you being in love....

you being in love will tell who softly asks in love, am i separated from your body smile brain hands merely to become the jumping puppets of a dream? oh i mean: entirely having in my careful how careful arms created this at length inexcusable, this inexplicable pleasure-you go from several persons: believe me that strangers arrive when i have kissed you into a memory slowly, oh seriously -that since and if you disappear solemnly myselves ask "life, the question how do i drink dream smile and how do i prefer this face to another and why do i weep eat sleep-what does the whole intend" they wonder. oh and they cry "to be, being, that i am alive this absurd fraction in its lowest terms with everything cancelled but shadows -what does it all come down to? love? Love if you like and i like,for the reason that i hate people and lean out of this window is love,love and the reason that i laugh and breathe is oh love and the reason that i do not fall into this street is love." ee cummings

rolling balls.

Advice from Dad:

"Just remember to enjoy the journey. The destination will be there when you get there. Another of a mistake or two I made. Trying to drive too far, too fast to get from one place to another, and not really seeing what was in between. Smell the roses, see the sights, talk to the people."

Sometimes you just need to know what you're doing is OK....

I find it very easy to stay dirty all day.

eating breakfast my only accomplishment,

cold coffee my only acquaintance.

mapping my overactive brain

my productive imagination

lethargic calls to action

ultimately distracted

by daydreams

planning

but

just

won't

move.

still 26, but the magic day is over.

Well, color me American.

This blog may turn into a chronicle of, the making of, a road trip. A few weeks ago I (I think it was me) blurted out something about how great it would be to take a drive across/around the country, and really see it.

Since that utterance, all I can think about is this trip. It has changed the way I see daily life. All is a means to that end, which I think will be a whole different kind of beginning. I want to sell my car. I want to find an extra job. I'm even thinking about selling some books. (Gasp!) Everything is up in the air: how we'd afford it, what we'd drive, if we'd ditch the apartment we love so much in Portland and throw our remaining things into storage, if we'll come back, what month to go, what to do about our jobs, what happens when we get back, let alone what routes we'd take. We just know we want to do it. We both have things we want to do "when we grow up" and those things are still in focus, finer focus for Benjamin than myself, but still, they are there and wouldn't be totally put aside by this trip.

I've ridden as a kid from California as far East as Michigan and Tennessee via Utah, Oklahoma, and a few other places. I've flown and spent a bit of time as far east at Ohio and Kentucky. Ben has been to New York, Philly (I think), and Boston. We've both explored the West Coast and Colorado. Neither of us has seen Vermont. I've never eaten lobster from Maine. I want to go back to Zion National Park and show Ben what I remember to be some of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. I want to see the desert sunrise and a Great Plains storm. I want to swim, or at least put my feet in the Atlantic Ocean from the US Coast. (I've rinsed my hands in the Atlantic Ocean before, in Iceland.) It seems feasible. We have family in other states. We have friends of friends who would be willing to let us stay on their couches. I have a tent....

I'm brainstorming constantly and considering different options for all those questions we have. I know I want a new camera before we go, probably a digital SLR. And a serious US map. I want to document the whole thing, with words and photos. Both passions of mine that are thrown by the wayside too often for me right now. I don't know from what angle I'll make that aspect of this project happen, but I know I want it to be more than just a blog entry.

I s'pose that's as good a place as any to stop for now...

bits

"When we were kids, we could to anything, but we lacked the strength, now we have it and we think we can't do it. At some point life stops being guided by ones inner child and instead is guided by an adult altered by the environment, where to be that adult means not doing childlike things and being responsible. When in reality, our greatest responsibility is to be happy. We are responsible to be happy and if that means we have to act like children, let's welcome it."

" ...If you have too much, you sink. The more you possess, the more problems you have. If you go lightly, you go freely. Everything you need in your temporal life, the world will offer you temporarily. Life is not eternal and nothing belongs to you eternally. All you have didn't belong to you, and all you have won't belong to you..... Life is a journey where we are all travelers; we're all just passing through. Don't burden yourself, don't sink, lighten up..."

plan for minimal minimalism.

garlic and dust fill the air of this kitchen. 

wooden panelling, hanging off the wall with indecision

old sitcoms stretched on a shiny tv that knows nothing

i'm sweaty from diving into a closet of memories

diaries notes collected mugs from utah, Pittsburgh, kentucky

the house is lined with clothes, in every corner you look, something begging to be placed, used, or discarded

the plums outside  swollen

and juicy from the heat,

begging to be picked only to fall

the apples come later, stubborn and tart

[enter thought process break for dinner.... uh]

there are days when i feel like the puzzle doesn't matter,

 the pieces don't have to fit, everything in its right place.

and others, when the colors of the pieces have been completely washed away and the patterns are nonexistent.

Addition & Subtraction

Words & Phrases I'd like to eradicate from my vocabulary: 

-like

-totally

-for sure (these are starting to sound stereotypically Californian....)

-um

+Word of the Day!

Diet:

-sugar

-alcohol (substantially, not entirely)

-coffee (working on it...)

-tofu (same as alcohol)

+fibrous things

+deep greens

+creativity

Daily:

+photography

+haiku

+movement

+positivity

-guilt

+grammar (verbally as well as written.)

+communication in all form other than text message.

['tis all for now...]

Ship Caught In The Bay :

Leaving, but never far enough
Like a ship caught in the bay
We'll show each other where it hurts
And well make the fuckers pay
And what is it we don't do well enough
That were constantly afraid.
And clearing up the pieces when your gone
But the silence always stays

The silences and formlessness is gone
With the hand that rocked the babe
Well forgive each other what is done
There's no one we could blame
And neither side is sure enough to move
There's something in the way
And still for all the wisdom that we've got
We're suffering the same

Buried in the work what never ends
And silently we fade..
And we walk on.. on.. 

                  -the frames

high fidelity.

wow. being 'twenty-something' sure isn't cool sometimes.

this must be the place.

I'm home, drinking a Cotes du Rhone wine, waiting for him to pick up some Thai dinner and we're going to re-watch Milk, despite the fact that I have to work at 6:30 in the morning. I've been thinking about home a lot, in relation to my life, in relation to how other people interpret their sense of home, and I'm faced with all sorts of versions. I struggled to define what mine was once I left California. "Well, if home is where the heart is, then my home is San Francisco." Easy. Done. But, the more time passes, the less I feel that specific sentiment. I've been away from and come back to Portland several times now and the more I'm away, the better it feels to come home. the more like home it becomes. Maybe I can chalk it up to being spring, and beautiful, and out of control green, or the amazing person I get to come home to, but, this place has never felt more... mine. We're about to watch this movie(again), and i watched some of the extras this morning. This story is about so much more than Harvey Milk. The story is about a time, an energy, and also, about a place. This movie is,obviously, steeped in San Francisco. In the background of an interview with Sean Penn, I see Cafe Trieste, a place that makes my heart melt a little at the thought of. I see directors, actors, and local SF extras standing in front of city hall, the Castro theater and I realized, watching these mini-documentary extras, wiping tears away and wanting to simultaneously hug Sean Penn and Gus Van Zant and Lance Black, that while San Francisco holds a place in my heart

 [David Byrne sang], "Home is where I want to be, but I guess I'm already there."

buzzing.

feeling undeniably good. 

and it ain't just the kenya i'm drinking.

i love buying gifts.

endorphins are natures crack.

the rain ain't got me down.

got my flight fixed without having to be a bitch on the phone.

travel travel travel! makes me happy.

the city is in slow bloom.

this is the most worthless post ever!