eventual eventuality

and I had watch yesterday till almost balls, and today I felt like a drunk slug at work. Admittedly, it was a short day- but I get the watch right back tonight and have it again until late tomorrow.

I was talking with Senior this morning, about kidney stones and too many hours at a desk, and I told her, well, somebody around here needs to work for a living. Might as well be me. She seemed a little surprised, broke into a tired grin, and said that she liked my attitude. I don't get why it should be anything out of the ordinary.

On the phone with Mom, I told her that hope I end up in Japan for this first stint. She wasn't careful enough and didn't quite mask the disappointment in her voice. I just want to go; go do something else, something useful. Years from now I don't want to be the only one that looks back at what I did. I balance this in my mind- am I merely being self-serving? Question any motive long enough and you'll winnow out some selfishness, I'd wager.

Been listening to some Over the Rhine this afternoon, introducing new friends to the tipping point in their musical consciousness. What is it about a certain artist that will resonate so deeply with certain people? I can't imagine not connecting with Linford's words, Karin's voice. But really, as long as we're being honest here, if the music's not shit I'll probably like it.

I think I'm going to get up and take a walk. I really want to know what this board has decided, and the more I say I'm not thinking about it, the more I'm lying to myself and everyone else. I want this thing so bad. More than that, I just want to know what's next. I like to be prepared for every eventuality. I bet it looks nothing like I think it will, no matter what it is-- but that's ok. It'll get here, eventually.

time lapse.

This last weekend I found myself in the middle of a massive, shaking crowd; people sweating, lights flashing, music thudding and blaring and pumping. I enjoyed it at first, and then as a longer moment passed I found myself doing more staring than dancing. Many times I feel like an observer, internal to my own body, external to everything else. Fully into adulthood, tall and broad, and I stare like a little child in wonderment. A kindly near stranger pulls me out of the street- the anarchists come rushing by, hooded, blackened, pushing at the gates, the linked fence.

"Be careful," she warns, patiently and without condescension. I needed (and heeded) the warning.

I am welcome among strangers, at home among friends.

Sometimes I worry about being alone, but I have to laugh at myself as I walk to the car, hoofing it for 45 minutes past apartment buildings and over interstates buzzing in the heart of a new city. This is not an easy thing, to be as transient as I am. I wonder if I will ever meet anyone who's interesting in keeping up.

I can smell the sweetness of the blossoms on the branches just as well alone.

There's so much I don't know. The more I learn, the more I see, the more there is before me. Life is an inexplicable container.

A car sits off to the side of the freeway, and a man gets strapped to a backboard. The traffic thins out on the otherside, the slipstream picking me up and shuffling me on. The ride home is peaceful, and the islands rise up out of the water like massive, old stones glossed with moss and trees. The mountains wait patiently on the shore.

I think about leaving a lot. There is a wildness here that I love, a newness and oldness that marries up into perfect reflection, tall evergreens doubled from glassy lakes into heavy gray skies. I'm always restless inside, like a little stone in the bottom of a boot. I can never get quite comfortable. But I'm not looking forward to it. Sometimes I think I love things too hard, because I can never let go cleanly enough.

Time lapse. Another year runs by, and I stare into the beyond.

solstice and everything after

first of all, I should be working out right now. or folding clothes. but I'm not- I'm eating about half a loaf of rye bread, torn off in little chunks, and staring at my laptop. I guess I enjoy it more than working out.

This morning was cold. 53 degrees, poppets, and misty- cold enough I was wearing my leather jacket and still suppressing an occasional brr. The summer solstice was two days ago, and that's what you get, I guess, when you can see Canada from your house.

I feel pretty placeless- sitting on a fence right now of instability, insecurity, and that niggling bitterness that probably won't ever leave my soft palate alone. I guess I always moved forward with this philosophy that if you gave something your best, I mean really went all balls-to-the-wall, you'd get by without any regrets. I'm finding out that isn't completely true. Maybe this feeling will dissipate, time heals everything, right Jerry Herman? The landscape of where my life could go, must go next seems frenetic: a tableau of ships, grey hulking superstructures--all flat tops and squared edges. Rolling fields of flinty, white-capped waves. I wanted this. Did I? I think I did... I can't remember.

I'm trying not to think about it. After all, the decision has been made, the board has deliberated, and I just don't know it yet, the future that is my future that is bogged down in the cogs and machinery of bureaucracy. I stand watch. I write, remembering the forgotten feel of banging out a hardline news story. Reaching for that twist-of-a-phrase in the human interest piece, grabbing the glint of a command bell against a flag. Simple tasks. Things I can do.

There will be plenty of time this year, for this cold solstice. And everything after.