The devil's in the details

Oxygen ~ 65%
Carbon ~ 18%
Hydrogen ~ 10%
Nitrogen ~ 3%
Calcium ~ 1.4%
Phosphorus ~ 1.1%
Potassium ~ 0.25%
Sulphur ~ 0.25%
Sodium ~ 0.15%
Chlorine ~ 0.15%
Magnesium ~ 0.05%

Additional trace elements ~ 0.15%

Average current value, less than five american dollars.

A face licking good time

Humidity
stale motionless air
constant thrum of steel belts on reinforced concrete
blasted stone echos
perverting vociferous sirens
dust and sweat
metallic clink
tinkling glass
motion.

A fellow of infinite jest

Reflex reaction,
omnipresent taint of jovial impiety,
stifled scream in every snicker.

The brilliant smile,
so pearly white,
reflecting so loud.

Drowns grinding teeth,
nearly.

Stifles muffled sob,
barely.

Stills the quickening temper,
but only just.

Asphyxiated moan,
ulcer soft hiss of decomposition,
still life,
with humor.

Fence Post

Clam shell cut turf,
sand and red clay,
pine pitch,
wet earth.

Further,
deeper,
darker levels,
decomposition,
charred wood and pebbles.

Deeper still,
black shale,
blue clay,
bedrock.

Level,
fill,
pack,
tamp,
repeat.

repeat.

repeat.

repeat.

repeat...

Time to close the door and walk away.

Well, it's been two months since we've seen each other, six weeks since she left me.

I think it's time for me to stop applying for jobs in the town she moved to a year and a half ago. 

Over the last fourteen months I've collected close to fifty rejection (47 to be exact) letters/emails. For every email/letter I got I applied to at least one company that never even bothered to respond.  I've got maybe twelve or thirteen emails saying that my application has been advanced to the next screening level (but that there will be no further correspondence unless I am selected for an interview).


I had kinda hoped that something would come through this spring, since that's when companies usually hire people with my education and credentials, but once again nothing was forthcoming.


It's a killer, I'd really hoped to make this one work (as evidenced by the last six weeks of whining on this blog).  But she's already moved on (from what I've heard she moved on a while ago. I was just too dense to catch it, as usual.)

And so now I have to move on, if I can find someone to move on with.

She was so insecure, and had been injured badly enough in the past that I didn't want to risk making it worse, so unfortunately I've pretty much lost touch with almost all of my female friends (a decision I made on my own, hoping to be a better person for her) and I haven't had much desire to meet any new ones till very recently.

I'd wish her well, but the fact is she either

a) left me for someone  (which seems to be the popular insinuation)
or
b) left me for no one (not sure at this point which is worse)
or
c) left me because she was afraid I'd find out about something that I probably already knew about.
or
d) left me because being with me made her life profoundly unhappy.

So I think the best I can do is try (as much as possible) to gracefully bow out of her world, and let her get on with her new guy, her new friends, and her new life.

Hell of a way to end a six year friendship.

Hell of a way to end a two and a half year relationship.

But I still want to give her the best I can give, and in this case I think that is probably my absence.

So now I've got the family thing straightened out, got the money thing straightened out, got the end o' relationship blues straightened out...   Just need to get the work bullshit taken care of, find a better job someplace where I'm actually wanted, find a woman who actually wants me, and move on from there... 

Hell, the way these last few years have been going that's damn near a vacation.


I wonder what BDSM girl is up to, haven't seen her in about seven years (and I still have my sjambok)

Eh, I'm not in the right headspace anyway.




But the really sad thing is, if the recent ex called me up tomorrow and said she wanted to start again, I'd be there with bells on.  For all the heartache at the end, they were probably the best years of my life.

Should have been smarter

One function of getting older is that it seems I never run out of ways to be disappointed in my own performance.

After all this time I really thought I was smarter, or at least had the experience and knew how the world worked.


Try as I might I keep falling for those three painful lies.

1. I love you.
2. I care what happens to you.
3. I would never do that to you.


I'll tell myself that the last couple of years have made me smarter, and I won't fall for it next time... But deep down I know otherwise.  I knew it was bullshit last time, even decided I was unfit for the "game".  But eventually I was drawn back in, found someone I thought was different and ended up disappointing myself all over again.

First world problems, I know.  But it's been a long couple of months (with no end in sight for a time)  and I'm feeling the need to be a whiny little pussy on the internet.

At least I can take solace in the likelihood that (based on the judicious placement of assumed keywords) the only people reading this blog belong to one of the organizations responsible for my governments omnipresent data mining operations.

Done for now.

Time to man up and get on with my week.






And one other thing, why the hell does the spellchecker expect me to capitalize internet?

Late spring/early summer... Again.

Last week marked the 20 year anniversary of the suicide one of my close friends growing up, and the deaths of several others...  1993 was a rough year, and (as I think I've mentioned in previous posts) I lost a number of friends that summer.  Two by suicide, another three by auto accident, one was murdered (stabbed twenty some odd times and set on fire down in Stockton), a couple of drug overdoses, and one who died of natural causes.

Three weeks ago I marked the ten year anniversary of getting to watch a friend (not a close friend, but a friend none the less) and co-worker of mine burn to death in a car fire (that got so hot that even the firefighters couldn't get close to it).  I was five minutes behind her leaving work, and got there just in time to see the gas tank go up while she was slumped over the steering wheel.  She was still very much alive, I could tell by the way her body spasmed, the way she unconsciously (I hope) clawed at the air in front of her when the initial flash burned the paint off of the outside of her sedan. 

Contrary to popular mythology, a person burning to death doesn't really scream all that loudly, at least not in my limited experience (though I'll admit I was otherwise occupied).   I never saw what caused the fire, and from the way her car was sitting in the intersection I don't know if she was hit, or overcome by fumes (or heat, it was over 100 that afternoon), or if there was some other problem.  I just remember rounding the corner, seeing her car smouldering as I passed it, pulling over. I remember bailing out of my vehicle to go back and help, just in time for the tank to let loose and the car to go up in a pyrotechnic fireball.   I remember dialing for help, being told that it was on the way.  I remember the firefighters motioning at me to get myself and my vehicle out of the way, driving numbly home.

If I think about it I can still see it, still feel it, hear it, smell it.

Melting plastic, hot metal, and burning meat...  

It was years before I could eat pork again.


Last week I also marked the fifth year since I sobered up. 

No twelve step bullshit, no expecting a higher power to fix my shitty life for me, just plain old bloody mindedness, fear of death, and recognition that my body was disintegrating. 

I've had maybe two drinks a year since then, and I don't feel guilty about any of them.

Hail verdant spring,
hail joyous summer,
in all their demented glory.

Ignorance is bliss

More on that at a later date.

Sometimes the blinders come off, and all the pieces of the puzzle fall together at once. 
Sometimes I really hate it when that happens.
Sometimes I would much rather not find out the things that I inevitably find out about people.
Sometimes people feel the need to tell me things about my life that I wish they wouldn't

But I've recently been told (by several people) that everything happens for a reason.

So I'll consider this an object lesson.
A return to my roots.
A gentle reminder,
cuffing me back into the proper mind set,
an attitudinal adjustment,
refresher course in social survival skills,
behavioral conditioning.

Never trust the ones who offer compliments.
Never trust the ones who claim to be trustworthy.
Never trust compassion.

Everyone loves to fuck with the fat guy.

cesium francolithic mixi alibidium rixy dixy doxy dexy droxide

distant freeway hum
vulcanized asbestos breeze
confined transience

Immediate cessation

You ever notice that sometimes (when things seem to be falling apart at break-neck speed, and you can't seem to go more than a few hours without something breaking down, catching fire, going pear shaped or sinking into the quicksand) that sometimes everything just stops?

Real sudden like.

Not the panicked screeching halt you would get from standing on the breaks and locking up all four.

Not even the five frame wind down you would get by hitting pause on your DVD player.

An instantaneous complete stop.

As if God or the universe or whoever just inserted an  *all stop*   into the text of your life.

Damned disconcerting.

A little taste of mortality to season the daily bullshit.

Ok

People are back in the country,
money is accounted for,
getting shit straightened out at work (though there is some cluster fuckery on the horizon which I was made aware of tonight).

Wonder if I can score an old bottle of Johnnie Walker Green in this town and totally lose my shit for a few days.

I've not been drunk in a good long fucking time (almost exactly five years) and I think I deserve to tie one on.

Unfortunately I've still got those pesky responsibilities...
  Oh well, a guy can dream once in a while.
  I've not wanted a drink or five this badly in quite a while.

Benediction

Master of my fate,
be you god or devil,
if you cannot let me live,
then let me die well.

A pity

Our generation,
the one before it,
the one following it,
all seem to lack the gift of oratory.

We don't speak anymore,
we read cue cards or teleprompters.

We don't debate anymore,
we simply have contests of volume.

We don't think anymore,
we parrot marketing slogans,
bumper stickers,
pat answers and pop psychology.

Sometimes I'm reminded that we could have been so much more.

Guess that's that then

Hell of a month, but hopefully (I'm not jinxing myself by saying) the end is in sight.  Wire transfer accounted for, State Dept. crap accounted for, visa issues taken care of, animals taken care of, relatives [hopefully] en-route to this country by the end of the week, job drama [hopefully] winding down, actual day off [apparently] on the horizon, relatives house still being foreclosed on [though without the immediate danger of eviction], relationship [apparently] un-salvageable...

At least I know where I stand,
and knowing where I stand lets me know where I can go.
[though some folk have been telling me where I can go for a long time]

Time to go for a walk.

Snifter

We know that memory is often powerfully associated with smell, though we don't seem to know why. My theory is that it is a survival instinct. If we associate the smell of a predator with the death of a friend, that smell will always heighten our situational awareness. 

 Likewise, if we associate the smell of a certain food with violent illness, then we will automatically avoid that food. 

 This could be a naturally wired response, or it could be the result of generations of naturally selective breeding, who knows.

But the curious thing is that this adaptation also lends itself to non-threatening situations.

This morning I found myself behind a logging truck loaded with pine. I knew this a full mile before I caught up with him.

I was thinking of my early childhood,
pitch and dust and grease and diesel,
livestock and hot tar and the slow sizzle of cooking grass,
summertime.

A father's wisdom (part 1 of whatever)

My father is a very intelligent man, but an intelligent man who has had a difficult life.

Lately I find myself thinking of some of the advice he's given me over the years (most of it practical and self re-enforcing)

I remember this one time,  we had taken one of those (to a kid) interminable hour and a half long trips down to the city to go to the lumber yard (at the time gas was cheap enough that we could buy lumber down in the valley cheaper than we could get it locally, even after factoring in the cost of gas).  I was  ten or eleven (just a year or two away from getting my first job with a friend of the family who had his own construction business), and we were cruising around in our old beat-up two tone 1970 GMC with the home-made pipe rack bolted into the post sockets, looking for a place near the loading dock so that we wouldn't have to cart our purchases too far (my father never paid for loading, no matter the size of the load, even with the old 5 ton international he always loaded himself, no matter how large the load was) 

Anyway, there was a group of very attractive teenage girls walking across the parking lot in front of us, and I made some pre-adolescent braggart's quip about how I sure wish those three were hot for my body (it was the 80's, cut a guy some slack. Seriously, two of them were in acid wash with day-glo tops, they'd probably emptied about four cans of hairspray between them that day).

Anyway, he stopped the truck, right in the middle of the traffic lane, turned and looked at me, and gave me the best advice a father could ever give his son on the subject.

"I want you to remember, if ever you are in a position where attractive young women are hot for your body, to take a good long look in the mirror and ask yourself why.  Because chances are they want something.  And if they don't want something, then chances are they have something.  And trust me, it's something you don't want."

Very simple.  Not nearly as long or convoluted as many of the lessons he's taught me over the course of my life, and not nearly as difficult or trying as much of the knowledge he's allowed me to 'earn' over the years.  But it stuck with me. 

I still don't know what the balance is.  Whether it's prevented enough trouble in my life to outweigh many of the opportunities for fun that I've ignored or declined.  But it stuck with me.

My father turns 68 this month, just six years younger than his father was when he died.  I'm not sure how much longer he's going to be with us.  His health has been failing, and the stress of this latest cluster fuck with my sister and her family is weighing heavily on him. 

I just think that I need to start writing down some of the things he's taught me, because I don't want to forget.  I don't even mention it when he tells the same stories, or shows me the same mechanical or horticultural techniques that he's shown me a hundred times before, because I want to make sure it sticks.

Once the older generation dies, I don't know how much longer we'll last in this country.  There are few people left who know how to manage without computers, cell phones, the internet.  Even our engineers and mechanics and machinists use computerized design and diagnostic software in place of practical knowledge. 

And we're all too busy trying to get by to just sit listen to the stories.

Self Mutilation

If I were to say that I planned to abrade a 3x3" section of skin off of my arm, (down to the third layer), and have myself injected with several chemical compounds at the same time; all for the sole purpose of entertaining myself.  Most folks would, I think, think I was a little odd.  If I threatened to do that to you, you'd probably recoil from me.

But anymore, nobody thinks twice about someone saying that they're getting another tattoo.

What an interesting species we've become.