportation device for that amazing and barely constrained posterior.  In another life and time, she’d be a honky tonkin’ woman such as the world could not survive. At least my world.  It’s like all the dangerous sugary volatile beauty on earth is trapped in a dirty glass and cooled with a couple melting cubes.  Catch it quick, my friend, entropy is calling.
 
It’s in the way they move and in the way they breathe and in the way they look sideways and catch their breath when they’re thrown down on the ground and taken for my purpose. 
 
I don’t know why I bother trying to restrain myself.  I’m an animal.  This isn’t about guitars, it isn’t about mountain bikes.  This is about summer and the sweat and jiggle of the female form wearing little and exposed to the sun.  Goddamn. 
 
That’s all I got.  Goddamn.
 
Yeah, the first paragraph may have been about my Element.  The second about a cheap Mexican Stratocaster. 
 
Maybe.
 
Maybe they just have the privilege of sitting around all naked when the girls go walking by my open door brown and beautiful and when the girls go breathing through my head, writhing and sinful. 
 
Maybe I’m just worked up from all the running, biking, lifting and fighting. 
 
Maybe.

Call Her

No.

Call her, bitch.

No.

Why?

Because I don’t want to hear it.

Maybe you should hear it.

Bitch, please.

Pot. Kettle. 

Got me in check, there.  Can I castle in check?

We both know you know way more than any cool person should about that game.

True.  But I am a badass nerd.

Forgive me for not believing that just now.  Call her.

No.

Any good reasons?

Because this works better.

Better than first aid and female company?

Absolutely.

Scotch in the glass and a bag of frozen broccoli on your knee is better that that?

Say that back to yourself, dumbass.

Oh. Yeah.

Miles

Over the last seven days, I have run 42 miles. 

You would think that I would be more sore or more tired.  I am aware that this habit is not healthy when I over do it.  I am also aware that distance running, while arduous and painful, does not benefit one aesthetically.  This is not the first time I have started a weird running habit.  I’m not too worried.

I ran stairs until my nose bled a few days ago. 

That’s what concerns me. I should have noticed how dehydrated I was.  I should have noticed that I was past my limit before capillaries let go.  Distraction is not your friend when you’re doing something potentially leg breaking like bleachers. 

I have ridden about 30 miles since getting my bike back on Thursday.

This hurts my knees.  It is also fun.  I tore the Tabauache (TAB-oo-wat-sh, it’s a Ute word) a new asshole.  Also: I crashed glorious.  No road rash, since I was more or less running level on dirt.  I felt real dumb.

I talked to an old friend for an hour on the phone when I should have been hanging out with friends and family at a downtown music festival. 

He’s having a hard time, too.  Maybe it’s because we’re the same age and have been the same places.  For whatever reason, we always seem to talk to each other when things are bad.  I read once that dogs can tell when their owners are coming home, even if the return is unscheduled.  It sounds sort of woowoo to me, but it is also plausible that if that sort of preternatural mental connection existed, it would have been eveolved in pack animals.  I remember a couple times this guy called just as I was sliding off for good.

No really, things are not that bad.

It’s just summer and I’m just sitting here.  Where the fuck is the Revolution?  Where the fuck is my apocalypse?  This shit is boring.  This day in, day out crippling boredom is probably why people ever came up with an idea of the End Times in the first place. 

Egyptian One: Jesus fuck, man, we’ve been at this pyramid for like, sixty years.

Egyptian Two: I know! God, all this building gives me a sick compulsion to see all this shit tore back down.  Maybe like, God could do it.  Reset that shit.  Here try this.

Egyptian One: Gross! What the fuck is that?  It’s all mildewy tasting.  Give it back.

Egyptian Two: I know, it’s disgusting (drinks), I call it ‘beer.’  That’s Hebrew slave language for ‘rotten grain juice.’ I can’t put it down.

Egyptian One: Give it back, please.  God this shit is gross.  It’s like urine wrapped in old bread.  This crock is empty, you got any more?

Egyptain Two: Bitch, I’m saving it for the apocalypse.  Give that back.  Empty? Shit, I got another one right here, man!

Egyptian One: Apocalypse? Oh, you mean the End of the World. I’m all tingly.  Dude, we should totally fuck with people.  Let’s make it look like there’s like, and End of the World message in the bottom of this fucking thing!

Egyptian Two: I love you man.  Have I ever told you that? Wait, bottom of the uh…beer…thing?  Fuck man, these pyramids are like, awesome.

Egyptian One: No! The bottom of this pyramid! It would be fucking awesome!

Eg. One and Two high five.

Egyptian Two: Dude, this is like, the coolest fucking thing we’ve ever done, dude.  I mean, dude, fuck, dude.  This is hilarious.

I should be hired by the History Channel.

I mean, it isn’t like they try any harder to come up with their conspiracy theories.  I do blame them for the continued inexplicable career of Dan Brown.  Wait, his career is totally explainable.  Pandering to stupid people and making them feel like they have some inside track on Special Knowledge and Discrenment is always the key to astronomical success of mediocre boring people.  Look at the Beatles.

 

Maybe Gone

In the last few weeks I have been invited to Mexico three times.  Two of the trips would be more or less free  and the one that would cost money would only cost about a week’s pay. But I can’t go.

I use work as an excuse, but it’s a lie.  I could go in a minute.  My job is such that I can take time off at will and still be employed when I return.

The problem is not Mexico. I love Mexico, and always have.  A week or two in Baja is hardly difficult to see myself enjoying.

The problem is me.  I can tell by the bad decisions I’m making. I can tell by the temper I have to control.  I can tell by the risks I’m taking for no good reason.  I can tell by the way I sit in my room barely attempting to play guitar, mostly just laying there wishing the hours would move a little faster just today.  I can tell by the eight mile run late at night.

If I went to Mexico right now, I would never come back.  While I control most of my urges, there is one that runs the show.

This is why I don’t pack more than a few days food when I go camping.  This is why I am afraid to put a full tank of gas in the Scout.  I know I will disappear.  I live my life just one moment of weakness away from leaving everybody forever.

I have a good job, I have a good living situation, and I have a good set of friends and family around.  But no one can beat it out of me.  No one can love it out of me.  If they needed volunteers to colonize a planet tomorrow (I’ve been rereading some Orson Scott Card), I would jump on that ship.

It’s bad this time.  I am not reliable just now.

I wish I could make it easier to know me, but I can’t.

In Flames

It’s like those first few bars of a Junior Kimbrough song.  It’s dirty and thick and choked up on fucking electric lemonade.  And god lives somewhere up under the next cotton dress, according to the Reverend Ray Wylie Hubbard. 

It’s like stacking up the front side of your amp with a fuzzface before the tubes take over.  The tubes are like butter, but the fuzz box is straight uncut cane sugar bubbling up in to caramel.

McKinley Morganfield knew it.  Etta James sang it.  The blues ain’t nothin but a bunch of fucking, he said. 

It is possible I am the biggest hornball on earth. 

At least one of a few.  She got the devil in her, and feels like doing something wrong. 

You’re trouble, she said.

I laughed at her and she slapped me.  She smelled like a bar and she was strong like a drunk. 

Whatever, I said.  If I’m trouble, why you still standing here?

I should probably stick to fighting when I’m Wild Turkey drunk.  Keeps me out of trouble.

Remember The How-To Thing?

How to be awesome:

This works best in an iron skillet.  Brown one white onion and four big cloves of garlic in light olive oil.  One the onion goes translucent, chop in a couple four or five red jalapenos.  Deglaze  with a short shot of whiskey. Really scratch all that brown goodness of the pan.  you may have to add a touch of water to really get it all.  Dump that into a pot with about four cups of water.

This is where I add the cup or so of Mexican red beans.  There are a million methods to cooking beans, believe it or not.  Soak them, scald them, whatever.  Just cook the damn beans, sugartits.

Dump in a couple pieces of saltpork.  Pour in a big shot of red New Mexican style chili powder.  Put in a little cumin.  Then the secret: add about a teaspoon, but no more, of turmeric.  Cook that for however long it takes the beans. 

Rock and roll, bitches.

How to be badass:

Run five fucking miles.  Then run up a hundred foot tall river terrace repeatedly until you fall over.

Bad. Ass.

How to be batshit:

This is advice for all you lady folk.

You know how you call sometimes or come over and you’re angry because you think we don’t want to talk to you? 

I won’t point fingers, name names, etc, but in my experience every single one of you does this.  So, I will tell you a little secret. 

If you think someone doesn’t want to talk to you, it makes absolutely no sense to rampage in and start yelling at them.  Because then they won’t want to talk to you.

Anything I didn’t cover?