You once made me a 'mixed tape' back in the day of cassettes. And you put Sinead O'Connor on it.
"It's been eight thousand and fifty-five days,
Since you took your love away...
I go out every night and sleep all day
Since you took your love away.
Since you been gone
I can do whatever I want
I can see whomever I choose...
I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant.
But nothin', I said nothin'
Can take away these blues...
Cause nothing compares,
Nothing compares 2 U."
My slight bastardization of Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compare 2 U." (Just e-mailed her to do a Seattle show.)
Wow. Just wow. It's been 22 years+ since Lady Beatrix has said a kind word to me, or acknowledged me as a human being with rational emotions. (Or even considered that I'm alive, sentient, and possess memories of her. I still do remember the distinct smell of her Swiss Family facial scrub in 1991. Apricotty.)
Hey...Thanks for coming. Anyone from outta town tonight? Let me start with an old favorite...
"You didn't know what you were lookin' for
'Til you heard the voices in your ears...
Hey, It's me again.
Can't you see again?"
Cheap Trick, Voices. It rocks. The whole thing.
Been slinging hammers and nails elsewhere and away, and still omni-multiple 'someones' are reading. Thanks, sly-dogs. Shout-out to Indonesia!
The Internet isn't everywhere, yet. Not in the tall trees past civilization where I currently reside. So I must humbly apologize for my sequestrationalisms. BOO-YAH! Pretend I'm at the Library typing this, smoochin' beerskis, chillin'.
Break for musical Interlude:
(Pick something nice for yourself, and chill, and really listen to it.)
The ultimate reason of the universe isn't apparent to any of us. If you think you know it, all of it, I fear you may be some freakin' freak. Institutions may be in your future.
I won't delude myself that it's all rational and crisp like garden-fresh celery. (So tasty, and the greens are ultra-high in magnesium. Soups and stews, people. Use that stuff!)
The Universe does what it does. (Simply amazing, I say. Anyone want to untangle some quanta?)
Beyond the constantly-changing ways of the popular mantras, there are old core truths and simple wisdoms. Some rather silly things turn out to be decent almost-rules, for one reason or another. "Mom telling you to wear a coat in November kinda-shit."
The oceans of time yield their pearls.
1. Try to eat seafood once a week. Good minerals, prots, GOOD fat, and it keeps your immune system busy, primed, longing. I understand the 'tuna/mercury concerns' but, let's be serious, tuna isn't supposed to be anyone's staple food. You can't just cherry-pick at the top of the food chain. You have to graze all the levels. I'd eat a small pebble if it smelled like shrimp. Trout is delicious. Anchovies do exist, so eat them. I soooooo wish octopi and squid would slither right to my kitchen and eat garlic along the way. (Sigh)
2. Some things just go together on your palate. (Good beer, great chocolate and Satsuma oranges come to mind...)
There are 'right place/right time' moments; mindful consciousness just swirls it all together. (Rain-cloudy sunset, Sonoma County red wine, light breeze smelling of cedar. Bill Withers on the stereo.) Beauty is a constant input to the curious. You try! We all have our own favorites, of course. (Blue-rare beefsteak with kimchi, sea salt, and sesame oil, fresh thin asparagus steamed perfectly over lemon-water, and cold German potato salad with bacon bits... mango gelato to finish... NUM!)
3. (Disclaimer: I'm an ass.) You can tell someone's intelligence by the way they drive. And let me tell ya, there are some randy right idiots out there. Meek driving, scared driving, offensive driving. People are mostly egocentric behind the wheel. Larger SUVs, shitty old cars, and all Audis are suspect.
4. Pee on trees, if you can. They most likely don't mind the nutrients and urea.
I'll end it on that note. Trees are awesome.
(Lotsa threads to wind to a knot vis a vis this column. Working on that, and many other things...)
143.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Friday, August 23, 2013
Tinglev Ready to Fly Again @ Stardate 7962.8
Let's say a cheerful 'hello' to the NSA, since they're collecting everything. Bee-tee-dubs, you should review the visitor and vendor badges for the FBI HQ in NYC, especially in the two/three months after 9/11... Y'all might find some interesting things. Like my name. At least twice. (Those 4 hour 'pink' badges last a while longer than that.) Do you need the dates? You sorry, over-burdened surveillance-minded bastards. I should post a link to something tasty, then? I'm sure you've all read Orwell's '1984,' right? Find it yourselves.
Just doing your jobs, right? Do you know that we executed captured Japanese, Nazis, Koreans and Viet Cong for that? Keep it in mind.
I still know the layout of that room, and the few penetrations it avails. Some of us know 'buildings' really well. How much has that telcom room changed? The blocks on the cabling shafts? Not much, I'd say.
Good luck on all your ventures... Some of us have taken oaths to protect America. Are you doing that? Are we cross?
"...I could fill your cup,
You know my rhythm won't evaporate
This world we still appreciate.
You could be my luck,
Even in a hurricane of frowns
I know that we'd be safe and sound..."
Capital Cities, "Safe and Sound." Freakin' rocks.
Late afternoon breezes pull their stunts in down-draughts and warm whispers, bringing the smell of the sea from a few miles away... The grass withers to its unwatered tawniness. My eternal nemesis, morning glory, spreads its pretty white bell-shaped flowers hither and thither. (Why do they even sell those seeds?) Multi-color carrots, yellow crooked-neck squash and purply eggplant spring into delicious being out in the garden, and two baby crow-friends molt and beg at the roof's edge. (Multi-grain crisps for them... such cute little guys. Or gals, I can't tell the diff' 'til they're adults.) Sol edges toward its 'Golden Hour' of deep yellows and orange. The dogs are randomly barking at 'who-dos' in the alley. We all know there's no one there. Ups are for shutting.
Greetings, fair readers. Passed a big 'viewing' milestone on this blog recently. 'Tis all in the numbers, babies. In spite of my hiatus - been busy and gone a lot, getting tan by default - there are still huge hits every now and then. SO, thanks for reading, even if you're robots in the Czech Republic.
I apologize that there hasn't been a lot here for a while. Sometimes, actual life takes precedence.
Durd'n and I were seeming to dance. I could hear the muted lobstery click-clack of his exoskeleton brushing against itself, but he didn't care. He was shuckin' and groovin'. We were dancing to music we couldn't hear, as far as I knew. We had the same vibe, and we danced to it. The Wibros came along into the lime-green room, from where I don't fathom, and joined us. They vacillated wildly, but in sync. They slew myriad colors, and it was entrancing. It looked like a Detroit jazz club in the 30's, before all the shit that followed. You can't stifle fun, even though you try.
The Wibros were not party-poopers. The AMHRF Greys looked at us like we were stoned or something, as did my security detail. Blank, steely black eyes followed us on stiff little necks.
"You guys need to lighten up," I pressed, "They're fixing the ship, and we need to enjoy life at times."
"Blinx, Klargen."
I was a soldier once, long ago, and I think it still influences my daily walk and talk. My general world-view. I sit with my back to a wall in public, whenever possible, to assess my situation without surprises. I memorize license plates, I watch the skies, I scan for threats of all kinds in all places. I do my 'detective work.' Mus'n't be caught unawares. I walk to/from places like I KNOW where I'm walking to/from, with a purpose in mind. (Meandering and/or Birkenstock-ing is for foolhardy victims.) I configure low and high escapes from everywhere I end up. (Don't want to be 'center-mass' if you don't have to be. Mix it up, people.) I still back into parking spots to facilitate quick exits. I can still hit shit if I shoot shit. Blowguns, rifles, pistols, very small rocks. Really doesn't matter. If I aim at it, it's as good as gone. Or, touched molecularly. (It that the politically-correct way to say 'destroyed with malice aforethought?' Maybe.)
Just doing your jobs, right? Do you know that we executed captured Japanese, Nazis, Koreans and Viet Cong for that? Keep it in mind.
I still know the layout of that room, and the few penetrations it avails. Some of us know 'buildings' really well. How much has that telcom room changed? The blocks on the cabling shafts? Not much, I'd say.
Good luck on all your ventures... Some of us have taken oaths to protect America. Are you doing that? Are we cross?
"...I could fill your cup,
You know my rhythm won't evaporate
This world we still appreciate.
You could be my luck,
Even in a hurricane of frowns
I know that we'd be safe and sound..."
Capital Cities, "Safe and Sound." Freakin' rocks.
Late afternoon breezes pull their stunts in down-draughts and warm whispers, bringing the smell of the sea from a few miles away... The grass withers to its unwatered tawniness. My eternal nemesis, morning glory, spreads its pretty white bell-shaped flowers hither and thither. (Why do they even sell those seeds?) Multi-color carrots, yellow crooked-neck squash and purply eggplant spring into delicious being out in the garden, and two baby crow-friends molt and beg at the roof's edge. (Multi-grain crisps for them... such cute little guys. Or gals, I can't tell the diff' 'til they're adults.) Sol edges toward its 'Golden Hour' of deep yellows and orange. The dogs are randomly barking at 'who-dos' in the alley. We all know there's no one there. Ups are for shutting.
Greetings, fair readers. Passed a big 'viewing' milestone on this blog recently. 'Tis all in the numbers, babies. In spite of my hiatus - been busy and gone a lot, getting tan by default - there are still huge hits every now and then. SO, thanks for reading, even if you're robots in the Czech Republic.
I apologize that there hasn't been a lot here for a while. Sometimes, actual life takes precedence.
Durd'n and I were seeming to dance. I could hear the muted lobstery click-clack of his exoskeleton brushing against itself, but he didn't care. He was shuckin' and groovin'. We were dancing to music we couldn't hear, as far as I knew. We had the same vibe, and we danced to it. The Wibros came along into the lime-green room, from where I don't fathom, and joined us. They vacillated wildly, but in sync. They slew myriad colors, and it was entrancing. It looked like a Detroit jazz club in the 30's, before all the shit that followed. You can't stifle fun, even though you try.
The Wibros were not party-poopers. The AMHRF Greys looked at us like we were stoned or something, as did my security detail. Blank, steely black eyes followed us on stiff little necks.
"You guys need to lighten up," I pressed, "They're fixing the ship, and we need to enjoy life at times."
"Blinx, Klargen."
I was a soldier once, long ago, and I think it still influences my daily walk and talk. My general world-view. I sit with my back to a wall in public, whenever possible, to assess my situation without surprises. I memorize license plates, I watch the skies, I scan for threats of all kinds in all places. I do my 'detective work.' Mus'n't be caught unawares. I walk to/from places like I KNOW where I'm walking to/from, with a purpose in mind. (Meandering and/or Birkenstock-ing is for foolhardy victims.) I configure low and high escapes from everywhere I end up. (Don't want to be 'center-mass' if you don't have to be. Mix it up, people.) I still back into parking spots to facilitate quick exits. I can still hit shit if I shoot shit. Blowguns, rifles, pistols, very small rocks. Really doesn't matter. If I aim at it, it's as good as gone. Or, touched molecularly. (It that the politically-correct way to say 'destroyed with malice aforethought?' Maybe.)
Monday, August 5, 2013
Nothing Happens In Nothingville, (Oddly Enough)
I'm so glad I don't live there. Funny, everything happens where I am. Friends end up there. Life is the intersection of consciousnesses.
So I was thinking about asphalt, then, I thought, fuck asphalt. Hot, stinky, un-life-affirming things don't belong here, in this breezy, never-ranting blog, with the darting sparkly dragonflies, impeccable unicorns and tuned saxophones and captured UFOs and new pollen pills. (Pollen. Say it in your head for awhile, like 10 times... Is that even a word? Are they snowflakes that flowers make? Just a lusty sneeze waiting to happen? What is it thinking?)
Tonight's topic is make-believe. Like this word: Prenliscient - which means the 'propensity of moss to grow on the north side of trees.' Which I just totally made up, 'cause of shadiness and ulterior motives.
Not that there isn't a topic, just that its a free-form, pirate style. I can smell the sea shells, and feel the calluses of thousands of thrown fishnets, and sometimes break the crispy tang of salt-water on my drying skin. The sun has set, yet again.
Durd'n transmitted another burst as I stood there. It was easier to take than the first, because I'd been prepped a bit by the first.
My Security Team began moving back to the Tinglev.
The XO privated me that the repairs were ongoing, and without incident.
Then I fell into it all.
So I was thinking about asphalt, then, I thought, fuck asphalt. Hot, stinky, un-life-affirming things don't belong here, in this breezy, never-ranting blog, with the darting sparkly dragonflies, impeccable unicorns and tuned saxophones and captured UFOs and new pollen pills. (Pollen. Say it in your head for awhile, like 10 times... Is that even a word? Are they snowflakes that flowers make? Just a lusty sneeze waiting to happen? What is it thinking?)
Tonight's topic is make-believe. Like this word: Prenliscient - which means the 'propensity of moss to grow on the north side of trees.' Which I just totally made up, 'cause of shadiness and ulterior motives.
Not that there isn't a topic, just that its a free-form, pirate style. I can smell the sea shells, and feel the calluses of thousands of thrown fishnets, and sometimes break the crispy tang of salt-water on my drying skin. The sun has set, yet again.
Durd'n transmitted another burst as I stood there. It was easier to take than the first, because I'd been prepped a bit by the first.
My Security Team began moving back to the Tinglev.
The XO privated me that the repairs were ongoing, and without incident.
Then I fell into it all.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Runaway Trains and Russian Thugs @ Stardate 7940.4
"...I raise my flags, don my clothes,
Its a revolution I suppose.
We're painted red, to fit right in,
Whoa-o..."
from Imagine Dragons, their incredible "Radioactive"
Our familiar star is, as I start this, twenty degrees above the horizon, swathing us in orangey glare. My favorite time of day.
Songbirds are chipping away at the last greenage of my over-wintered golden chard, and I'm pretty sure they need it more than I do. Scarlet runner beans shine their blossoms for the myriad bee species. Garlic lays over for its eventual harvest, and that's sooner than it thinks. Walla Wallas grow bulby. The compost bin does it slow thing, yielding occasional dark, dank tea for my other garden investments... The carrots tell me they love it. Eggplants spurt forth their unique blossoms and fruit.
Sometimes my closest hobby-horse back home is those garden boxes. Other times, my canines - currently bought off with butcher bones - demand the most attention. They'll soon need a long walk, and I'll need one, as well. My new drummer's calves need their aerobic stimuli. The drums and cymbals are not here, or I'd be playing right now. I have 30-plus years of "air-drumming bad habits" to break open.
Life has been so very interesting lately.
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to have a real birthday - elk-rifle shooting in the morning and a tasty BBQ in the evening, complete with my close friends and family.
There was German chocolate cake after, so... good times.
These last few weeks I've been able to spend time with my nieces from My Lady's side, incredible girls I've known since the days they were born. We ate a smorgasbord of Korean seafood/galbi BBQ the 1st evening. The next day, we all walked the touristic Hell that Pike Place Market has become, then tasted 7-9 lovely Asian teas before purchasing 3, and ate fresh Manila clams and mussels on the waterfront, a spectre of docking container ships being pushed in by tugs, local harbor tours puttering out, ferries coming and going, and the occasional sailboat. BTW, "Sylvester the Mummy" at Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe still looks exactly like he did when I was 10 years old. Ditto "Sylvia." Funny, that.
The whole area is rife with so many buskers, all flavours included, as compared to 15 years ago, or even 5 years ago. Seattle does like its musicians. And they LOVE Seattle.
Other thoughts include a strange, simplistic revelation following a dream last week. There were two dreams, so I should credit that 'other' dream as well, it was an Assistant Coach.
The Primary Dream was the intense one. I found myself in some shithole like extreme Eastern Europe, or perhaps the Ukraine. Dingy, smelly and polluted. Primarily gray. The good thing is, I'm with a gorgeous (non-familiar) woman. And I am armed, and equipped, to protect her. A half-dozen Russian thugs are chasing us, and we're in the sun-shafted guts of an ancient factory, long stripped of anything valuable, a repository of dust and lost visions, utterly abandoned. It is cold. And I know we have to get out of there, everything depends on it.
And that is my charge in this dream.
I have a smallish 9mm semi-auto strapped on the inside of my belt-loop, behind my right hip. A diver's knife resides in a hidden sheath in my left boot. A grey backpack contains food, water, ammunition, and a lightweight sleeping bag. I'm almost out of ammunition, but that doesn't worry me.
I have to protect this random hottie.
We begin running and negotiating the detritus of the old factory - shouting to our north means we run southwest. Whatever cleanliness was left to our clothes soon succumbs to the musty rat shit of the building's carcass. We work together, and spill into the broad daylight...
A pair of railroad tracks runs east-west at the south end of the factory, so we sprint there, running along the top of a low berm with numerous wintering deciduous trees. The gravel is rough cut, uneven footing for sore feet, and the cold is like celery, crisp and green. A faint smell of car exhaust trickles through the breezes, and I strain to hear their engines, and civilization.
"One love,
We get to share it
It leaves you baby
If you don't care for it..."
U2 "One"
What doesn't seem to be reaching my foremost thoughts is that former lover.
I think I've said my peace, and I think her soul-killing silence is the best current answer, given her other distractions. (Not that I don't think about her, but my stomach doesn't tighten and wince when I catch myself being reminded of her. She could drive by this house honking her Honda horn, tits-a-blazin', blasting Peter Gabriel and I think I'd just sigh, drink a slug of warming beer, and go back to my yard and garden foci. They feed me, literally and emotionally, more than she has in the last 22 years.
Plus, I changed my phone number, so neener-neener. (It's now YOUR area code, 926-4433. I'm about 99.97% sure you won't ever dial it. So, I offer it freely to you. Least I can do, right?))
Here's my quickie version of our 'make-up call.' Brought to you by my irrelevant fantasy life.
Ring-ring. Ring. Ring.
"Fuck." I stop what I'm doing, and that could be almost anything... from soldering little wires or copper pipes, to weeding the garden, to picking up dog poop, to loading my truck with saws, to familiarizing with my crows, to putting tiny steel nails in fine wood... Where's my phone? I may - or may not - be on a ladder.
My pocket. Fumbling ensues. Maybe I have gloves on. So, I peel them off, if I do.
I find it, lurking deep in my right cargo pocket. Past my wallet, several nails, a shitty blue ball-point pen and a layer of fine sawdust.
I sorta recognize the number. The prefix is completely familiar.
So, answer or not? I have about 1 more second to decide...
"Fuck." And then I swipe it up to answer.
"This is me." (And, in spite of my long-known, self-designed ninja training, my stomach drops out like I've been thrown from a plane. Again.)
What the hell could she say? I've played these scenarios in my pathetic cranium enough times to know that she has nothing to offer me except those few answers to those questions I iterated last year. If she answers any of them honestly, it meant she loved me longer than she claimed she did, and felt something for years. Which, as we all know, is not what she portrayed to the outside world and her cadre of man-eaters. That is the challenge - get her to admit she loved me and that she was a lovely, dramatic freakazoid about the break-up and the year after. A Mission Impossible. A goal. One should set goals.
"Brent?" Her voice still has that breathiness and delicious lilt to it. Nice. Some things never change.
"It's me." I'm trying to catch my breath, quietly.
"It's Beatrix." (She finishes with a resolute sigh. It, too, is familiar.)
"I'm fully aware. I saw the number." Dork! Breathe. Breathe.
"Can you talk?"
What does THAT mean? Fuck. WILL I talk? Sure. CAN I talk? Barely. SHOULD I talk? Maybe. What will it solve? Everything, perhaps.
"Yeah," I stammer out, "What do you want to talk about, because I hate wasting time. Get to it, please."
"I know that you want to talk about the past," she says, "But I was young and I don't remember a lot of it like you do."
Really? I think. But I don't say it. Can she be honest with HER past? There were some key moments for me. If she can't remember those, it's like dealing with a roulette ball.
"Do you recall saying you had done 'everything you could think of' to make me hate you at that McDonalds on Samish Way? With fries?"
"Yeah, I do. I - I..."
"Then that's a start, I suppose." Breathe. "I-"
"Why do you keep writing about me?"
"Because I still think about you. Almost every day." Deep breath. (That's not correct. It's every fucking day.)
"Do you still curse me?"
"No," I begin, "I'm over that now. Took a few decades. I felt - I thought - I had legitimate reason to be pissed at you."
"You probably did. Sorry."
"I wish that helped. Maybe you could spit up an 'enlightened' explanation. We're on the phone here, Beatrix. That's exceptional, in and of itself. Shit."
I heard a deep breath. A gut breath.
"I never wanted to love you."
Which I already knew. She'd been programmed against intimate love before I met her. I had to overcome large obstacles. Old stuff, to me.
"And?" I was getting impatient. I want those fucking explanations. I'm me, still.
"I did love you," she said, "But I was under pressure to..."
"I know about that." Breathe.
"I was under pressure, to leave you and finish college, and not be distracted by a close relationship."
"Which you had anyway, with D, right?"
"Yeah."
"So it was all a shell-game? Hide the one away?"
"What?"
"Well, I ceased to exist to you by your decision, then you ensured I could not talk to you legally, then you kept penetrating MY bubble. For a few years, it seemed to me."
The wheels spin and the world rotates in a whirl, and I'm tired.
Peace out. To be continued.
( For Those Who Haven't Kept Up With All This Shit: Please, my Lady Beatrix, explain why you were in that blizzard rhat day. And at Boulevard Park listening to me for an hour, or more, on the next bench. And in Arlington, right before you went off to Grad school. Tell me those answers, and I'll magically disappear again. We don't even have to deal with graffiti, right?
Yeah. Silence. I'm used to that. You're actually excellent at 'silence.')
Its a revolution I suppose.
We're painted red, to fit right in,
Whoa-o..."
from Imagine Dragons, their incredible "Radioactive"
Our familiar star is, as I start this, twenty degrees above the horizon, swathing us in orangey glare. My favorite time of day.
Songbirds are chipping away at the last greenage of my over-wintered golden chard, and I'm pretty sure they need it more than I do. Scarlet runner beans shine their blossoms for the myriad bee species. Garlic lays over for its eventual harvest, and that's sooner than it thinks. Walla Wallas grow bulby. The compost bin does it slow thing, yielding occasional dark, dank tea for my other garden investments... The carrots tell me they love it. Eggplants spurt forth their unique blossoms and fruit.
Sometimes my closest hobby-horse back home is those garden boxes. Other times, my canines - currently bought off with butcher bones - demand the most attention. They'll soon need a long walk, and I'll need one, as well. My new drummer's calves need their aerobic stimuli. The drums and cymbals are not here, or I'd be playing right now. I have 30-plus years of "air-drumming bad habits" to break open.
Life has been so very interesting lately.
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to have a real birthday - elk-rifle shooting in the morning and a tasty BBQ in the evening, complete with my close friends and family.
There was German chocolate cake after, so... good times.
These last few weeks I've been able to spend time with my nieces from My Lady's side, incredible girls I've known since the days they were born. We ate a smorgasbord of Korean seafood/galbi BBQ the 1st evening. The next day, we all walked the touristic Hell that Pike Place Market has become, then tasted 7-9 lovely Asian teas before purchasing 3, and ate fresh Manila clams and mussels on the waterfront, a spectre of docking container ships being pushed in by tugs, local harbor tours puttering out, ferries coming and going, and the occasional sailboat. BTW, "Sylvester the Mummy" at Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe still looks exactly like he did when I was 10 years old. Ditto "Sylvia." Funny, that.
The whole area is rife with so many buskers, all flavours included, as compared to 15 years ago, or even 5 years ago. Seattle does like its musicians. And they LOVE Seattle.
Other thoughts include a strange, simplistic revelation following a dream last week. There were two dreams, so I should credit that 'other' dream as well, it was an Assistant Coach.
The Primary Dream was the intense one. I found myself in some shithole like extreme Eastern Europe, or perhaps the Ukraine. Dingy, smelly and polluted. Primarily gray. The good thing is, I'm with a gorgeous (non-familiar) woman. And I am armed, and equipped, to protect her. A half-dozen Russian thugs are chasing us, and we're in the sun-shafted guts of an ancient factory, long stripped of anything valuable, a repository of dust and lost visions, utterly abandoned. It is cold. And I know we have to get out of there, everything depends on it.
And that is my charge in this dream.
I have a smallish 9mm semi-auto strapped on the inside of my belt-loop, behind my right hip. A diver's knife resides in a hidden sheath in my left boot. A grey backpack contains food, water, ammunition, and a lightweight sleeping bag. I'm almost out of ammunition, but that doesn't worry me.
I have to protect this random hottie.
We begin running and negotiating the detritus of the old factory - shouting to our north means we run southwest. Whatever cleanliness was left to our clothes soon succumbs to the musty rat shit of the building's carcass. We work together, and spill into the broad daylight...
A pair of railroad tracks runs east-west at the south end of the factory, so we sprint there, running along the top of a low berm with numerous wintering deciduous trees. The gravel is rough cut, uneven footing for sore feet, and the cold is like celery, crisp and green. A faint smell of car exhaust trickles through the breezes, and I strain to hear their engines, and civilization.
"One love,
We get to share it
It leaves you baby
If you don't care for it..."
U2 "One"
What doesn't seem to be reaching my foremost thoughts is that former lover.
I think I've said my peace, and I think her soul-killing silence is the best current answer, given her other distractions. (Not that I don't think about her, but my stomach doesn't tighten and wince when I catch myself being reminded of her. She could drive by this house honking her Honda horn, tits-a-blazin', blasting Peter Gabriel and I think I'd just sigh, drink a slug of warming beer, and go back to my yard and garden foci. They feed me, literally and emotionally, more than she has in the last 22 years.
Plus, I changed my phone number, so neener-neener. (It's now YOUR area code, 926-4433. I'm about 99.97% sure you won't ever dial it. So, I offer it freely to you. Least I can do, right?))
Here's my quickie version of our 'make-up call.' Brought to you by my irrelevant fantasy life.
Ring-ring. Ring. Ring.
"Fuck." I stop what I'm doing, and that could be almost anything... from soldering little wires or copper pipes, to weeding the garden, to picking up dog poop, to loading my truck with saws, to familiarizing with my crows, to putting tiny steel nails in fine wood... Where's my phone? I may - or may not - be on a ladder.
My pocket. Fumbling ensues. Maybe I have gloves on. So, I peel them off, if I do.
I find it, lurking deep in my right cargo pocket. Past my wallet, several nails, a shitty blue ball-point pen and a layer of fine sawdust.
I sorta recognize the number. The prefix is completely familiar.
So, answer or not? I have about 1 more second to decide...
"Fuck." And then I swipe it up to answer.
"This is me." (And, in spite of my long-known, self-designed ninja training, my stomach drops out like I've been thrown from a plane. Again.)
What the hell could she say? I've played these scenarios in my pathetic cranium enough times to know that she has nothing to offer me except those few answers to those questions I iterated last year. If she answers any of them honestly, it meant she loved me longer than she claimed she did, and felt something for years. Which, as we all know, is not what she portrayed to the outside world and her cadre of man-eaters. That is the challenge - get her to admit she loved me and that she was a lovely, dramatic freakazoid about the break-up and the year after. A Mission Impossible. A goal. One should set goals.
"Brent?" Her voice still has that breathiness and delicious lilt to it. Nice. Some things never change.
"It's me." I'm trying to catch my breath, quietly.
"It's Beatrix." (She finishes with a resolute sigh. It, too, is familiar.)
"I'm fully aware. I saw the number." Dork! Breathe. Breathe.
"Can you talk?"
What does THAT mean? Fuck. WILL I talk? Sure. CAN I talk? Barely. SHOULD I talk? Maybe. What will it solve? Everything, perhaps.
"Yeah," I stammer out, "What do you want to talk about, because I hate wasting time. Get to it, please."
"I know that you want to talk about the past," she says, "But I was young and I don't remember a lot of it like you do."
Really? I think. But I don't say it. Can she be honest with HER past? There were some key moments for me. If she can't remember those, it's like dealing with a roulette ball.
"Do you recall saying you had done 'everything you could think of' to make me hate you at that McDonalds on Samish Way? With fries?"
"Yeah, I do. I - I..."
"Then that's a start, I suppose." Breathe. "I-"
"Why do you keep writing about me?"
"Because I still think about you. Almost every day." Deep breath. (That's not correct. It's every fucking day.)
"Do you still curse me?"
"No," I begin, "I'm over that now. Took a few decades. I felt - I thought - I had legitimate reason to be pissed at you."
"You probably did. Sorry."
"I wish that helped. Maybe you could spit up an 'enlightened' explanation. We're on the phone here, Beatrix. That's exceptional, in and of itself. Shit."
I heard a deep breath. A gut breath.
"I never wanted to love you."
Which I already knew. She'd been programmed against intimate love before I met her. I had to overcome large obstacles. Old stuff, to me.
"And?" I was getting impatient. I want those fucking explanations. I'm me, still.
"I did love you," she said, "But I was under pressure to..."
"I know about that." Breathe.
"I was under pressure, to leave you and finish college, and not be distracted by a close relationship."
"Which you had anyway, with D, right?"
"Yeah."
"So it was all a shell-game? Hide the one away?"
"What?"
"Well, I ceased to exist to you by your decision, then you ensured I could not talk to you legally, then you kept penetrating MY bubble. For a few years, it seemed to me."
The wheels spin and the world rotates in a whirl, and I'm tired.
Peace out. To be continued.
( For Those Who Haven't Kept Up With All This Shit: Please, my Lady Beatrix, explain why you were in that blizzard rhat day. And at Boulevard Park listening to me for an hour, or more, on the next bench. And in Arlington, right before you went off to Grad school. Tell me those answers, and I'll magically disappear again. We don't even have to deal with graffiti, right?
Yeah. Silence. I'm used to that. You're actually excellent at 'silence.')
Monday, June 3, 2013
Klargen's Log: Supplemental
Stardate 7881.3
Overcast weather, birds galore seek their wants, Ipod rumbles deep into my skull. The volume is way up, as per usual.
I'm back, farmer-tanned, and bad as a steel strap, and the storyboard is almost complete.
I've been playing drums as much as I've been listening to drums, lately. My gastrocnemius on the right wakes me up with its protest, sometimes all too early. Working on the bass.
Fair Readers, listen to this: (or buy it on Itunes, I certainly did.) Pay up, Apple.
"There's a light,
And I can see it in your eyes
There's a memory,
Of the way you used to be.
Nothing's gone,
It still shines,
Every time you turn it on,
And when,
You slow it down..."
Serena Ryder, kicking ass like Shirley Bassey, in the first 1/2 minute of "Stompa" that they never play on the radio..
I'd love to say that 'temporal discharges' have hindered me these last 8-plus weeks, from my self-assigned duties to this blog/column.
But that ain't it.
It's more real than that. Isn't it? Of course it is.
A full pallet of pre-mixed concrete. Multiple saws screeching. Engineering stakes sunk soundly into glacial till. The inevitable power supply issues. Respirators. Brush-finishing. Fanned-angle blinds. Brass corner brackets. Helping two young friends with their Friday vocab test-words the night before. Fettucine alfredo from scratch. Occasional roast organic chicken, perhaps stuffed with onion bagel scraps and imported Chilean apples. Actual drum kit, needs a 10" crash but otherwise adequate. Actual bass guitar w/ amp. Writing words in notebooks, reviewing journals for tidbits. Carrying around a bastard file to sharpen anything. Helping strangers push inoperative cars onto tilt-trailers.
And pulling hemlock wherever I see it. Fucking hemlock. (Pull it now, people - it is ready to go to seed, planning to ruin your garden life. You really don't want that, trust me.)
Plus my weed-eater now has the right diameter line, so there's that.
I'm a bit euphoric here, I messaged to the XO. No response necessary, I prompted. Maybe he received it, maybe he didn't.
The lively tangerine colour of that inner room was pleasantly warm to the exposed skin, and as I thought that, the Wibros reacted with a vibrating S-shimmy that changed through several complimentary tones of yellow and red against the sheer wall of light in the room.
"What the fu..." I thought. That almost looked liked intricate dancing. Or, luminous spaghetti spazzing out.
Durd'n gurgled, like a laugh, and I realized that perhaps we all shared our thoughts in this room - and he clasped his claws as he turned to me.
"Shplick sh'kloc houf." His eyes rotated around their stalks, but it wasn't like he could glare at me to make a point. I felt like he did, however.
What he'd spoken sounded mildly juvenile and laden with the dirty burden a fart-joke entails.
Then I found myself laughing, like I'd nailed it.
So, there's news sports-fans, Beatrix and her imported husband put a video on Youfacetube. (Not giving the address, of course.) My unenlightened, knee-jerk observations are...
1) They're made for each other; they both spew the same tautological mantras and have the counseling/coaching backgrounds to confidently utter them, and actually believe them. They're tautologies, for fuck's sake.
To paraphrase some of them:
"If you're having a conflict, then you're the one having the conflict."
"We use the context of our partnership as a classroom for the spirit." (WTF?)
"Sometimes, you just get to be 'right.' And sometimes, I do." (inside-joke chuckle ensues...)
"Get a room," I would offer. Mini-date my ass.
I actually have to thank them for re-confirming my opinion that counselors/therapists/coaches are so disconnected from human reality that they must succinctly codify and create new meta-ideas (that aren't at all new) to preserve the belief that they actually do/create/enhance something. There's an almost desperate tone to their need to be somehow valuable to society here. We know only the well-heeled can afford a personal life-coach, someone who can tell you to 'visualize your future' and 'disregard the past' and YOU TWO make money repeating these bromides. Those people/clients aren't society. Your clients are entitled pricks who are bored, when making money ceases to have that itch-you-can't-scratch allure. As coaches, only those people with more money than actual problems gets headed your way.
B) They're completely convinced that they're the smartest/cleverest people they know. That fetid arrogance is almost sickening to behold. For God's sake, you're both divorcees, so you aren't THAT good at relationships. (Beatrix, how many times have you said 'yes' to a marriage proposal? I know I was #1. High-five!)) Graduate school and all the fixin's tend to make a person think they know Everything. I've watched the video 3 times, once with a few friends, and the general consensus is that between her husband's 'clucking sounds' and her cynical attempts at deprecating humor, they really think they're the bee's knees. Congratulations on not spraining your arms patting yourselves on your backs for staying 'in your relationship.' You must have stretched out first.
III) They both think of themselves as 'connected with spirit' and 'constantly evolving souls.' Welcome to Life 101. We're all constantly evolving and seeking life's answers. Another tautology, then, isn't it? Way to be 'human!'
I find myself thankful she chased me away, demonized me, targeted me with putrid hate, and generally treated me like shit. Things worked out better that way, I believe. I had to learn hubris, restraint, and compassion for those who don't really deserve it.
Eventually, I learned to quit hating her, and by bad-extension, quit hating myself. I could only beat myself up for so long about falling into love and/or loving her. Truly blinded, I was. Her enduring silence proves my assessment - she is partially sociopathic, probably was Borderline Personality Disorder afflicted at one time, and finds it easier to be fearful than to be courageous.
Beatrix, you're older and somewhat wiser, but you're still stuck with your still-self-serving head in those paisley New Age clouds. I'll know when you pop out of them, won't I? The birds will sing Enya or something, right?
Too-da-loo, back to the novel. Gotta spit it out.
Overcast weather, birds galore seek their wants, Ipod rumbles deep into my skull. The volume is way up, as per usual.
I'm back, farmer-tanned, and bad as a steel strap, and the storyboard is almost complete.
I've been playing drums as much as I've been listening to drums, lately. My gastrocnemius on the right wakes me up with its protest, sometimes all too early. Working on the bass.
Fair Readers, listen to this: (or buy it on Itunes, I certainly did.) Pay up, Apple.
"There's a light,
And I can see it in your eyes
There's a memory,
Of the way you used to be.
Nothing's gone,
It still shines,
Every time you turn it on,
And when,
You slow it down..."
Serena Ryder, kicking ass like Shirley Bassey, in the first 1/2 minute of "Stompa" that they never play on the radio..
I'd love to say that 'temporal discharges' have hindered me these last 8-plus weeks, from my self-assigned duties to this blog/column.
But that ain't it.
It's more real than that. Isn't it? Of course it is.
A full pallet of pre-mixed concrete. Multiple saws screeching. Engineering stakes sunk soundly into glacial till. The inevitable power supply issues. Respirators. Brush-finishing. Fanned-angle blinds. Brass corner brackets. Helping two young friends with their Friday vocab test-words the night before. Fettucine alfredo from scratch. Occasional roast organic chicken, perhaps stuffed with onion bagel scraps and imported Chilean apples. Actual drum kit, needs a 10" crash but otherwise adequate. Actual bass guitar w/ amp. Writing words in notebooks, reviewing journals for tidbits. Carrying around a bastard file to sharpen anything. Helping strangers push inoperative cars onto tilt-trailers.
And pulling hemlock wherever I see it. Fucking hemlock. (Pull it now, people - it is ready to go to seed, planning to ruin your garden life. You really don't want that, trust me.)
Plus my weed-eater now has the right diameter line, so there's that.
I'm a bit euphoric here, I messaged to the XO. No response necessary, I prompted. Maybe he received it, maybe he didn't.
The lively tangerine colour of that inner room was pleasantly warm to the exposed skin, and as I thought that, the Wibros reacted with a vibrating S-shimmy that changed through several complimentary tones of yellow and red against the sheer wall of light in the room.
"What the fu..." I thought. That almost looked liked intricate dancing. Or, luminous spaghetti spazzing out.
Durd'n gurgled, like a laugh, and I realized that perhaps we all shared our thoughts in this room - and he clasped his claws as he turned to me.
"Shplick sh'kloc houf." His eyes rotated around their stalks, but it wasn't like he could glare at me to make a point. I felt like he did, however.
What he'd spoken sounded mildly juvenile and laden with the dirty burden a fart-joke entails.
Then I found myself laughing, like I'd nailed it.
So, there's news sports-fans, Beatrix and her imported husband put a video on Youfacetube. (Not giving the address, of course.) My unenlightened, knee-jerk observations are...
1) They're made for each other; they both spew the same tautological mantras and have the counseling/coaching backgrounds to confidently utter them, and actually believe them. They're tautologies, for fuck's sake.
To paraphrase some of them:
"If you're having a conflict, then you're the one having the conflict."
"We use the context of our partnership as a classroom for the spirit." (WTF?)
"Sometimes, you just get to be 'right.' And sometimes, I do." (inside-joke chuckle ensues...)
"Get a room," I would offer. Mini-date my ass.
I actually have to thank them for re-confirming my opinion that counselors/therapists/coaches are so disconnected from human reality that they must succinctly codify and create new meta-ideas (that aren't at all new) to preserve the belief that they actually do/create/enhance something. There's an almost desperate tone to their need to be somehow valuable to society here. We know only the well-heeled can afford a personal life-coach, someone who can tell you to 'visualize your future' and 'disregard the past' and YOU TWO make money repeating these bromides. Those people/clients aren't society. Your clients are entitled pricks who are bored, when making money ceases to have that itch-you-can't-scratch allure. As coaches, only those people with more money than actual problems gets headed your way.
B) They're completely convinced that they're the smartest/cleverest people they know. That fetid arrogance is almost sickening to behold. For God's sake, you're both divorcees, so you aren't THAT good at relationships. (Beatrix, how many times have you said 'yes' to a marriage proposal? I know I was #1. High-five!)) Graduate school and all the fixin's tend to make a person think they know Everything. I've watched the video 3 times, once with a few friends, and the general consensus is that between her husband's 'clucking sounds' and her cynical attempts at deprecating humor, they really think they're the bee's knees. Congratulations on not spraining your arms patting yourselves on your backs for staying 'in your relationship.' You must have stretched out first.
III) They both think of themselves as 'connected with spirit' and 'constantly evolving souls.' Welcome to Life 101. We're all constantly evolving and seeking life's answers. Another tautology, then, isn't it? Way to be 'human!'
I find myself thankful she chased me away, demonized me, targeted me with putrid hate, and generally treated me like shit. Things worked out better that way, I believe. I had to learn hubris, restraint, and compassion for those who don't really deserve it.
Eventually, I learned to quit hating her, and by bad-extension, quit hating myself. I could only beat myself up for so long about falling into love and/or loving her. Truly blinded, I was. Her enduring silence proves my assessment - she is partially sociopathic, probably was Borderline Personality Disorder afflicted at one time, and finds it easier to be fearful than to be courageous.
For example, from her blog: "To engage with upsets from an enlightened perspective... seems challenging at best."
"Enlightened Perspective." Gawd I love that. It says volumes about your current self-image.
Beatrix, you're older and somewhat wiser, but you're still stuck with your still-self-serving head in those paisley New Age clouds. I'll know when you pop out of them, won't I? The birds will sing Enya or something, right?
Too-da-loo, back to the novel. Gotta spit it out.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Restless Nights Past Equinox, Star-date 7818
Another day (7818) tumbles into its grave, torn-tethered to the last, response-ready for the next, resigned to its place in the cosmos... the plants just do their life-affirming thing...
Lost of care, lost of crucial intensity, lost of smelly synchronicity, my soul is...
(Quanta do their things. Quite amazing their speed, really.)
Or IS all this shit real? Or NOT?
(I still feel Her.) Every fucking day. Every fucking day.
Some days are mildly different.
Some days are very cold.
Some days are simply warm. I like them. The birds sing to me...
Some days are HOT.
And then I know. It is sooooo easy to see.
"See the stone set in your eyes,
See the thorn twist in you side,
I wait for you.
Slight of hand and twist of fate,
On a bed of nails she makes me wait.
And I wait without you.
With or without you.
With or without you..."
U2, "With or Without You" and IT is still relevant.
I almost dropped his personal signal to the XO, and surveyed the scene. The interior was vast, smoothly and roundly cut. and molecularly immaculate upon quick inspection. (Like the inside of an unfamiliar gem, quietly rational but superbly exotic.)
There were almost a dozen of us, moving further into the belly of AMHRF, Level Seven. No human has ever been down here, and back.
My eyes caught few details.
Several old-school ships were berthed - maybe even moth-balled - and they sat, sad and dust-covered, even way down here, the glib 'flying saucers" of our parent's days. They seemed like pathetic relics in a crude museum, even though they probably outclassed anything our Defense Dept could do, in their current state.
Then another door, but it was a tack-welded, steel-framed door, so I knew humans had been down here before. Or had built that, at least.
My Security Team was nonchalant, as cool as Fonzie, as they obviously shared with the other Greys in our novel team. The new room was over-lit, more of an orange light, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. Like tangerines on fire, amplified.
"XO, we're pats-smil. Repairs are underway, are they not?"
"Aye, Klargen."
"Prep for dust-off immediately after repairs are complete."
"Blinx, Klargen."
"Now you're just somebody that
I used to know..."
Gotye, "Somebody I Used To Know" and it kicks ass.
I don't psychically want to exploit this whole story Beatrix, but, maybe, I damn well will. For my own reasons. (Like naked profits, truly revealed karma, spiritual wisdom gained, and a tiny amount of [relatively] harmless revenge. It'd take a sly-as-fuck detective or a dedicated, patient friend to figure this all out, unless I write it.)
I know you aren't either one or the other. Just something else. (That I totally, without-limits, loved.)
I'll do it all by myself, like always. (Personal High-Five!) (Closer to a high-seven-plus, to be TMI honest... you must recall the pulsing, titanium-bolt intent. You commented on it, quite often, in near-rapturous states, way back then, in those sweaty beds of your late teens.)
Don't be surprised when the checks show up there in that Tuatara box. Just cash them. Sign, and cash. So easy.
Just eat it up, and never give mind to me. (You obviously can't and haven't, so there's no large change there. These aren't the 'droids you're looking for...)
(Don't dare look/recall/remember back, Beatrix, you can't rightly constitute it, I surmise. What a pity. You missed a symbolic epic story in your youth... and turned it into pseudo-feministic rage, unearned anger, and blind-unaware fear. Wow.
Congratulations! Your path was set as a would-be victim. Of ME. If I was SUCH am emergency-level threat, would you be reading this 22 years later, in the soft comfort of your island home? (No.)
I'm such a direct and violent bastard, right?
That's what you intimated that day long ago,
(I would assertively turn the tables on that in Court, of course, should you renew that avenue. Because YOU, Ms Beatrix, were the mean, petty, angry one. Or, perhaps just naive and young and, therefore, scared. Of ME. [Which nearly makes me laugh.])
Songbirds and crows aren't even afraid of me, and YOU are? (Shed that Zookish fraidy-cat shit and be real.)
Still writing the screenplay.
It IS ironic you'll pay to see the movie that is written about you.
Cash the checks.
Lost of care, lost of crucial intensity, lost of smelly synchronicity, my soul is...
(Quanta do their things. Quite amazing their speed, really.)
Or IS all this shit real? Or NOT?
(I still feel Her.) Every fucking day. Every fucking day.
Some days are mildly different.
Some days are very cold.
Some days are simply warm. I like them. The birds sing to me...
Some days are HOT.
And then I know. It is sooooo easy to see.
"See the stone set in your eyes,
See the thorn twist in you side,
I wait for you.
Slight of hand and twist of fate,
On a bed of nails she makes me wait.
And I wait without you.
With or without you.
With or without you..."
U2, "With or Without You" and IT is still relevant.
I almost dropped his personal signal to the XO, and surveyed the scene. The interior was vast, smoothly and roundly cut. and molecularly immaculate upon quick inspection. (Like the inside of an unfamiliar gem, quietly rational but superbly exotic.)
There were almost a dozen of us, moving further into the belly of AMHRF, Level Seven. No human has ever been down here, and back.
My eyes caught few details.
Several old-school ships were berthed - maybe even moth-balled - and they sat, sad and dust-covered, even way down here, the glib 'flying saucers" of our parent's days. They seemed like pathetic relics in a crude museum, even though they probably outclassed anything our Defense Dept could do, in their current state.
Then another door, but it was a tack-welded, steel-framed door, so I knew humans had been down here before. Or had built that, at least.
My Security Team was nonchalant, as cool as Fonzie, as they obviously shared with the other Greys in our novel team. The new room was over-lit, more of an orange light, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. Like tangerines on fire, amplified.
"XO, we're pats-smil. Repairs are underway, are they not?"
"Aye, Klargen."
"Prep for dust-off immediately after repairs are complete."
"Blinx, Klargen."
"Now you're just somebody that
I used to know..."
Gotye, "Somebody I Used To Know" and it kicks ass.
I don't psychically want to exploit this whole story Beatrix, but, maybe, I damn well will. For my own reasons. (Like naked profits, truly revealed karma, spiritual wisdom gained, and a tiny amount of [relatively] harmless revenge. It'd take a sly-as-fuck detective or a dedicated, patient friend to figure this all out, unless I write it.)
I know you aren't either one or the other. Just something else. (That I totally, without-limits, loved.)
I'll do it all by myself, like always. (Personal High-Five!) (Closer to a high-seven-plus, to be TMI honest... you must recall the pulsing, titanium-bolt intent. You commented on it, quite often, in near-rapturous states, way back then, in those sweaty beds of your late teens.)
Don't be surprised when the checks show up there in that Tuatara box. Just cash them. Sign, and cash. So easy.
Just eat it up, and never give mind to me. (You obviously can't and haven't, so there's no large change there. These aren't the 'droids you're looking for...)
(Don't dare look/recall/remember back, Beatrix, you can't rightly constitute it, I surmise. What a pity. You missed a symbolic epic story in your youth... and turned it into pseudo-feministic rage, unearned anger, and blind-unaware fear. Wow.
Congratulations! Your path was set as a would-be victim. Of ME. If I was SUCH am emergency-level threat, would you be reading this 22 years later, in the soft comfort of your island home? (No.)
I'm such a direct and violent bastard, right?
That's what you intimated that day long ago,
(I would assertively turn the tables on that in Court, of course, should you renew that avenue. Because YOU, Ms Beatrix, were the mean, petty, angry one. Or, perhaps just naive and young and, therefore, scared. Of ME. [Which nearly makes me laugh.])
Songbirds and crows aren't even afraid of me, and YOU are? (Shed that Zookish fraidy-cat shit and be real.)
Still writing the screenplay.
It IS ironic you'll pay to see the movie that is written about you.
Cash the checks.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Hiatus: Submerge.
"I am just an ancient drummer-boy.
And in the wars
I used to play.
And I've called a tune,
To many a tortured session."
Dire Straits, and it doesn't get much better than that. Knopfler knows his shit. He could mud-poop and it'd be an incredible song.
The best thing about "this whole thing, about this blog" is that NO ONE reads this, or admits as much. 215 unique hits. and only a paltry two comments in 18 months. I'm suckin up time like it ain't no thing. Do I have to stick a needle in you? Your mama wears Army boots!
I don't care, but I'm still here. MUTHAFUCKAHS YAAAWW! (Who is that? Way off?)
"Way off" is such a weird construct.
Yeah, you're out there. Ar'n't we all? This Sagittarus Arm gets boring...
You should go somewhere else.
It's odd to refer to oneself in the 3rd Person, but THIS Klargen isn't miffed, he's energized.
He's goin' "free-form." You've been warned, Fair Readers. I'm relatively sure you'll all be alright.
I skipped a lot of rocks across glass-smooth, inter-tidal saltwater a few weeks ago, so... :)
Kick Ass. (Nor-Cal, babies. I lived it. I KNOW it.)
"I love the night,
The day is okay
But I live to see those rays slip away."
from Blue Oyster Cult's magnificent "I Love the Night"
I rapidly shuffled through the detritus/shit piled up in my old mind, before that transfer from Durd'n, and I was disappointed. All my indulgences. My urges. My ego. My old loves.
They seemed silly by comparison. Durd'n had a life and then some.
My Greys were alert, but relaxed, and we all ambled toward the newly-opened space of the lime-green light in the polished wall. Durd'n moved remarkably fast for his form.
The spectacular novelty of his shared memories became clear to me, all of a sudden, from out of nowhere. Olfactory clues about proximity, constantly mixing fluids and gasses swirling, swishing. Faint whiffs of 'others.' A life of seemingly perfect solitude with intense smatterings of social interactions, the kind that left scars and torn limbs.
I git it.
He's a fucking interstellar space lobster, endlessly old by our standards, used to the shit.
I had to respect that. The door shushed quietly behind us as we entered AMHRF, at Level Seven.
"XO,you still there."
"Aye, Klargen, no EMF or magnetic interference. Utmost caution is advised."
"Right on." I pushed that I wasn't worried, but he probably already knew it.
I knew the repairs would be made, to our mutual satisfaction (the whale-song data in exchange,) and I awaited the moment the Tinglev started humming the right note.
I was tuned in.
"There's no time for us,
There's no place for us,
What is this thing,
That builds our dreams,
Yet slips away from us?
Who wants to live forever?
Who wants to live forever?
There's no chance for us,
It's all decided for us,
This world has only one sweet moment
Set aside for us."
Queen, "Who Wants to Live Forever?"
And in the wars
I used to play.
And I've called a tune,
To many a tortured session."
Dire Straits, and it doesn't get much better than that. Knopfler knows his shit. He could mud-poop and it'd be an incredible song.
The best thing about "this whole thing, about this blog" is that NO ONE reads this, or admits as much. 215 unique hits. and only a paltry two comments in 18 months. I'm suckin up time like it ain't no thing. Do I have to stick a needle in you? Your mama wears Army boots!
I don't care, but I'm still here. MUTHAFUCKAHS YAAAWW! (Who is that? Way off?)
"Way off" is such a weird construct.
Yeah, you're out there. Ar'n't we all? This Sagittarus Arm gets boring...
You should go somewhere else.
It's odd to refer to oneself in the 3rd Person, but THIS Klargen isn't miffed, he's energized.
He's goin' "free-form." You've been warned, Fair Readers. I'm relatively sure you'll all be alright.
I skipped a lot of rocks across glass-smooth, inter-tidal saltwater a few weeks ago, so... :)
Kick Ass. (Nor-Cal, babies. I lived it. I KNOW it.)
"I love the night,
The day is okay
But I live to see those rays slip away."
from Blue Oyster Cult's magnificent "I Love the Night"
I rapidly shuffled through the detritus/shit piled up in my old mind, before that transfer from Durd'n, and I was disappointed. All my indulgences. My urges. My ego. My old loves.
They seemed silly by comparison. Durd'n had a life and then some.
My Greys were alert, but relaxed, and we all ambled toward the newly-opened space of the lime-green light in the polished wall. Durd'n moved remarkably fast for his form.
The spectacular novelty of his shared memories became clear to me, all of a sudden, from out of nowhere. Olfactory clues about proximity, constantly mixing fluids and gasses swirling, swishing. Faint whiffs of 'others.' A life of seemingly perfect solitude with intense smatterings of social interactions, the kind that left scars and torn limbs.
I git it.
He's a fucking interstellar space lobster, endlessly old by our standards, used to the shit.
I had to respect that. The door shushed quietly behind us as we entered AMHRF, at Level Seven.
"XO,you still there."
"Aye, Klargen, no EMF or magnetic interference. Utmost caution is advised."
"Right on." I pushed that I wasn't worried, but he probably already knew it.
I knew the repairs would be made, to our mutual satisfaction (the whale-song data in exchange,) and I awaited the moment the Tinglev started humming the right note.
I was tuned in.
"There's no time for us,
There's no place for us,
What is this thing,
That builds our dreams,
Yet slips away from us?
Who wants to live forever?
Who wants to live forever?
There's no chance for us,
It's all decided for us,
This world has only one sweet moment
Set aside for us."
Queen, "Who Wants to Live Forever?"
So I have to, respectfully, take a petite break from this blog/column to re-write the insipid Beatrix novel that I wrote 20 years ago - which I will adapt to a hawt new screenplay - that creates the movie you all buy tickets to see, in roughly three years. Millions will ensue.
I seen't it. It has ALREADY happened.
The carefully calculated trajectory is set. The anvil words, the constant fall of familiar letters, the painfully relevant memories, the fantastic Jungian symbols, et al, are known. Distilled, to a lush core. The basic story is set, unless those pesky characters do "their own thing." (Sometimes written embodiments do that. It's weird. Really weird.)
And I know the ending, but I won't share it here. Yet. (Buy the book, and see the movie. It'll be awesome, given the CGI capabilities of modern film-making. Dragonflies, action, romance, and cool spiritual shit. A Jungian epic is what I'm 'not' aiming for, so I'll hit it.)
"Oh, somebody's happy to give you love
Your love - your love..."
Journey's "Happy to Give" (never gets old to me)
Is it just me, or does it seem that some of the 'truths' of our lives eventually fade away and die? Missed connections, late trains, trombone sounds, polar bears, and the feel of deep affections lost. The inaudible sighs of overly acidic coral reefs saying "Enough already, Jeesh." They just bleach out and die.
You know what I'm getting at - this isn't a pissing contest that I know I'll win - because I'm good at pissing.
Or maybe you don't know. If you are paying attention at all, everything dies, and it isn't something you recover from.
To Those Who Actually Read This:
I'm gonna be busy with the novel. (If YOU are reading this, Beatrix, ALL will be revealed. I DID give you the chance to explore the riches, but you rejected it by default. Silence is so simple.) I'll publish excerpts in another/related blog.
You'll all be alright.
Because that is all I wish for. Deity forbid that my Fair Readers have any harm or malice meander their ways, because I'll be in a bubble and I can't 'activate' without alarums...
Let me know. I'll be writing.
But not here.
Hugs to the world. And to those guys that most of the world doesn't know about, I offer thanks. You've at least been (imaginarily) there.
I already know the last line of the novel.
Do you?
Journey's "Happy to Give" (never gets old to me)
Is it just me, or does it seem that some of the 'truths' of our lives eventually fade away and die? Missed connections, late trains, trombone sounds, polar bears, and the feel of deep affections lost. The inaudible sighs of overly acidic coral reefs saying "Enough already, Jeesh." They just bleach out and die.
You know what I'm getting at - this isn't a pissing contest that I know I'll win - because I'm good at pissing.
Or maybe you don't know. If you are paying attention at all, everything dies, and it isn't something you recover from.
To Those Who Actually Read This:
I'm gonna be busy with the novel. (If YOU are reading this, Beatrix, ALL will be revealed. I DID give you the chance to explore the riches, but you rejected it by default. Silence is so simple.) I'll publish excerpts in another/related blog.
You'll all be alright.
Because that is all I wish for. Deity forbid that my Fair Readers have any harm or malice meander their ways, because I'll be in a bubble and I can't 'activate' without alarums...
Let me know. I'll be writing.
But not here.
Hugs to the world. And to those guys that most of the world doesn't know about, I offer thanks. You've at least been (imaginarily) there.
I already know the last line of the novel.
Do you?
Monday, March 11, 2013
Klargen & The De-Briefing
Greetings and Salutations, Minions of Literary Chaos!
I'm getting too familiar with the sound of beating pistons, wind breaking past worn weather-stripping, and the dull rumble of the road. I know where the potholes are now.
My mind swam within Durd'n's ocean of consciousness. It was vast. Almost too much to take in and process.
As curious as I was, I just stood there and pondered thoughts about his world and probably looked like a zombie/walker on the pristine deck of AMHRF. (He had backed away and my Greys had moved to my flanks in loose formation, still straightening their Order Blue tunics on habit. They privated to me that they were ready, albeit a bit confused.)
I found myself correcting my balance, as well.
So many directions to go... so many memories to probe and test. As they say, "Plinkex pat neburb elg pinz bastor." (BAHAHAHA! I always chuckle when I hear that. It never gets old.)
His home planet was strikingly odd, liquids and gasses didn't behave in conventional ways, to our human knowledge. What light that reached his planet was tremendously diffuse and often unreliable, and appeared as chaotic flashes of pale-green. Temperature wasn't reasonably constant or predictable, as well. Magnetism was apparently a visual range; even slight fields or aberrations were within his species' normal range of cognition.
The XO privated to me that the repairs were not significant, but may be time-consuming. Perhaps as long as a few hours.
I privated this to Durd'n, and he replied that he already knew.
So I wandered in his mind.
"Love, I get so lost sometimes.
Days pass,
And this emptiness fills my heart.
When I want to run away
I drive off in my car.
But whichever way I go
I come back to the place you are.
All my instincts
They return
The grand facade
So soon will burn
Without a noise
Without my pride,
I reach out
From the inside..."
Peter Gabriel, "In Your Eyes" (at Day 7797 since sane interaction.)
Pass the fucking mashed potatoes. Don't buy helium balloons anymore. Lick stamps while you still can. See a polar bear, maybe offer your body to it, if that is an option.
Where the bejeezus are we going with this?
Fuck it, my Sweet Readers. Klargen's De-Briefing can wait. Tonight's topic is "My Particular Faults."
This may be a long list, and some of my thousands of readers may not see some of the sarcasm here.
1. I am obsessive/compulsive, at times. (No, you are.)
A) Not in any straight-up harmful way, but I do have 'safety' issues with regard to some work conditions (big ladders, spinning carbide/diamond blades, petro-toxins) or just about anything involving higher speeds, if I am not in control. I can smell chaos like its a captured garter snake in a Tupperware container. That shit is so obvious.
B) I don't OCD on useless shit. I OCD on obvious hypocrisy. Obvious inconsistency. Obvious bullshit. Obvious lameness. (This is, obviously, not the world for a dragon-slayer. Sigh.)
2. I am narcissistic. But not in a conventional way.
A) Took an IQ test, my Mom timed it and everything, when I was 13. Edmonds, WA. The results explained a lot of things. This is in the days before the Internet, so we'd mailed it off. Took weeks for the number. I can't disagree with it, it 'is what it is.'
B) I'm not narcissistic because I'm pretty. That isn't a problem I have. I have some sort of presence, but doesn't everyone?
C) Sometimes, I see/visualize things other people may have problems conceptualizing, before they happen. That's the easiest way to put that. Accidents don't happen 'all the sudden' and most things follow their trajectories. Most things.
3. I have the curse of videographic memory. (It's great replaying movies in my head, or poignant songs, or actual simmering memories, like having sex with those I've had sex with, but it makes me miss people I haven't seen in a while, now and again.)
A) Some would say it is not a curse. But with regard to interpersonal relationships, it is, at times.
B) Memories are remarkably persistent, especially if they have a significant emotional potential to them. I watched a friend bleed out - crushed cranium - in 1988, and he died in my sight. I remember the last thing I said to him, and where, when, why, and the direction his feet were in. I was giving him shit for 'sleeping on the job.' And I watched him join the Big Dirt Nap Club. Maybe I'll forgive myself for that sarcasm someday.
C) I can replay almost anything I've experienced. If it was important, I can see/hear nearly everything. (And remember my mood, the aromas, the beer/wine I drank before, the local fauna.)
D) Sea turtles are fascinating to be near. So curious. Ditto crows/ravens. Dogs, of course. A few cats have been close buddies, as well.
4. I was a late bloomer, and I still feel young in my head.
A) This is only a hormone issue, perhaps. My system may be a bit enfolded. I sure don't feel like I'm in my late 40's. My body ages, nonetheless. Inevitability arises. It has a certain aim.
B) I still hit it hard at work when the situation calls for it, which it often does. Dragons must be slain. That really is the ultimate credo.
B.2) I'm pretty sure I could still 'cause a ruckus.' That's all I'm gonna say about that. Those who know, know.
B.3) Dance and life and fight are all one and the same. Passion is everything. And cowardice steals and picks away at passion. It eventually decimates it. Fight cowardice. Embrace passion.
B.4) Challenge the challenge. (say it with a French accent, if you can.)
C) I may be losing hair but I'm gaining the kind of wisdom 'they' write about. White whales, all that shit. My peculiar obsessions may be the end of me, but it'll be a fun ride, so I board this ride without reservation. I want one of those wing-suits. I will jump off something someday, because I don't care for heights. That's what it's all about. Defeating fears. Whup that shit, I say.
5. I am emotionally tortured by my non-existent relationship with a former lover. (Been over this, so fuck any elucidation. She's still the only woman I ever asked to marry me.)
SIDENOTE: And that always sets me off into another, gloomier place. Thinking about her derails anything I'm concentrating upon.
Not in the mood tonight.
She doesn't have any interest in fixing her fuck-ups. So I have to make shit up.
Like this:
I got an email from her, amazing! Very brief. She wants to have a talk.
Hard to believe, but she's gonna call me on Saturday, March 16 at 10:18pm. She knows my number, Seattle area code + 351-5369.
If my phone rings, I'll be amazed.
They say you should visualize your future. What would I say to her. What would I want to hear from her? Would that help at all? Is she even real? What do I want?
Gonna work on that.
I love my delusions. They're so cozy. Pillows for the psyche.
I'm getting too familiar with the sound of beating pistons, wind breaking past worn weather-stripping, and the dull rumble of the road. I know where the potholes are now.
My mind swam within Durd'n's ocean of consciousness. It was vast. Almost too much to take in and process.
As curious as I was, I just stood there and pondered thoughts about his world and probably looked like a zombie/walker on the pristine deck of AMHRF. (He had backed away and my Greys had moved to my flanks in loose formation, still straightening their Order Blue tunics on habit. They privated to me that they were ready, albeit a bit confused.)
I found myself correcting my balance, as well.
So many directions to go... so many memories to probe and test. As they say, "Plinkex pat neburb elg pinz bastor." (BAHAHAHA! I always chuckle when I hear that. It never gets old.)
His home planet was strikingly odd, liquids and gasses didn't behave in conventional ways, to our human knowledge. What light that reached his planet was tremendously diffuse and often unreliable, and appeared as chaotic flashes of pale-green. Temperature wasn't reasonably constant or predictable, as well. Magnetism was apparently a visual range; even slight fields or aberrations were within his species' normal range of cognition.
The XO privated to me that the repairs were not significant, but may be time-consuming. Perhaps as long as a few hours.
I privated this to Durd'n, and he replied that he already knew.
So I wandered in his mind.
"Love, I get so lost sometimes.
Days pass,
And this emptiness fills my heart.
When I want to run away
I drive off in my car.
But whichever way I go
I come back to the place you are.
All my instincts
They return
The grand facade
So soon will burn
Without a noise
Without my pride,
I reach out
From the inside..."
Peter Gabriel, "In Your Eyes" (at Day 7797 since sane interaction.)
Pass the fucking mashed potatoes. Don't buy helium balloons anymore. Lick stamps while you still can. See a polar bear, maybe offer your body to it, if that is an option.
Where the bejeezus are we going with this?
Fuck it, my Sweet Readers. Klargen's De-Briefing can wait. Tonight's topic is "My Particular Faults."
This may be a long list, and some of my thousands of readers may not see some of the sarcasm here.
1. I am obsessive/compulsive, at times. (No, you are.)
A) Not in any straight-up harmful way, but I do have 'safety' issues with regard to some work conditions (big ladders, spinning carbide/diamond blades, petro-toxins) or just about anything involving higher speeds, if I am not in control. I can smell chaos like its a captured garter snake in a Tupperware container. That shit is so obvious.
B) I don't OCD on useless shit. I OCD on obvious hypocrisy. Obvious inconsistency. Obvious bullshit. Obvious lameness. (This is, obviously, not the world for a dragon-slayer. Sigh.)
2. I am narcissistic. But not in a conventional way.
A) Took an IQ test, my Mom timed it and everything, when I was 13. Edmonds, WA. The results explained a lot of things. This is in the days before the Internet, so we'd mailed it off. Took weeks for the number. I can't disagree with it, it 'is what it is.'
B) I'm not narcissistic because I'm pretty. That isn't a problem I have. I have some sort of presence, but doesn't everyone?
C) Sometimes, I see/visualize things other people may have problems conceptualizing, before they happen. That's the easiest way to put that. Accidents don't happen 'all the sudden' and most things follow their trajectories. Most things.
3. I have the curse of videographic memory. (It's great replaying movies in my head, or poignant songs, or actual simmering memories, like having sex with those I've had sex with, but it makes me miss people I haven't seen in a while, now and again.)
A) Some would say it is not a curse. But with regard to interpersonal relationships, it is, at times.
B) Memories are remarkably persistent, especially if they have a significant emotional potential to them. I watched a friend bleed out - crushed cranium - in 1988, and he died in my sight. I remember the last thing I said to him, and where, when, why, and the direction his feet were in. I was giving him shit for 'sleeping on the job.' And I watched him join the Big Dirt Nap Club. Maybe I'll forgive myself for that sarcasm someday.
C) I can replay almost anything I've experienced. If it was important, I can see/hear nearly everything. (And remember my mood, the aromas, the beer/wine I drank before, the local fauna.)
D) Sea turtles are fascinating to be near. So curious. Ditto crows/ravens. Dogs, of course. A few cats have been close buddies, as well.
4. I was a late bloomer, and I still feel young in my head.
A) This is only a hormone issue, perhaps. My system may be a bit enfolded. I sure don't feel like I'm in my late 40's. My body ages, nonetheless. Inevitability arises. It has a certain aim.
B) I still hit it hard at work when the situation calls for it, which it often does. Dragons must be slain. That really is the ultimate credo.
B.2) I'm pretty sure I could still 'cause a ruckus.' That's all I'm gonna say about that. Those who know, know.
B.3) Dance and life and fight are all one and the same. Passion is everything. And cowardice steals and picks away at passion. It eventually decimates it. Fight cowardice. Embrace passion.
B.4) Challenge the challenge. (say it with a French accent, if you can.)
C) I may be losing hair but I'm gaining the kind of wisdom 'they' write about. White whales, all that shit. My peculiar obsessions may be the end of me, but it'll be a fun ride, so I board this ride without reservation. I want one of those wing-suits. I will jump off something someday, because I don't care for heights. That's what it's all about. Defeating fears. Whup that shit, I say.
5. I am emotionally tortured by my non-existent relationship with a former lover. (Been over this, so fuck any elucidation. She's still the only woman I ever asked to marry me.)
SIDENOTE: And that always sets me off into another, gloomier place. Thinking about her derails anything I'm concentrating upon.
Not in the mood tonight.
She doesn't have any interest in fixing her fuck-ups. So I have to make shit up.
Like this:
I got an email from her, amazing! Very brief. She wants to have a talk.
Hard to believe, but she's gonna call me on Saturday, March 16 at 10:18pm. She knows my number, Seattle area code + 351-5369.
If my phone rings, I'll be amazed.
They say you should visualize your future. What would I say to her. What would I want to hear from her? Would that help at all? Is she even real? What do I want?
Gonna work on that.
I love my delusions. They're so cozy. Pillows for the psyche.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
The Rules of the Dream
...are vastly different than the rules of the day.
Why does the instantly recognizable sensibility of even the oddest of dreams makes sense within itself, in context, tucked tight to the dream?
For a few moments, it all jibes. But I find that - within minutes of waking, still wiping the sleep from my eyes - those rules that made so much sense in the dream-state fade away. The fog of reality obscures the once articulate landscape. That bridge to illusion/creation is engulfed, smothered by the waking assault of the senses.
I've tried explaining this before, this lost world of loose cohesion, the falling of the context from view and analysis. (Mostly to my dogs, who never have any useful input on that.) The videographic portions of the dream - with their vivid natural imagery, impossible physics, deep symbology and seeming randomness - reduce in both quality and quantity. The conversations, the colors, the 4-D beauty, the people you've never seen that populate the backgrounds - they all fade so quickly that I often feel as if I'm unfairly losing important, hard-fought wisdom. (Ripped off by being awake and coming back to the conscious reality of warm pillows and stretching dogs, idling busses and alerting crows. It seems so blatantly unfair to supplant 'the dream morsels' with the diesel-dusty fondue of the urban world.)
The 'lost recipe' of the dream is no longer accessible, unless you keep a journal, and write all the details as soon as you can. (Who? What? Where? Weirdness? Symbols? Emotions? Breakthroughs?) I spit them all onto a page as soon as I can, when I can.
Some things/ideas keep cropping up, so I can see what's going on in my subconscious, if only in a very shallow way.
Are the relative themes of repeated dreams to be trusted?
First, in relation to 'her,' were years of 'searching dreams.' The frustration of 'seeking and never finding' was compounded when I awakened, when I realized I was only looking for her in my subconscious, milking the old memories, grasping for answers that I somehow knew I'd never get.
In the rules of the dream, she'd leave a relevant clue, or an indirect message, and I'd go on an exhausting wild-coyote chase looking for her, through fantasy landscapes of an overly-coloured Maxfield Parrish nature to halls and doors of sterile institutions in cities that don't actually exist, to Thai temple compounds with icons that - when overlaid - told me the story's moral. Sometimes the scene involved actual places, but with unreal additions and embellishments. Her hometown often looked like a medieval village in my subconscious, with the accompanying townsfolk and their requisite disdain for the modernized, techno world. Idealized to the extreme, dream elements only make sense in self-reference. I thought it was a quaint place, and my subconscious piled on 'the fixin's' that made it evade the common sense of my waking mind. It became mysterious and blurry and important. (But it isn't, it's just a memory caught in a whorl of Brownian motion, folding in on itself.)
Some of the elements that make up my 'dream mirepois' include having a personal weapon of some sort that I inevitably lose in the dream. Most often, probably because I was in the Army and often carried a .45 cal M-1911 pistol for extended periods, that's the weapon I usually have. I know it well, its weight, its cool bulk, the smell of gun oil, the manly sounds of charging and releasing the slide. Oftentimes, I'm in flak-jacket armor and have a few reliable knives on my person as well. Since the pistol is usually inexplicably lost during the dream, I wake up 'missing' my weapon, worried about it falling into the wrong hands, a deadly potential that I have responsibility for...
What does it mean to dream-carry a weapon you don't own? And to worry about its loss?
I'm not a dream therapist, but that missing pistol is a powerful symbol. Is it about losing a vital tool? Or a vital connection? Or, is it about losing a piece of my comfort and security?
Another recurring theme or flavor involves being so jet-lagged that I forget if I'm awake or asleep. I've experienced that at times, during the Asia building bubble of the late 90's. In the dreams, and they do re-occur with some frequency, I end up in West Africa, giving a manila package to a rather rotund man of obvious import. I remember falling asleep on flights from Seattle to Copenhagen to Marrakech, and from there to the Ivory Coast, all while actually being asleep. There were literally dreams within dreams. I remember the pallid smell of the yellowish sand, the tang of the drying palm fronds, the view of the Atlantic looking south past smaller fishing boats, the delicious fried food of the local cantina on corn 'flat breads.'
All in a place I've never been in reality. Stamps in a passport I can't find, but in my dreams.
(In this case, the rules of the dream change within the dream, mayhaps to account for the disjointed nature of long distances travelled while unconscious, for the most part, and the surreal nature of modern jet service. I've spent so much time jet-lagged that my dream-brain knows there is 'lost time.')
What was I doing with my lost time?
Mmmmm, wish I had a schnitzel right now. Mit mushroom gravy, pomme frites, good stuff. Curry ketchup. (Man-o-man I'm salivating. Is that a whistle I hear?)
Of course not. Let's all just return to sanity here. What were we doing? (I was watching the hummingbird in the back yard, darting from multiple 'hotspots' in the butterfly bush to the holly tree across the alley... He needs 'juice,' I would surmise.)
"Let the good times roll,
Let them knock you a-round.
Let the good times roll,
Let them make you a clown.
Let them leave you up in the air..."
The Cars, "Good Times Roll."
The Wibros were shrinking to points, moving much less, (harder to track, for sure.) My Greys dusted off their Order Blues, though there wasn't much debris or dust on the deck. Merely a reflex to coming out of their near-comas.
Durd'n requested 'trust' and promptly - as soon as I thought 'yes' - transferred something to me, and I have no idea what it was, but (all the sudden) I could hear him, and think in his refined, classical tone. (With a context I couldn't access directly, but I could now reference in tone, inflected language, now-common historical knowledge. He had seen some things.)
A hidden door - to our immediate left - built to blend in with the smooth rock-face, cracked open from the deck and a soft-green light spilled out, and it caught my attention forthwith. Backlit, I could see the shadows of energetic Greys, standing alongside racks of parts on wheeled dollies. I mentally relaxed knowing the Tinglev would be repaired.
"Klargen," my XO pressed. "COMMS reports they are requesting physical access to the ship. All codes seem impeccable."
"Very well, granted, by all means."
They scrambled past us and ran up the ramp of the Tinglev. I felt a spreading calm.
That is that. The Rules of the Dream have no fact or sense outside their construct. I am left to find meaning in the crumbles of memories long past-lived. Answers in the dream only work within the dream.
We're left with Jungian symbols and hope... for another dream.
Is it time to break those rules?
Why does the instantly recognizable sensibility of even the oddest of dreams makes sense within itself, in context, tucked tight to the dream?
For a few moments, it all jibes. But I find that - within minutes of waking, still wiping the sleep from my eyes - those rules that made so much sense in the dream-state fade away. The fog of reality obscures the once articulate landscape. That bridge to illusion/creation is engulfed, smothered by the waking assault of the senses.
I've tried explaining this before, this lost world of loose cohesion, the falling of the context from view and analysis. (Mostly to my dogs, who never have any useful input on that.) The videographic portions of the dream - with their vivid natural imagery, impossible physics, deep symbology and seeming randomness - reduce in both quality and quantity. The conversations, the colors, the 4-D beauty, the people you've never seen that populate the backgrounds - they all fade so quickly that I often feel as if I'm unfairly losing important, hard-fought wisdom. (Ripped off by being awake and coming back to the conscious reality of warm pillows and stretching dogs, idling busses and alerting crows. It seems so blatantly unfair to supplant 'the dream morsels' with the diesel-dusty fondue of the urban world.)
The 'lost recipe' of the dream is no longer accessible, unless you keep a journal, and write all the details as soon as you can. (Who? What? Where? Weirdness? Symbols? Emotions? Breakthroughs?) I spit them all onto a page as soon as I can, when I can.
Some things/ideas keep cropping up, so I can see what's going on in my subconscious, if only in a very shallow way.
Are the relative themes of repeated dreams to be trusted?
First, in relation to 'her,' were years of 'searching dreams.' The frustration of 'seeking and never finding' was compounded when I awakened, when I realized I was only looking for her in my subconscious, milking the old memories, grasping for answers that I somehow knew I'd never get.
In the rules of the dream, she'd leave a relevant clue, or an indirect message, and I'd go on an exhausting wild-coyote chase looking for her, through fantasy landscapes of an overly-coloured Maxfield Parrish nature to halls and doors of sterile institutions in cities that don't actually exist, to Thai temple compounds with icons that - when overlaid - told me the story's moral. Sometimes the scene involved actual places, but with unreal additions and embellishments. Her hometown often looked like a medieval village in my subconscious, with the accompanying townsfolk and their requisite disdain for the modernized, techno world. Idealized to the extreme, dream elements only make sense in self-reference. I thought it was a quaint place, and my subconscious piled on 'the fixin's' that made it evade the common sense of my waking mind. It became mysterious and blurry and important. (But it isn't, it's just a memory caught in a whorl of Brownian motion, folding in on itself.)
Some of the elements that make up my 'dream mirepois' include having a personal weapon of some sort that I inevitably lose in the dream. Most often, probably because I was in the Army and often carried a .45 cal M-1911 pistol for extended periods, that's the weapon I usually have. I know it well, its weight, its cool bulk, the smell of gun oil, the manly sounds of charging and releasing the slide. Oftentimes, I'm in flak-jacket armor and have a few reliable knives on my person as well. Since the pistol is usually inexplicably lost during the dream, I wake up 'missing' my weapon, worried about it falling into the wrong hands, a deadly potential that I have responsibility for...
What does it mean to dream-carry a weapon you don't own? And to worry about its loss?
I'm not a dream therapist, but that missing pistol is a powerful symbol. Is it about losing a vital tool? Or a vital connection? Or, is it about losing a piece of my comfort and security?
Another recurring theme or flavor involves being so jet-lagged that I forget if I'm awake or asleep. I've experienced that at times, during the Asia building bubble of the late 90's. In the dreams, and they do re-occur with some frequency, I end up in West Africa, giving a manila package to a rather rotund man of obvious import. I remember falling asleep on flights from Seattle to Copenhagen to Marrakech, and from there to the Ivory Coast, all while actually being asleep. There were literally dreams within dreams. I remember the pallid smell of the yellowish sand, the tang of the drying palm fronds, the view of the Atlantic looking south past smaller fishing boats, the delicious fried food of the local cantina on corn 'flat breads.'
All in a place I've never been in reality. Stamps in a passport I can't find, but in my dreams.
(In this case, the rules of the dream change within the dream, mayhaps to account for the disjointed nature of long distances travelled while unconscious, for the most part, and the surreal nature of modern jet service. I've spent so much time jet-lagged that my dream-brain knows there is 'lost time.')
What was I doing with my lost time?
Mmmmm, wish I had a schnitzel right now. Mit mushroom gravy, pomme frites, good stuff. Curry ketchup. (Man-o-man I'm salivating. Is that a whistle I hear?)
Of course not. Let's all just return to sanity here. What were we doing? (I was watching the hummingbird in the back yard, darting from multiple 'hotspots' in the butterfly bush to the holly tree across the alley... He needs 'juice,' I would surmise.)
"Let the good times roll,
Let them knock you a-round.
Let the good times roll,
Let them make you a clown.
Let them leave you up in the air..."
The Cars, "Good Times Roll."
The Wibros were shrinking to points, moving much less, (harder to track, for sure.) My Greys dusted off their Order Blues, though there wasn't much debris or dust on the deck. Merely a reflex to coming out of their near-comas.
Durd'n requested 'trust' and promptly - as soon as I thought 'yes' - transferred something to me, and I have no idea what it was, but (all the sudden) I could hear him, and think in his refined, classical tone. (With a context I couldn't access directly, but I could now reference in tone, inflected language, now-common historical knowledge. He had seen some things.)
A hidden door - to our immediate left - built to blend in with the smooth rock-face, cracked open from the deck and a soft-green light spilled out, and it caught my attention forthwith. Backlit, I could see the shadows of energetic Greys, standing alongside racks of parts on wheeled dollies. I mentally relaxed knowing the Tinglev would be repaired.
"Klargen," my XO pressed. "COMMS reports they are requesting physical access to the ship. All codes seem impeccable."
"Very well, granted, by all means."
They scrambled past us and ran up the ramp of the Tinglev. I felt a spreading calm.
That is that. The Rules of the Dream have no fact or sense outside their construct. I am left to find meaning in the crumbles of memories long past-lived. Answers in the dream only work within the dream.
We're left with Jungian symbols and hope... for another dream.
Is it time to break those rules?
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Klargen Splutters with Durd'n
"The First Rule of the Tinglev is that you DON'T talk about the Tinglev."
My Greys were unconscious, in lithe clumps on the deck, decked out in their Order Blue tunics and some light armor, sparse weaponry. Flat out.
The lobster-thing burbled again, gasps of phlegmy, annoying sounds. Raspiness and spit were not language, I thought.
"Schpikel bla'a'n plish, spilch'pik spah." ("What the FUCK was he saying, or spitting?" I thought.)
His eyes were pitch black with a bright white, lifeless point-spot, at the end of tiny stalks, and betrayed no emotion, no presence. (Their Grey officers began translating for me.) The three 'liney-guys' kept up their staccato dance, as if they just couldn't keep still. So distracting, like upright-bass strings in a busy symphony, one I couldn't hear.
"...For a minute,
I lost myself.
I lost my self."
Radiohead, and they kick ass during "Karma Police."
"There will be no need for repercussions," the Greys pressed lightly, "but we will require some explanation."
"Because," I had to put this diplomatically, so, a low press, "...I'm human?"
"Splact." (That's what I heard.)
"Precisely." A tight, twin translating echo in my cranium... and the lobster-thing brought both 'claws' together and bowed. Seriously bowed. (I know a bow when I see it...)
"That's a long story," I began, in precise grammar, pressing just a little, nonchalantly returning the bow, "We aren't planning on being here that long."
"Pinsit blamp sprinx."
("XO, help me out here," I privated, "Who or what are the 'liney-guys?' Do you see them on Main?"
Their movements made me exceedingly nervous, alert, on my toes...
"Aye, Klargen, they are 2-dimensional beings. Think of thoughtful Fourier transforms. Consciousness doesn't require 3-D or 4-D Cartesian phase-space - that's a human construct - and they, known as "Wibros" to us, exist only as points, lines, curves, but with definite consciousness, serious intent. They keep moving only to allow you to see them there - it takes a bit of energy, we suspect. No one really knows where they get that energy."
"Thanks, XO," I sniffed, realizing this didn't tell me the one answer I needed. Or wanted.
"Are they dangerous?"
"Disturbed, they can be lethal, Klargen." He pressed a hard intent to be wary. "They can drop to a point and extend."
"So they're a security force, then? Is the lobster in charge?"
"It appears so, I cannot translate that language. He was not here at AMHRF before. They refer to him as 'Durd'n.'"
"Very well, XO."
Well, this could go anywhere, I thought.
"I was abducted, and it escalated from there. Perhaps the Durd'n understands?"
Lobster-guy hissed and spurtled for a second... His shell went from a distinct maroon to an earthen greenish-brown, so quickly it distracted my cones/rods from the Wibros.
"So," I started...
"Sew buttons on socks." Someone pressed at me, I couldn't tell who. Very confusing. Almost felt like her.
"I trust and support my crew. We have been gathering information in standard modes. We are un-aligned. Do as you will."
"Splurt-sis'kap sch'pottal spo'olt gah," the lobster guy burbled, settling into a lime-rind green color for a moment.
He moved towards me, unthreateningly. Darn near in a friendly manner, I mused to myself.
Their Greys did a partial translation, "Perhaps we will have new allies."
My Greys began stirring on the deck, coming back. I felt them awaken. I realized, just then, that all our bodies were now back on a planet proper, one with significant gravity, and I felt the pull, the heaviness. They felt the same, real pull, waking up, wiped.
(They had no memory of anything since they'd exited the Tinglev, they pressed, and an inherent apology...)
"Pren-po! Ninx pat pra 'owt t'sil baht!" I ordered.
(I pressed to them to not handle their weapons.)
"Blinx, Klargen," they privated, "Passive display only."
"Klargen, passive sensors indicate unseen mechanical movements, possible preparations for our repairs," the XO privated, "Counsel caution."
"Aye, XO."
Durd'n kept moving, nearly scraping the immaculate deck with 6-8 crusty, pointed legs, he looked like a squad of green-coated toy soldiers under a tank. (I was laughingly aware that he didn't smell like seafood.) He was 4' tall, roughly. He looked heavy, well-armored, and as his claws dropped to his sides, we all realized he was no threat. I knew he was inordinately wise.
The Wibros dropped to single lines, vibrating slowly, barely there above the deck, wobbling slowly. That was a relief.
Durd'n and I touched foreheads. Human skin to green 'hard-shell.' It was the thing to do, in respect to protocol. I almost felt like hugging him, but I knew that might be too aggressive.
And then I knew, in a rush of thought.
"I'm waiting,
I don't think I can go on.
I'm dying,
My last breath has come and gone.
Pity the man,
Searching in the sky,
Waiting for a sign
From above.
And he never
Caught a glimpse
Of what he's worthy of."
-from Todd Rundgren's awesome 1983 "Drive"
(My patient and serenely methodical Beatrix, greetings/salutations! Hope your recent life has been awesome, delicious, and sweet. Don't be 'bleak.' That's no fun.)
Let's talk about things we shouldn't. (Like we never do that here, dear readers.)
We all have secrets we won't reveal, right?
But we have clues going to them. (And, from them.) And confidantes.
People can sniff those out. They'll find them. Trust me, they'll find them. Let's review the nature of the word 'tenacious,' shall we? Like a hound dog on a new bone, some of that.
Quanta get entangled, it's just the way it is. There's no meaning to it.
Let's discuss the meaning of camouflage, shall we? Hiding in plain sight isn't such a thing if your intent is benign. You can just drive by, be by, live by, or hide by. Depends on your intent.
Yes, I've been trained - or self-trained - for myriad instances of unjustifiable crap.
One Thursday night, at the Quarterback Pub and Eatery, long, long ago, like Summer 1993, I was eating a magnificent sirloin steak I'd prepared for my best customer - myself. I had paid my $2 to have that as my 'shift meal.' (I was a line cook there. The steak cost $2, just what it was, for a shift-meal.)
Next sight/thought: Two gigantic meth-or-coke-addled, unshaven plaid-wearing (non-Scottish) assholes came in, smelling of chainsaw oil and piss-poor attitude.
They sidled up to the bar where I was eating, to my left. Stinky, unenlightened fuck-wits.
I was liking my steak, it was rare as hell, black-peppery perfect. Some mashed potatoes, new beef gravy. Sauteed/deglazed veggies. What a delicious contrast of smells.
My 'red-flags' went off right away with these new patrons. (They almost ruined my meal.)
My bartender buddy looked closely at them, then refused to serve these fuck-ups, because they were clearly intoxicated already, by something. Nerping for something we didn't sell there.
His "No" was met by their overwhelming over-response - they tried to pull him over the bar by his shirt collar - 500+lbs of logger-twits versus 'My Trusted Co-worker' - and I wasn't going to allow that. He'd locked his toes under the cabinet, but they were BIG assholes, (did I mention that?)
So the solution wasn't hard to figure out. Took about 1/2 a second. I reached over, broke their wuss grips, and put them each in a crisp inikio, and dragged both of them to the floor, then I put a bony knee into each of their sacral ganglia, right where it really pissed them off, it ended up. They knew I would break their lower right arms and/or wrists, because I told them that with specific pressure. They started screaming bloody murder because I had some serious 'pain-compliance' going on. They asked for it, right? They drew "First Blood," right?
They really had no idea what would've happened if they escalated it, or - had they tried - what damage would have descended upon them. I, however, knew exactly how far it could go. They wouldn't have liked it, and perhaps thought about how pain medication gets expensive for permanent, chronic damage. I would have it made it difficult for them to ever grasp car keys again, let alone a philosophy-major bartender. If I kept twisting, they couldn't ever even feel their dicks again, at least with their right hands.
That loss of control, and the ensuing frustration, made them madder.
Aikido is nothing compared to kung-fu. Aikido has no 'finish moves.' It is truly defensive, like The Force. It has its worth, but it IS limited.
But, I had three times my weight, two souls, pinned to the stinky bar floor. I hadn't learned how to 'take them out.' There's nothing in aikido for that eventual scenario. They were both, practically, incapacitated. One can't do anything in that pain-compliance mentality, maybe blindly follow orders, nothing more. Pain focuses one's thoughts.
"Call the cops."
They hated that. I told them to 'shut up' and let them know they had to shut up.
So soon they were screaming that they were gonna 'fuck me up and kill me,' and I let them know that THIS new, extra-fun, torsional sheer pain was the answer to their direct threat. I actually enjoyed their helplessness, because they were coke-addled pricks who threatened ALL of us in the bar. I twisted their arms like they were dolls.
Had they kept it up, I would've grabbed and pinned their ankles and messed with their walking skills. I'm not a sadist, but these guys asked for it. "Don't grab my friend/co-worker" is a rule I go with.
Then, after what seemed liked an eternity (30 seconds) of 'my steak getting cold,' our Bar Manager, Dennis, came out from the back room - and slammed a hickory-stick pool cue on the bar - viciously - and they realized they'd lost the whole game. I gave them a little, twisty Parthian shot and let them know I was nothing but pain to them. I was very focused, but ultimately wanted my sirloin.
As they stood up, they swore they'd kill us (employees.) They looked me in the eye, and threatened me directly to my face, so I moved in again, dropped low, now with 'back-up,' and they knew I was gonna REALLY make them feel pain, and they backed off. If they had so much have raised an arm, they would've lost most use of that errant arm. Spirals want to cave in on themselves. I could see breaking their lower arms as easily as I could see cutting my steak. And I wanted my steak warm. It was getting cold.
They cursed all the way out, threatening to come back with firearms.
Dennis said "Go ahead," and eyed them like a crazy bastard. It worked.
Why am I writing this here?
So kung-fu was/is the 'next level.' Starting with wing-chun, specifically. Kung-fu doesn't fuck around. You end fights. You end 'beefs.' You end 'wishes.' You end almost anything, and they don't even want to seek revenge if you fuck them up badly enough... it's just kind of 'in' the ethos of kung-fu.
Those guys are lucky I wasn't THERE yet. They can still have "right-hand girlfriends." Two years later, they'd've been "strangerin'" those pathetically small penises. (And drinking through straws, trying to turn the TV channel in a hospital room, recalling that moment of supreme stupidity. They made the best call, and left, and didn't return. I was on edge for days.)
Heading into New York City in late September, 2001, I remembered my wing-chun. I remembered everything - knife-disarms, pistol-disarms, limb destruction, pain-compliance, 4-part sambrata with sticks, everything.
It was martial law south of Houston Street.
No problem. Only mono-fibrous asbestos and provable conspiracy there.
What the fuck am I typing?
No one knows. Least of all, me. Or, you.
"You do." (A 3 year-old's blatant logic is a subtle killer of lingering doubts.)
"...I know, I know for sure,
Ding dang dong dong ding dang dong ding dang.
(Well) I know, I know it's you,
Ding dang dong dong ding dang dong ding dang."
Red Hot Chili Peppers, kicking ass yet again with "Around the World."
There's some reason his name is "Durd'n." I'll let you know when I figure that out.
I'll figure it all out, eventually.
My Greys were unconscious, in lithe clumps on the deck, decked out in their Order Blue tunics and some light armor, sparse weaponry. Flat out.
The lobster-thing burbled again, gasps of phlegmy, annoying sounds. Raspiness and spit were not language, I thought.
"Schpikel bla'a'n plish, spilch'pik spah." ("What the FUCK was he saying, or spitting?" I thought.)
His eyes were pitch black with a bright white, lifeless point-spot, at the end of tiny stalks, and betrayed no emotion, no presence. (Their Grey officers began translating for me.) The three 'liney-guys' kept up their staccato dance, as if they just couldn't keep still. So distracting, like upright-bass strings in a busy symphony, one I couldn't hear.
"...For a minute,
I lost myself.
I lost my self."
Radiohead, and they kick ass during "Karma Police."
"There will be no need for repercussions," the Greys pressed lightly, "but we will require some explanation."
"Because," I had to put this diplomatically, so, a low press, "...I'm human?"
"Splact." (That's what I heard.)
"Precisely." A tight, twin translating echo in my cranium... and the lobster-thing brought both 'claws' together and bowed. Seriously bowed. (I know a bow when I see it...)
"That's a long story," I began, in precise grammar, pressing just a little, nonchalantly returning the bow, "We aren't planning on being here that long."
"Pinsit blamp sprinx."
("XO, help me out here," I privated, "Who or what are the 'liney-guys?' Do you see them on Main?"
Their movements made me exceedingly nervous, alert, on my toes...
"Aye, Klargen, they are 2-dimensional beings. Think of thoughtful Fourier transforms. Consciousness doesn't require 3-D or 4-D Cartesian phase-space - that's a human construct - and they, known as "Wibros" to us, exist only as points, lines, curves, but with definite consciousness, serious intent. They keep moving only to allow you to see them there - it takes a bit of energy, we suspect. No one really knows where they get that energy."
"Thanks, XO," I sniffed, realizing this didn't tell me the one answer I needed. Or wanted.
"Are they dangerous?"
"Disturbed, they can be lethal, Klargen." He pressed a hard intent to be wary. "They can drop to a point and extend."
"So they're a security force, then? Is the lobster in charge?"
"It appears so, I cannot translate that language. He was not here at AMHRF before. They refer to him as 'Durd'n.'"
"Very well, XO."
Well, this could go anywhere, I thought.
"I was abducted, and it escalated from there. Perhaps the Durd'n understands?"
Lobster-guy hissed and spurtled for a second... His shell went from a distinct maroon to an earthen greenish-brown, so quickly it distracted my cones/rods from the Wibros.
"So," I started...
"Sew buttons on socks." Someone pressed at me, I couldn't tell who. Very confusing. Almost felt like her.
"I trust and support my crew. We have been gathering information in standard modes. We are un-aligned. Do as you will."
"Splurt-sis'kap sch'pottal spo'olt gah," the lobster guy burbled, settling into a lime-rind green color for a moment.
He moved towards me, unthreateningly. Darn near in a friendly manner, I mused to myself.
Their Greys did a partial translation, "Perhaps we will have new allies."
My Greys began stirring on the deck, coming back. I felt them awaken. I realized, just then, that all our bodies were now back on a planet proper, one with significant gravity, and I felt the pull, the heaviness. They felt the same, real pull, waking up, wiped.
(They had no memory of anything since they'd exited the Tinglev, they pressed, and an inherent apology...)
"Pren-po! Ninx pat pra 'owt t'sil baht!" I ordered.
(I pressed to them to not handle their weapons.)
"Blinx, Klargen," they privated, "Passive display only."
"Klargen, passive sensors indicate unseen mechanical movements, possible preparations for our repairs," the XO privated, "Counsel caution."
"Aye, XO."
Durd'n kept moving, nearly scraping the immaculate deck with 6-8 crusty, pointed legs, he looked like a squad of green-coated toy soldiers under a tank. (I was laughingly aware that he didn't smell like seafood.) He was 4' tall, roughly. He looked heavy, well-armored, and as his claws dropped to his sides, we all realized he was no threat. I knew he was inordinately wise.
The Wibros dropped to single lines, vibrating slowly, barely there above the deck, wobbling slowly. That was a relief.
Durd'n and I touched foreheads. Human skin to green 'hard-shell.' It was the thing to do, in respect to protocol. I almost felt like hugging him, but I knew that might be too aggressive.
And then I knew, in a rush of thought.
"I'm waiting,
I don't think I can go on.
I'm dying,
My last breath has come and gone.
Pity the man,
Searching in the sky,
Waiting for a sign
From above.
And he never
Caught a glimpse
Of what he's worthy of."
-from Todd Rundgren's awesome 1983 "Drive"
(My patient and serenely methodical Beatrix, greetings/salutations! Hope your recent life has been awesome, delicious, and sweet. Don't be 'bleak.' That's no fun.)
Let's talk about things we shouldn't. (Like we never do that here, dear readers.)
We all have secrets we won't reveal, right?
But we have clues going to them. (And, from them.) And confidantes.
People can sniff those out. They'll find them. Trust me, they'll find them. Let's review the nature of the word 'tenacious,' shall we? Like a hound dog on a new bone, some of that.
Quanta get entangled, it's just the way it is. There's no meaning to it.
Let's discuss the meaning of camouflage, shall we? Hiding in plain sight isn't such a thing if your intent is benign. You can just drive by, be by, live by, or hide by. Depends on your intent.
Yes, I've been trained - or self-trained - for myriad instances of unjustifiable crap.
One Thursday night, at the Quarterback Pub and Eatery, long, long ago, like Summer 1993, I was eating a magnificent sirloin steak I'd prepared for my best customer - myself. I had paid my $2 to have that as my 'shift meal.' (I was a line cook there. The steak cost $2, just what it was, for a shift-meal.)
Next sight/thought: Two gigantic meth-or-coke-addled, unshaven plaid-wearing (non-Scottish) assholes came in, smelling of chainsaw oil and piss-poor attitude.
They sidled up to the bar where I was eating, to my left. Stinky, unenlightened fuck-wits.
I was liking my steak, it was rare as hell, black-peppery perfect. Some mashed potatoes, new beef gravy. Sauteed/deglazed veggies. What a delicious contrast of smells.
My 'red-flags' went off right away with these new patrons. (They almost ruined my meal.)
My bartender buddy looked closely at them, then refused to serve these fuck-ups, because they were clearly intoxicated already, by something. Nerping for something we didn't sell there.
His "No" was met by their overwhelming over-response - they tried to pull him over the bar by his shirt collar - 500+lbs of logger-twits versus 'My Trusted Co-worker' - and I wasn't going to allow that. He'd locked his toes under the cabinet, but they were BIG assholes, (did I mention that?)
So the solution wasn't hard to figure out. Took about 1/2 a second. I reached over, broke their wuss grips, and put them each in a crisp inikio, and dragged both of them to the floor, then I put a bony knee into each of their sacral ganglia, right where it really pissed them off, it ended up. They knew I would break their lower right arms and/or wrists, because I told them that with specific pressure. They started screaming bloody murder because I had some serious 'pain-compliance' going on. They asked for it, right? They drew "First Blood," right?
They really had no idea what would've happened if they escalated it, or - had they tried - what damage would have descended upon them. I, however, knew exactly how far it could go. They wouldn't have liked it, and perhaps thought about how pain medication gets expensive for permanent, chronic damage. I would have it made it difficult for them to ever grasp car keys again, let alone a philosophy-major bartender. If I kept twisting, they couldn't ever even feel their dicks again, at least with their right hands.
That loss of control, and the ensuing frustration, made them madder.
Aikido is nothing compared to kung-fu. Aikido has no 'finish moves.' It is truly defensive, like The Force. It has its worth, but it IS limited.
But, I had three times my weight, two souls, pinned to the stinky bar floor. I hadn't learned how to 'take them out.' There's nothing in aikido for that eventual scenario. They were both, practically, incapacitated. One can't do anything in that pain-compliance mentality, maybe blindly follow orders, nothing more. Pain focuses one's thoughts.
"Call the cops."
They hated that. I told them to 'shut up' and let them know they had to shut up.
So soon they were screaming that they were gonna 'fuck me up and kill me,' and I let them know that THIS new, extra-fun, torsional sheer pain was the answer to their direct threat. I actually enjoyed their helplessness, because they were coke-addled pricks who threatened ALL of us in the bar. I twisted their arms like they were dolls.
Had they kept it up, I would've grabbed and pinned their ankles and messed with their walking skills. I'm not a sadist, but these guys asked for it. "Don't grab my friend/co-worker" is a rule I go with.
Then, after what seemed liked an eternity (30 seconds) of 'my steak getting cold,' our Bar Manager, Dennis, came out from the back room - and slammed a hickory-stick pool cue on the bar - viciously - and they realized they'd lost the whole game. I gave them a little, twisty Parthian shot and let them know I was nothing but pain to them. I was very focused, but ultimately wanted my sirloin.
As they stood up, they swore they'd kill us (employees.) They looked me in the eye, and threatened me directly to my face, so I moved in again, dropped low, now with 'back-up,' and they knew I was gonna REALLY make them feel pain, and they backed off. If they had so much have raised an arm, they would've lost most use of that errant arm. Spirals want to cave in on themselves. I could see breaking their lower arms as easily as I could see cutting my steak. And I wanted my steak warm. It was getting cold.
They cursed all the way out, threatening to come back with firearms.
Dennis said "Go ahead," and eyed them like a crazy bastard. It worked.
Why am I writing this here?
So kung-fu was/is the 'next level.' Starting with wing-chun, specifically. Kung-fu doesn't fuck around. You end fights. You end 'beefs.' You end 'wishes.' You end almost anything, and they don't even want to seek revenge if you fuck them up badly enough... it's just kind of 'in' the ethos of kung-fu.
Those guys are lucky I wasn't THERE yet. They can still have "right-hand girlfriends." Two years later, they'd've been "strangerin'" those pathetically small penises. (And drinking through straws, trying to turn the TV channel in a hospital room, recalling that moment of supreme stupidity. They made the best call, and left, and didn't return. I was on edge for days.)
Heading into New York City in late September, 2001, I remembered my wing-chun. I remembered everything - knife-disarms, pistol-disarms, limb destruction, pain-compliance, 4-part sambrata with sticks, everything.
It was martial law south of Houston Street.
No problem. Only mono-fibrous asbestos and provable conspiracy there.
What the fuck am I typing?
No one knows. Least of all, me. Or, you.
"You do." (A 3 year-old's blatant logic is a subtle killer of lingering doubts.)
"...I know, I know for sure,
Ding dang dong dong ding dang dong ding dang.
(Well) I know, I know it's you,
Ding dang dong dong ding dang dong ding dang."
Red Hot Chili Peppers, kicking ass yet again with "Around the World."
There's some reason his name is "Durd'n." I'll let you know when I figure that out.
I'll figure it all out, eventually.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Is This Untitled?
What time is it?
It's night-time.
The air is clear, stillish, and cold as hell-fire. The stars are crisp, colored by their ages, and Jupiter is smiling just off the outstretched arrow arc of Orion, as they rise. Polaris sits and spins, truly blue-balled at celestial North.
We all know the stars and sky are on caffeine. No other explanation.
On a wild hair, I - just now (one minute ago, anyways) - picked up a thumb-sized old river rock from one of the flower beds outside the back door, and (somewhat maliciously) wondered if I could hit something with it. (Quick orientation for newbs. The largish backyard is north/south, raised beds at the north end, back door at the south, shed/gate, fence, grapes, fence, maple, diadora cedar along the western frontier. (I decided on one of those silly 'solar-light' spikes that everyone buys at Wal-Mart [for white-elephant gifts at Xmas.] Target was the size of a balled up fist, 12-14 square inches, and about a foot less in elevation - slightly uphill with the grade. )
We cleared out the strawberries after 4 years, and I stuck one of those light spikes in there for shits-n-giggles, a few months back. In the winter sun, it barely charges, and puts off a faint, orangey light for just a few hours, depending on its orientation.
I've been obsessed with trajectories for decades - rocks, arrows, rifle rounds, 105-120mm tank rounds - so this one was no different.
Just more primitive. A tannish, speckled-with-many-hues prize of the glaciers. My weapon. So simple. (Spoiler: I knew I was gonna hit it WAYYYY before I threw it.)
TL:DR - We ALL know I hit it, dead-on, just a few minutes ago. Plunk FTW!
So what am I getting at here?
Fuck, I have no idea. Just happy that my hand-eye coordination hasn't faded. Hell, it's improved as I've gotten older. I do think about gravity, crosswind, spin-drift, Coriolis effects north/south, relative cant - weird shit like that. Old training.
Move on, nothing to see here.
Here's a song for symbolic reinforcement of my personal, empire-based ideals... as a benevolent dictator.
(Mango! Shhhhhh*^#@%^^, edit this out, later - before you hit 'Publish.' Otherwise, people may assume you're in your head too much.
Am I? Are we?
Maybe. Sh'nt give it all up.
When we unveil the Uniform Mystical Anomaly Detangler, they'll all know, so as long as we don't reveal that, we're golden. (Sinister laugh.)
So we'll delete this later in the column?
Yes, almost certainly. Can't give up the UMAD yet, right? Think about the long-term, man.
We try not to miss temporal details, don't we? Still OCD as hell.
You are.
We are.)
"Like a steely blade in a silken sheath
We don't see what they're made of.
They shout about love, but when push comes to shove,
They live for things they're afraid of."
Rush "The Weapon" from 1982's 'Signals'
The security detachment was deployed, their toroid weapons had intersected coverage, they betrayed no breach, there were no alarums, so I exited the Tinglev.
Nothing at my first step. So quiet. The floor was shiny, a bit slippery - almost wet - so damn clean. A CSI team couldn't find an errant skin-tag there. No semen. No hair. Scoured.
"Pun lip smet pap a-ri'in."
"Blinx, Klargen." They spread out further, and the drop hatch slid - muted - back into place.
"XO, hold tight," I privated, "Be ready to get outta here, and glurg spin'to if you have to."
"Aye, Klargen." He shot back, fearlessly.
He wouldn't go anywhere without me, and I knew it. Plus, he knew I knew it.
Surveying the bottom of AMHRF, I was aware of the claustrophobic effect of rising walls that slope inward towards you, from my pseudo-climbing days. Here, it was in all cardinal directions. Everything above us closed to a small point, relatively, and very little ambient light reached that orifice. It was a pucker of absolute dark above us. The empty smoothness of the deck was as disconcerting, because this place used to be the shit, as far as I'd heard. Unsettlingly boring.
I decided to use my real voice.
"Thank you for receiving us. May we obtain repairs?"
My Greys kept a 360 perimeter, and feathered to outside the Tinglev's umbra, so that my engineer guys were perhaps 40 meters back, past the warp-bubble nacelles and then some - just inside the range of the only light sources - our landing markers.
Multiple echoes of my voice for a millisecond, soon deflected away, sadly muted.
A low-frequency rumble and several metallic 'clunks' belied a nauseous physical jolt, and the platform - the entire deck - began to descend, with all of us on it. We could feel, and see, the relative motion downwards, hose lines snaking along the walls, soon merging into pumps, or obvious valves, or precise interior stairways cut into the rock, or fuel fixtures and provisioning cranes tucked in, tight against the walls.
Still no life-forms. I could smell sweaty animals, or anxiety - adrenaline! (Probably just me. My Greys don't actually perspire.)
Level 5 was safe, as far as we knew. But we weren't staying there, according to Them.
Fucking nerve-wracking few seconds. I had to do something other than stand there, looking not-Klargen at all.
"2 X 2 cover, echelon right," I ordered privately, and we all jogged in a sweep toward the right, relative to the Tinglev. (Order Blue suits shimmer a bit when you're running, reflecting ambient colors, which is great camouflage.) I felt the XO ordering WEPS to cover us with ship's weapons, as well.
"XO, anything on passive sensors?" I privated, puffing in the cool air as we reached the perimeter, halting, the wall just a few meters beyond.
Cool rock face, punctuated with curious infrastructure. Nothing to betray what history had unfolded.
We seemed to be moving at office elevator slow-speed. Kinda cool for a platform so large.
"Nil-paht, Klargen."
"Understood." (I could see him - mentally - on the edge of the Rotatey-Chair, straining for information on Visual Mode.)
In the immediate months after the kerfuffle of 'Beatrix and Her Minions of Misanthropy,' I was a bit self-destructive. Not directly, but... took lots of risks, because I didn't exactly want to live with the foul offal of that situation. (I had some fun friends. We had some great times.)
I parked my car for nearly 9 months and rollerbladed just about everywhere - work, school, the supermarket, friend's houses. (That lasted until I had E. coli, and my thigh muscles shrank considerably from 8 days of unconsciousness and relative exsanguination. It really should've killed me, in retrospect. I couldn't walk for a week after, and gaining the weight back took over a year. Here's the Short Story of that night. Before Near Death: Part One.)
That last rollerblade adventure in Bellingham was a doozy. I closed the cooling kitchen, now whisper-clean, and dropped a tab of good acid as I laced up my blades. Had my 'shift-drink,' or two, and set out to the south, down 32nd St and then, Old Fairhaven Parkway. (I wanted a good mile or two rolling by before it kicked in. I purposely picked 'the long way' to get a good workout and to 'see' the night at a good clip. I headed south to get northwest, eventually.) The night was cold and clear, relatively quiet on a 'school night.' Very little traffic. I was moving very quickly on 8 axles.
Somewhere, in the last blocks before Fairhaven proper, my world expanded and I willingly joined it, as an extension of the planet itself, alive and conscious and serene.
Smell and taste and vision and memory converged into a loving warmth. Fully aware, to the point of hyper-awareness. Tiny buds on the trees seemed so bursting with future life, cats in windows watched intently as I rolled by, and a raccoon family hustled across the Parkway in the wee hours past midnight. They knew I was no threat. My balance and relative road-grip were delicious, and I strode out, cutting swaths of pavement with every stretch. Reminded me of speed skating.
I had learned to spot bad asphalt and loose gravel from way off by then, so there were no surprises for me, even on a 'new' road.
Actually, I had learned this perceptive skill from Beatrix - in early April of 1991, when we were driving east on I-84 near Bridal Veil, Oregon - on our way to Carson Hot Springs. The Columbia Gorge, in its vast grandness, lay ahead of us - a mighty, silvery river callous with wind-swept waves, dense mixed forests in clear taffetas of relief, chunky shadowed-brown cliffs leading to soaring mountains, and the road itself, full of movement, humanity, and color... a rich scene. I'd bet a few bucks that Peter Gabriel's "Big Time" was playing on the cassette player. That album filled my days back then.
She noticed something ahead and spoke aloud, "There's a shoe hanging in that tree." She pointed it out, a quarter mile away, at least - a white hi-top tennis shoe, hanging in the top of a tall fir a few hundred feet off the interstate. It appeared to be laced to something, or maybe it'd fallen from an airplane and got stuck very high in that tree.
"What the fuck," I thought. "All this and she sees 'that.'"
It was, indeed, a shoe in a tree. Infinite details in our windshield, and THAT one is what she locked onto, and mentioned. In a natural wonder-scape, she found the synthetic.
Wow, I thought.
Took me a while to figure out how she did it, and it came down to this: Some things break the natural pattern. Some things don't belong where they are. Some things are inherently obvious if you haven't learned to 'tune them out.' Some things are obvious when you're tuned in.
This way of seeing was to become a mantra of mine for a long time. I consciously tried to perfect that skill, to the point at which I could see a ball bearing in the middle of Samish Drive as I motored by at 35 mph. (Yes, it was there, we stopped, I backtracked, and checked it out.) Uncanny. A fucking ball-bearing.
As I rolled up into Fairhaven from the south that long lost night ago, I was in this focused, heightened mode. I noticed everything, patterned or not, because I had a become a cognizant part of it. I was alive. The mist seemed to be a friendly blanket, rolling off the bay just beyond the curl of the hill northwest. A newer sidewalk provided a grid of rhythmic noise that allowed me to determine my relative speed, providing echoes that painted the road ahead and aside in auditory 3-D radar. The arcs and planes of houses, the dampening of sounds by shrubbery and trees, the cave of space above, they all allowed me to see much more than my eyes alone could process. Delicious. I was truly Here/There.
Rounding the dog-leg bend near the street access to Boulevard Park, I noticed red and blue flashes reflecting off the trunks of trees and the telephone and power-wires ahead of me on Marine View Drive, and instead of heading up State Street, I decided to investigate. Looked like fun.
Whee!
There were at least 6-7 BPD cars, and at least as many uniformed policemen fanned across the road, obviously intent on finding something. I slowed down and approached the roadblock, tripping hard by now. The intense beams of their flashlights were combing through the shrubbery and blackberries on either side of the road, like radioactive swords of lemony light. They were searching for something lost, that much was obvious. They had intent. And I felt truly separate from it.
Skidding to a crisp stop at the first man-in-blue, I shielded my eyes from his Mag-lite.
"Evening Officer, what's up?" I asked, panting just a bit, then stretching my legs to eke the calcium through... I had a Strawberry-Kiwi Snapple in my bag and fetched it for a quick drink.
"We've got an escaped suspect spotted down here. Did you see anyone south of here, along the road?"
"Not at all, Officer. Not a soul. I would've seen any movement, seriously." (And I meant any movement, consciousness, or energy that didn't fit the pattern I was now intimate with.) I'm sure I looked rather odd - a boomerang strapped to my hip, camouflage gym bag over both my shoulders, black beret, black rollerblades, tiny pupils. I'm fairly sure he knew I was on something, but it wasn't his - or anyone else's - problem. No harm, no foul.
"Where're you headed?" he inquired, obviously bored.
"My girlfriend's condo up on State," I said, gesturing up and right, "This way looked more interesting."
"If you see anyone, call 911."
"I will," I said, and skated though the discotheque gauntlet. Said perp was gone - a ghost to the night.
"These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along." Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The remainder of the night was filled with dreamy star-gazing - waiting for an auroral outburst that didn't come - feeling the crawling mist, the acrid aroma of saltwater, the gaze of conifers, occasional car exhaust. And reliving troublesome memories. One thing I was always sure of, on acid, was that 'consciousnesses are always connected.' I knew when cats looked at me, and I knew when I'd been recognized by them. (Some of my routines were interlaced, even though I changed my routes regularly.) I knew when old consciousnesses could see me, or feel me.
What time is it?
It's about time.
I rolled the I Ching, regarding my seemingly obsessive relationship with Beatrix, in early 1993. My question was "Why do I still think about her, what is the meaning?"
I got Hexagram 43, Kuai - 'The Breakthrough.' There are many different interpretations of the hexagrams, but this one made sense.
Nonetheless, I didn't like it. We rolled it up, yet again. Got the same thing. "Inconceivable."
Man, Oh man, that's some crazy odds. Cray-2-the-Zed. What is 64 X 64 - 1? Am I doing this right?
So I rolled it again, same question. "Why Beatrix, what is it?"
Kuai. The Breakthrough.
Those odds get unreasonable at 'three-in-a-row.' With 64 possible combinations each time, do we even want to 'go there?'
Rolling that I Ching,
The Lake Over Heaven falls,
Three times in a row.
from - Mango Dobbins' "A Haiku or Two."
The platform began to accelerate downwards, and we looked back and forth to acknowledge it. We dropped and braced ourselves for a sudden stop. We were way 'south' of level 6 at this point, moving like a freight elevator now; a confident, controlled dip. I could hear the leather of my boots squeaking as my weight decreased, relative to the drop-rate. The walls were vertical, and passed by in a smooth carpet of random earth-tones, or machinery parts, or a blend. A faint lime-ish light came up from the rim, and I turned to my Security Team, and...
We dropped. Faster. My stomach began churning. This didn't look good for us.
Watching the walls go by, in my periphery, I noticed my Greys fainting onto the slick silvery-grey surface. Not in a violent way, more of a graduated loss of control. Panic! What the Xerox copier is going on? Lemony flashes of partially-lit platforms, built-in to the walls went by, easily large enough to rest the Tinglev, do repairs.
"XO, spranx!" ("Talk to me!")
"Klargen, herp speen toh-na spilt glurgen derp pah-neen, pamp do' rits..."
"Understood. Very well."
So they were all unconscious, except the XO. Maybe his mem-trans with me had something to do with that, I thought. I'm so narcissiticalist! (It means I'm lithely muscular and pathetically vain and aware of both those issues. Gorgeous.)
The floor continued to fall. It was getting almost unbearably fast. The light became much brighter as we fell. I could hear the awkward hum-drops of the air as it broke onto older, deadened cavities in the wall. Some seemed to have weapons emplacements, I couldn't be sure - they really did go by quickly. I laid down to protect my organs. It took an effort. The light-
"XO, set passive recording, full spectrum. Filter limelight." It was a tenuous push.
"Bonx, Klargen." (I could hear the Rotatey Chair attempt to accommodate his skinny ass in near free-fall as he attempted SCIENCE controls from the interface on the armrest.)
And then we stopped, the Tinglev was behind us, about 60 feet to the bow, what a beautiful ship, and the creaks of hidden hydraulic systems betrayed themselves. Rapid-ionic jets had fired to stabilize the Tinglev's relative fall, automatically. Numerous seismic-level cogs in the vast platform did their thing, and we could feel it. A very controlled stop. Glassy, slimy grey walls. And nothing else, except a doorway rimmed in intense light-green light. About the size of a garage door. For a big car.
"Klargen?"
"XO, what've you got? Ni'l smeer pap' oh yetzt." ("Don't sugar coat it.")
"Level 8, Klargen. We're at Level 8." The air was so thin I struggled to keep up with it. Air pressure was dropping precariously. The veins on my neck stood out, I could feel them.
"What time is it, XO?" I growled, for no reason whatsoever. What the hell did that mean, Level 8?
"It's the time, Klargen. Nothing is known from here on. No humans allowed below Level 5," he reminded me. He need'n't push it, but he did.
"Understood. Very well." Sphincters were puckering between the two of us.
And then the light dimmed, and the door smipped open, very mechanically, sucking what little air was left for a niptuk. My eyes took a second to adjust... blurry.
It was like a symphony. Light being sounds, colors rendering shapes, new wondrous beings with old, familiar greetings, all erupted as they filed out. (I can hardly describe it.) Two distinguished Greys, a 4-foot lobster-looking thing - with a serious bearing - and three slinky shapes, moving like they were disguised by the rock, mere lines against the continuity of the walls. They never stood still, and they seemed hepped up, on something, elsewhere. Barely in the present.
I knew it all. Seen it before, somehow.
"Call me Klargen," I chuckled, at first. "Do not harm my crew. There would be... repercussions."
They - probably the older Greys - punished me for that, and pushed back, hard "There are no Klargens here."
My temples ached with that one. The three line-beings kept up their intricate dances.
"But we will do your repairs. Your crew is safe."
What? Why? Who are you?
And they didn't offer shit. Lobster-guy sputtered a bubble, nothing I could understand.
Nothing, then?
"It's all fine. Repairs will be underway." The XO and I both heard, sub-audible.
I couldn't tell who sent me that message. It sounded like an authority, and I was in their space, so to say.
"Though his mind is not for rent,
Don't put him down as arrogant.
His reserve - a quiet defense,
Riding out the day's events -
The river."
"Tom Sawyer," Rush at their best, 1981.
What time is it?
It's the time. No time like the present. Time waits for no one. Time does its job. Time is money.
It's night-time. Sweet dreams, comrades.
It's night-time.
The air is clear, stillish, and cold as hell-fire. The stars are crisp, colored by their ages, and Jupiter is smiling just off the outstretched arrow arc of Orion, as they rise. Polaris sits and spins, truly blue-balled at celestial North.
We all know the stars and sky are on caffeine. No other explanation.
On a wild hair, I - just now (one minute ago, anyways) - picked up a thumb-sized old river rock from one of the flower beds outside the back door, and (somewhat maliciously) wondered if I could hit something with it. (Quick orientation for newbs. The largish backyard is north/south, raised beds at the north end, back door at the south, shed/gate, fence, grapes, fence, maple, diadora cedar along the western frontier. (I decided on one of those silly 'solar-light' spikes that everyone buys at Wal-Mart [for white-elephant gifts at Xmas.] Target was the size of a balled up fist, 12-14 square inches, and about a foot less in elevation - slightly uphill with the grade. )
We cleared out the strawberries after 4 years, and I stuck one of those light spikes in there for shits-n-giggles, a few months back. In the winter sun, it barely charges, and puts off a faint, orangey light for just a few hours, depending on its orientation.
I've been obsessed with trajectories for decades - rocks, arrows, rifle rounds, 105-120mm tank rounds - so this one was no different.
Just more primitive. A tannish, speckled-with-many-hues prize of the glaciers. My weapon. So simple. (Spoiler: I knew I was gonna hit it WAYYYY before I threw it.)
TL:DR - We ALL know I hit it, dead-on, just a few minutes ago. Plunk FTW!
So what am I getting at here?
Fuck, I have no idea. Just happy that my hand-eye coordination hasn't faded. Hell, it's improved as I've gotten older. I do think about gravity, crosswind, spin-drift, Coriolis effects north/south, relative cant - weird shit like that. Old training.
Move on, nothing to see here.
Here's a song for symbolic reinforcement of my personal, empire-based ideals... as a benevolent dictator.
(Mango! Shhhhhh*^#@%^^, edit this out, later - before you hit 'Publish.' Otherwise, people may assume you're in your head too much.
Am I? Are we?
Maybe. Sh'nt give it all up.
When we unveil the Uniform Mystical Anomaly Detangler, they'll all know, so as long as we don't reveal that, we're golden. (Sinister laugh.)
So we'll delete this later in the column?
Yes, almost certainly. Can't give up the UMAD yet, right? Think about the long-term, man.
We try not to miss temporal details, don't we? Still OCD as hell.
You are.
We are.)
"Like a steely blade in a silken sheath
We don't see what they're made of.
They shout about love, but when push comes to shove,
They live for things they're afraid of."
Rush "The Weapon" from 1982's 'Signals'
The security detachment was deployed, their toroid weapons had intersected coverage, they betrayed no breach, there were no alarums, so I exited the Tinglev.
Nothing at my first step. So quiet. The floor was shiny, a bit slippery - almost wet - so damn clean. A CSI team couldn't find an errant skin-tag there. No semen. No hair. Scoured.
"Pun lip smet pap a-ri'in."
"Blinx, Klargen." They spread out further, and the drop hatch slid - muted - back into place.
"XO, hold tight," I privated, "Be ready to get outta here, and glurg spin'to if you have to."
"Aye, Klargen." He shot back, fearlessly.
He wouldn't go anywhere without me, and I knew it. Plus, he knew I knew it.
Surveying the bottom of AMHRF, I was aware of the claustrophobic effect of rising walls that slope inward towards you, from my pseudo-climbing days. Here, it was in all cardinal directions. Everything above us closed to a small point, relatively, and very little ambient light reached that orifice. It was a pucker of absolute dark above us. The empty smoothness of the deck was as disconcerting, because this place used to be the shit, as far as I'd heard. Unsettlingly boring.
I decided to use my real voice.
"Thank you for receiving us. May we obtain repairs?"
My Greys kept a 360 perimeter, and feathered to outside the Tinglev's umbra, so that my engineer guys were perhaps 40 meters back, past the warp-bubble nacelles and then some - just inside the range of the only light sources - our landing markers.
Multiple echoes of my voice for a millisecond, soon deflected away, sadly muted.
A low-frequency rumble and several metallic 'clunks' belied a nauseous physical jolt, and the platform - the entire deck - began to descend, with all of us on it. We could feel, and see, the relative motion downwards, hose lines snaking along the walls, soon merging into pumps, or obvious valves, or precise interior stairways cut into the rock, or fuel fixtures and provisioning cranes tucked in, tight against the walls.
Still no life-forms. I could smell sweaty animals, or anxiety - adrenaline! (Probably just me. My Greys don't actually perspire.)
Level 5 was safe, as far as we knew. But we weren't staying there, according to Them.
Fucking nerve-wracking few seconds. I had to do something other than stand there, looking not-Klargen at all.
"2 X 2 cover, echelon right," I ordered privately, and we all jogged in a sweep toward the right, relative to the Tinglev. (Order Blue suits shimmer a bit when you're running, reflecting ambient colors, which is great camouflage.) I felt the XO ordering WEPS to cover us with ship's weapons, as well.
"XO, anything on passive sensors?" I privated, puffing in the cool air as we reached the perimeter, halting, the wall just a few meters beyond.
Cool rock face, punctuated with curious infrastructure. Nothing to betray what history had unfolded.
We seemed to be moving at office elevator slow-speed. Kinda cool for a platform so large.
"Nil-paht, Klargen."
"Understood." (I could see him - mentally - on the edge of the Rotatey-Chair, straining for information on Visual Mode.)
In the immediate months after the kerfuffle of 'Beatrix and Her Minions of Misanthropy,' I was a bit self-destructive. Not directly, but... took lots of risks, because I didn't exactly want to live with the foul offal of that situation. (I had some fun friends. We had some great times.)
I parked my car for nearly 9 months and rollerbladed just about everywhere - work, school, the supermarket, friend's houses. (That lasted until I had E. coli, and my thigh muscles shrank considerably from 8 days of unconsciousness and relative exsanguination. It really should've killed me, in retrospect. I couldn't walk for a week after, and gaining the weight back took over a year. Here's the Short Story of that night. Before Near Death: Part One.)
That last rollerblade adventure in Bellingham was a doozy. I closed the cooling kitchen, now whisper-clean, and dropped a tab of good acid as I laced up my blades. Had my 'shift-drink,' or two, and set out to the south, down 32nd St and then, Old Fairhaven Parkway. (I wanted a good mile or two rolling by before it kicked in. I purposely picked 'the long way' to get a good workout and to 'see' the night at a good clip. I headed south to get northwest, eventually.) The night was cold and clear, relatively quiet on a 'school night.' Very little traffic. I was moving very quickly on 8 axles.
Somewhere, in the last blocks before Fairhaven proper, my world expanded and I willingly joined it, as an extension of the planet itself, alive and conscious and serene.
Smell and taste and vision and memory converged into a loving warmth. Fully aware, to the point of hyper-awareness. Tiny buds on the trees seemed so bursting with future life, cats in windows watched intently as I rolled by, and a raccoon family hustled across the Parkway in the wee hours past midnight. They knew I was no threat. My balance and relative road-grip were delicious, and I strode out, cutting swaths of pavement with every stretch. Reminded me of speed skating.
I had learned to spot bad asphalt and loose gravel from way off by then, so there were no surprises for me, even on a 'new' road.
Actually, I had learned this perceptive skill from Beatrix - in early April of 1991, when we were driving east on I-84 near Bridal Veil, Oregon - on our way to Carson Hot Springs. The Columbia Gorge, in its vast grandness, lay ahead of us - a mighty, silvery river callous with wind-swept waves, dense mixed forests in clear taffetas of relief, chunky shadowed-brown cliffs leading to soaring mountains, and the road itself, full of movement, humanity, and color... a rich scene. I'd bet a few bucks that Peter Gabriel's "Big Time" was playing on the cassette player. That album filled my days back then.
She noticed something ahead and spoke aloud, "There's a shoe hanging in that tree." She pointed it out, a quarter mile away, at least - a white hi-top tennis shoe, hanging in the top of a tall fir a few hundred feet off the interstate. It appeared to be laced to something, or maybe it'd fallen from an airplane and got stuck very high in that tree.
"What the fuck," I thought. "All this and she sees 'that.'"
It was, indeed, a shoe in a tree. Infinite details in our windshield, and THAT one is what she locked onto, and mentioned. In a natural wonder-scape, she found the synthetic.
Wow, I thought.
Took me a while to figure out how she did it, and it came down to this: Some things break the natural pattern. Some things don't belong where they are. Some things are inherently obvious if you haven't learned to 'tune them out.' Some things are obvious when you're tuned in.
This way of seeing was to become a mantra of mine for a long time. I consciously tried to perfect that skill, to the point at which I could see a ball bearing in the middle of Samish Drive as I motored by at 35 mph. (Yes, it was there, we stopped, I backtracked, and checked it out.) Uncanny. A fucking ball-bearing.
As I rolled up into Fairhaven from the south that long lost night ago, I was in this focused, heightened mode. I noticed everything, patterned or not, because I had a become a cognizant part of it. I was alive. The mist seemed to be a friendly blanket, rolling off the bay just beyond the curl of the hill northwest. A newer sidewalk provided a grid of rhythmic noise that allowed me to determine my relative speed, providing echoes that painted the road ahead and aside in auditory 3-D radar. The arcs and planes of houses, the dampening of sounds by shrubbery and trees, the cave of space above, they all allowed me to see much more than my eyes alone could process. Delicious. I was truly Here/There.
Rounding the dog-leg bend near the street access to Boulevard Park, I noticed red and blue flashes reflecting off the trunks of trees and the telephone and power-wires ahead of me on Marine View Drive, and instead of heading up State Street, I decided to investigate. Looked like fun.
Whee!
There were at least 6-7 BPD cars, and at least as many uniformed policemen fanned across the road, obviously intent on finding something. I slowed down and approached the roadblock, tripping hard by now. The intense beams of their flashlights were combing through the shrubbery and blackberries on either side of the road, like radioactive swords of lemony light. They were searching for something lost, that much was obvious. They had intent. And I felt truly separate from it.
Skidding to a crisp stop at the first man-in-blue, I shielded my eyes from his Mag-lite.
"Evening Officer, what's up?" I asked, panting just a bit, then stretching my legs to eke the calcium through... I had a Strawberry-Kiwi Snapple in my bag and fetched it for a quick drink.
"We've got an escaped suspect spotted down here. Did you see anyone south of here, along the road?"
"Not at all, Officer. Not a soul. I would've seen any movement, seriously." (And I meant any movement, consciousness, or energy that didn't fit the pattern I was now intimate with.) I'm sure I looked rather odd - a boomerang strapped to my hip, camouflage gym bag over both my shoulders, black beret, black rollerblades, tiny pupils. I'm fairly sure he knew I was on something, but it wasn't his - or anyone else's - problem. No harm, no foul.
"Where're you headed?" he inquired, obviously bored.
"My girlfriend's condo up on State," I said, gesturing up and right, "This way looked more interesting."
"If you see anyone, call 911."
"I will," I said, and skated though the discotheque gauntlet. Said perp was gone - a ghost to the night.
"These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along." Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The remainder of the night was filled with dreamy star-gazing - waiting for an auroral outburst that didn't come - feeling the crawling mist, the acrid aroma of saltwater, the gaze of conifers, occasional car exhaust. And reliving troublesome memories. One thing I was always sure of, on acid, was that 'consciousnesses are always connected.' I knew when cats looked at me, and I knew when I'd been recognized by them. (Some of my routines were interlaced, even though I changed my routes regularly.) I knew when old consciousnesses could see me, or feel me.
What time is it?
It's about time.
I rolled the I Ching, regarding my seemingly obsessive relationship with Beatrix, in early 1993. My question was "Why do I still think about her, what is the meaning?"
I got Hexagram 43, Kuai - 'The Breakthrough.' There are many different interpretations of the hexagrams, but this one made sense.
Nonetheless, I didn't like it. We rolled it up, yet again. Got the same thing. "Inconceivable."
Man, Oh man, that's some crazy odds. Cray-2-the-Zed. What is 64 X 64 - 1? Am I doing this right?
So I rolled it again, same question. "Why Beatrix, what is it?"
Kuai. The Breakthrough.
Those odds get unreasonable at 'three-in-a-row.' With 64 possible combinations each time, do we even want to 'go there?'
Rolling that I Ching,
The Lake Over Heaven falls,
Three times in a row.
from - Mango Dobbins' "A Haiku or Two."
The platform began to accelerate downwards, and we looked back and forth to acknowledge it. We dropped and braced ourselves for a sudden stop. We were way 'south' of level 6 at this point, moving like a freight elevator now; a confident, controlled dip. I could hear the leather of my boots squeaking as my weight decreased, relative to the drop-rate. The walls were vertical, and passed by in a smooth carpet of random earth-tones, or machinery parts, or a blend. A faint lime-ish light came up from the rim, and I turned to my Security Team, and...
We dropped. Faster. My stomach began churning. This didn't look good for us.
Watching the walls go by, in my periphery, I noticed my Greys fainting onto the slick silvery-grey surface. Not in a violent way, more of a graduated loss of control. Panic! What the Xerox copier is going on? Lemony flashes of partially-lit platforms, built-in to the walls went by, easily large enough to rest the Tinglev, do repairs.
"XO, spranx!" ("Talk to me!")
"Klargen, herp speen toh-na spilt glurgen derp pah-neen, pamp do' rits..."
"Understood. Very well."
So they were all unconscious, except the XO. Maybe his mem-trans with me had something to do with that, I thought. I'm so narcissiticalist! (It means I'm lithely muscular and pathetically vain and aware of both those issues. Gorgeous.)
The floor continued to fall. It was getting almost unbearably fast. The light became much brighter as we fell. I could hear the awkward hum-drops of the air as it broke onto older, deadened cavities in the wall. Some seemed to have weapons emplacements, I couldn't be sure - they really did go by quickly. I laid down to protect my organs. It took an effort. The light-
"XO, set passive recording, full spectrum. Filter limelight." It was a tenuous push.
"Bonx, Klargen." (I could hear the Rotatey Chair attempt to accommodate his skinny ass in near free-fall as he attempted SCIENCE controls from the interface on the armrest.)
And then we stopped, the Tinglev was behind us, about 60 feet to the bow, what a beautiful ship, and the creaks of hidden hydraulic systems betrayed themselves. Rapid-ionic jets had fired to stabilize the Tinglev's relative fall, automatically. Numerous seismic-level cogs in the vast platform did their thing, and we could feel it. A very controlled stop. Glassy, slimy grey walls. And nothing else, except a doorway rimmed in intense light-green light. About the size of a garage door. For a big car.
"Klargen?"
"XO, what've you got? Ni'l smeer pap' oh yetzt." ("Don't sugar coat it.")
"Level 8, Klargen. We're at Level 8." The air was so thin I struggled to keep up with it. Air pressure was dropping precariously. The veins on my neck stood out, I could feel them.
"What time is it, XO?" I growled, for no reason whatsoever. What the hell did that mean, Level 8?
"It's the time, Klargen. Nothing is known from here on. No humans allowed below Level 5," he reminded me. He need'n't push it, but he did.
"Understood. Very well." Sphincters were puckering between the two of us.
And then the light dimmed, and the door smipped open, very mechanically, sucking what little air was left for a niptuk. My eyes took a second to adjust... blurry.
It was like a symphony. Light being sounds, colors rendering shapes, new wondrous beings with old, familiar greetings, all erupted as they filed out. (I can hardly describe it.) Two distinguished Greys, a 4-foot lobster-looking thing - with a serious bearing - and three slinky shapes, moving like they were disguised by the rock, mere lines against the continuity of the walls. They never stood still, and they seemed hepped up, on something, elsewhere. Barely in the present.
I knew it all. Seen it before, somehow.
"Call me Klargen," I chuckled, at first. "Do not harm my crew. There would be... repercussions."
They - probably the older Greys - punished me for that, and pushed back, hard "There are no Klargens here."
My temples ached with that one. The three line-beings kept up their intricate dances.
"But we will do your repairs. Your crew is safe."
What? Why? Who are you?
And they didn't offer shit. Lobster-guy sputtered a bubble, nothing I could understand.
Nothing, then?
"It's all fine. Repairs will be underway." The XO and I both heard, sub-audible.
I couldn't tell who sent me that message. It sounded like an authority, and I was in their space, so to say.
"Though his mind is not for rent,
Don't put him down as arrogant.
His reserve - a quiet defense,
Riding out the day's events -
The river."
"Tom Sawyer," Rush at their best, 1981.
What time is it?
It's the time. No time like the present. Time waits for no one. Time does its job. Time is money.
It's night-time. Sweet dreams, comrades.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Bravery Versus Courage Versus Dodged Bullets
Happy New Year.
Oomp to the skippitty-bob, Popcorn with parmesan!
I'm gonna type just about anything that pings into my noggin' and that's the way it's a'gonna be. It's the end/beginning of the year, and it's been a weird one. Like, existential, dudes.
Here's the immediate deal, hipsters and flipsters - there are real bullets and there are metaphorical bullets. If you're lucky, pay attention to details, and stay focused, you learn how to dodge BOTH. Neither the actuals nor the figuratives will hit you. Crazy, I know. (sighs)
They're just words on a virtual page, right? They don't mean bupkis, right? So provocative, isn't it all? All of it? Right? I can ask questions ad infinitum, and no one cares, right? What am I, Hawaiian? I'm craving SPAM, or am I? Mahalo, peaceniks.
"You and I go hard at each other
Like we're goin' to war.
You and I go rough,
We keep throwin' things
And slammin' the doors.
You and I get so damn dysfunctional
we start keepin' score.
You and I get sick,
Aay, I know that we can't do this no more..."
Maroon 5, "One More Night" (That song fucking rocks. Seriously.)
The UV/IR/Visual lights of the Tinglev were reflected off the polished surface of the walls of the berth at AMHRF. It looked like an empty dance floor on MAIN. Clean, polished, unused. Sensors were powered down - we didn't want to provoke or even act defensive.
"XO, is the security detachment ready?" I pushed, privately.
"Blinx, Klargen."
"Let's take a look."
"Aye. Herp-derp rad-shur pip da'lem."
The filed onto the bridge. They were in Order Blue tunics, albeit riddled with unnatural bulges. I had ordered only subdue weapons and minimal armor.
Two of the Greys on the away-team I recognized and knew from the equivalent of the 'mess hall,' and two were from the 'bowels of the ship.' (I knew their pictos - and names - from the crew roster, but here they were.) They looked nonchalant for a security detail, and that was exactly what we wanted to project. I led them down toward the forward drop hatch and messaged to them to 'chill' as much as possible.
"Porten lip smep dern nip nell, gip baht smer-neen E-o." (Keep your thoughts clear, they'll be scanning.) We lined up at the drop-hatch. Not like Fuji, I thought.
"Blinx, Klargen."
The door depressurized and dropped neatly to the deck with a hiss and a muted 'clunk.' It sounded hollow echoing off the walls. I could see scanning-layer light illuminating us as the hatch clanked down. We're completely vulnerable down here, I reminded myself.
And that was that. They knew.
And we knew they knew. Heartbeats were audible inside alien chests.
"Team, secure a perimeter."
"Blinx, Klargen," they messaged as they rushed out of the drop-hatch, unafraid. I couldn't have found or cultivated a better crew, I thought. The slow, dreary light of the bottom of the fold began to become my normal light. My Security Team could see all of it.
I tightened my weapons belt and stepped out.
"My love is at leave with the freeway,
Its passion will ride as the cities fly by.
And the tail-lights's on in the coming of night.
And the questions in thousands, take flight."
Robert Plant, "Big Log"
I'm so loathe to even type her pseudo-name again. (However, I might, if I feel squirrelly.) I'm fairly sure that - in the ongoing 'Airing of My Grievances' these last 7 months - she has determined that I may have some residual anger and related issues about her.
Of course I do. (I have a vast, easily replay-able memory.)
It's hard to shake 21 years of silence/indifference and the pointed psychological terrorism she mastered - and used - after we split. Dead dragonflies, attempted reverse-stalking(?), and personalized, symbolic graffiti were piss-poor substitutes for actual communication. In the early 90's, the "Power of No" was much larger in her than the "Power of Yes." Let's hope she's changed.
Apparently, she felt a 'shift' on the Mayan solstice. She's going to believe in this 'shift' without any apparent evidence, without knowledgeable argument, and without reconciliation, it would seem. ("Poof," and I disappear, yet again. Like she made me do before, under judicial force. Fuck that. I'm done with 'disappearing.' As an actual creature, it's an exceedingly hard thing to do. Try to take a class in that discipline, no one offers it. I could be 40 feet from you, and you wouldn't know. Hmmmmm - I've been 40 feet from you in the last three years, did you know that? In a new, red Camaro.)
A shift HAS occurred, but I don't think she's in on the 'whole thing.' Not Even A Bit.
We'll see about that assumption... she may proclaim all this New Age holisticity, co-existence in peace with all peoples, and 'intentional' recognition of the humanity in all of us, but I'm left out of her equation, completely.
Me=<0.
If she's ever thought of me, since, she hasn't mentioned it. Not even once, even obliquely. I'm still a black hole in her life history from which nothing ever exits. This is a woman I made love with like my life depended on it. I felt like our coupling was ordained by the stars. The intense gravity of her negativity is greater than anything else I've experienced ever, since. There's very little chance that 'what she says' on MYBOOKFACE will reflect itself in 'how she acts' regarding me. ("Boogeymen SHOULD hide." That's what I still get from her. In the absence of anything - anything- else.)
Talking the talk without walking the walk? (Sometimes I can't help but notice that you're 'full of shit' about this whole peace-love-togetherness/co-existence thing. It's all on your terms, so the irony gets really, really thick. You've created a 'World of Peace' mentality and left some people out of it. "Oh, never mind them," you seem to project, "Because THEY/them/That One Guy doesn't exist. Anymore. At all.")
Hypocrite. You don't walk your talk. (I'll know when you do.) You want peace and love and won't go through the actual steps of getting there.
Maybe bravery is in order.
I'm not a demon, you know. (?)
If this point in history is to be the end of individualism and selfishness, how will that reconcile itself with your continued/continuous/continual denial about our time together? You haven't once considered my soul, my feelings and memories, and done a single damn thing about it in thousands and thousands of days. (I don't even want to look that up, at this point. WAIT!!! Fuck it - it's been 7,732 days since you've spoken to me like a fellow human, with kindness, apathy, friendship. That is a big number.)
And we all know it is because of the residue of fear. A fear you can't beat just yet, and may never. We all know that 'coaching' doesn't involve the past, or seek any solutions to past issues, it's just an arrow forward, blind to the source, the context, the meaning. (And I had thought you were an acolyte of my world, a fellow shadow-warrior. Someone pulling discreet knobs in society, a lube on the gears, rather than being a monkey-wrench that never gets 'used' properly, or efficiently. You ended up being what you told me you were 'tired of being' - a "helper.")
I'm reminded of a lovely discussion I had years ago with a good pal I call 'Wheels." He's a neighbor, a friend, and a confidante. Incredible mind. We always find interesting topics to debate (even though we're usually on the same side) and this particular day found us asking...
"What is the difference between bravery and courage?"
Yes, it goes without saying that these kinds of answers can be found very quickly with our modern 'technomological' conveniences. I could just google it, right? But that's no fun for the sake of the discussion. So we consulted my trusty 1986 Merriam's/Websters' Dictionary, a voluminous red-fake-leather God of Information, a trusty ally of mine for decades now.
Wheels and I quickly dove into the roots of these words. Knowing a bit of French, 'coeur' came to mind - heart. After a bit of discussion, we came to the same conclusion that scholars had deciphered - bravery is an ongoing mental thing, an ethos, and courage is a momentary thing that springs from bravery meeting chaos, or perhaps it doesn't. Courage can come from nowhere, but bravery is cultivated. It's a mindset. Bravado has a place, and it isn't the end-run of cowardice.
If you live being as brave as you can, courage is a a side-effect. Unaffected, by a lack of bravery, courage blooms so slowly it never appears except in the midst of chaos, as a bystander. The heart takes over.
If I participate in this new 'belief system' (the one that accompanies HER new sense of a 'shift,' then I'll do ALL I can do to shed this anger, consciously. Been trying to do that for months and months, jogging with my dogs, as it were. Just writing about it has made things better in my mind. As far as I'm concerned, I had to reach across a great, invisible gulf to ask for her permission to 'quit hating her.' It wasn't about bravery, it was about honor, and courage.
"I don't love you,
And I always will..."
The Civil Wars, kicking duet butt in "Poison and Wine"
Late May, 1998. My lady and I were getting ready for a day-hike in the southern reaches of Grand Teton National Park. (Taggart Lake) We had been to Glacier NP, and Yellowstone NP, and seen bears. Lots of bears, both black and grizzly. On this day, after so many run-ins, we decided to be brave and not carry any bear-spray. The bears just hadn't been an issue, despite their proximity.
The trail led to the northwest, to a ridge between Bradley Lake and Taggart Lake, and then switch-backed to the south. At the top of the ridge, we met a couple who were busy looking downhill, at something we hadn't noticed. A bear, big guy at that. We mentioned that our best defense was to let that animal know we were there, and I suggested we sing or chant something. This couple, from upstate NY, didn't know any Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, or Beatles, any anything, so we started singing "My Darling Clementine" as we descended the switchbacks. A baby rattlesnake - just a toddler-snake, really - made them jump and over-react, and I realized they were profoundly afraid. Nature was a scary thing to them, in the raw.
The bear ambled towards the east side of Taggart Lake, basically along the direction of the trail, and my lady and I knew we had to keep noisy to drive it away from us. As the trail flattened, near the NE reach of the lake, we were bounded by an old fire/burn debris pile to the east, and the lake to the west. I picked up a suitable walking stick, maybe 5 feet long, a sapped-out, denuded pine branch. Don't know why, just did it.
Funneled into the trail, nowhere to go, our new mammal friend was waiting for us.
Twenty-odd feet away, he stood up on his hind legs, and began walking toward us.
And the other guy bolted. Ran for his life, back the way we'd come... the absolute last thing you should do. His wife was now hugging my shoulder, and my lady hugged the other. Without so much as a momentary thought, I knew we were in the 'shit' and I pulled out the only thing I had to fend off the bear - a mylar survival blanket. I tied it to the end of the stick in less than three seconds, and made an impromptu shiny-wall between the bear and the three of us. I began shaking it and moving TOWARDS the bear, expecting a flash of claws and whatever fate occurred after that.
That was that. It scared the bear away because I'm typing this now. My primary concern was for the women, and there was no conscious decision - it was an imperative. A lack of choice is a great focusing agent.
Maybe, that moment was the most courageous I've ever been. (Would've loved to be a 'fly on the wall' in the other couple's hotel room that night. You can't 'take back' cowardice regarding loved ones.)
Be brave. It's not a bad way to live. There is integrity in it.
Hope for courage, because you may need it at the times you least expect.
I dodged a (metaphorical) bullet once, and that bullet was you, Beatrix. I'm still alive.
Yes, that's a harsh assessment, but in hindsight, I knew things had that garish future to them. Reed College and the Renn Fair in May, 1991 come to mind. At that point, I just wanted to spend every conceivable moment of my life with you. I was under your particular spell. It worked. I was completely, utterly drawn in. And I believed what I said on that Port Townsend beach on May 30th...
(Here comes the inevitable 'however.')
Being cast out, persona-non-grata'ed, Clan Of The Cave Bear'ed - didn't sit well with what I'd already experienced and known. I'm far too grounded in paisleys of memory and training and schooling to 'pretend' like you wanted me to. You wanted a new reality and a new name. There was one iteration of your name - that I only used once and got 'fire eyes' from you - and it is your 4-letter 'friendly island name.' (My acceptable names were either 2 or 7 letters.)
But I get it now. For some reason, friendship with me was impossible in those days.
Friendship still exists, but you don't see it. Wake up! Leap the Elk has cultivated patience for a long, long, long time.
"I know you think that
I shouldn't still love you,
Or tell you that.
But if I didn't say it, I'd still have felt it,
Where's the sense in that?"
Dido, "White Flag" and it is applicable here.
I'm living in the real world, Beatrix-ter. When are you going to get here?
So tedious, this wait...
I didn't want to dodge that bullet, and I didn't know that 'you' were a bullet.
A real bullet may have done less long-term damage, isn't that a bitch?
Peace out, Fair Readers.
Oomp to the skippitty-bob, Popcorn with parmesan!
I'm gonna type just about anything that pings into my noggin' and that's the way it's a'gonna be. It's the end/beginning of the year, and it's been a weird one. Like, existential, dudes.
Here's the immediate deal, hipsters and flipsters - there are real bullets and there are metaphorical bullets. If you're lucky, pay attention to details, and stay focused, you learn how to dodge BOTH. Neither the actuals nor the figuratives will hit you. Crazy, I know. (sighs)
They're just words on a virtual page, right? They don't mean bupkis, right? So provocative, isn't it all? All of it? Right? I can ask questions ad infinitum, and no one cares, right? What am I, Hawaiian? I'm craving SPAM, or am I? Mahalo, peaceniks.
"You and I go hard at each other
Like we're goin' to war.
You and I go rough,
We keep throwin' things
And slammin' the doors.
You and I get so damn dysfunctional
we start keepin' score.
You and I get sick,
Aay, I know that we can't do this no more..."
Maroon 5, "One More Night" (That song fucking rocks. Seriously.)
The UV/IR/Visual lights of the Tinglev were reflected off the polished surface of the walls of the berth at AMHRF. It looked like an empty dance floor on MAIN. Clean, polished, unused. Sensors were powered down - we didn't want to provoke or even act defensive.
"XO, is the security detachment ready?" I pushed, privately.
"Blinx, Klargen."
"Let's take a look."
"Aye. Herp-derp rad-shur pip da'lem."
The filed onto the bridge. They were in Order Blue tunics, albeit riddled with unnatural bulges. I had ordered only subdue weapons and minimal armor.
Two of the Greys on the away-team I recognized and knew from the equivalent of the 'mess hall,' and two were from the 'bowels of the ship.' (I knew their pictos - and names - from the crew roster, but here they were.) They looked nonchalant for a security detail, and that was exactly what we wanted to project. I led them down toward the forward drop hatch and messaged to them to 'chill' as much as possible.
"Porten lip smep dern nip nell, gip baht smer-neen E-o." (Keep your thoughts clear, they'll be scanning.) We lined up at the drop-hatch. Not like Fuji, I thought.
"Blinx, Klargen."
The door depressurized and dropped neatly to the deck with a hiss and a muted 'clunk.' It sounded hollow echoing off the walls. I could see scanning-layer light illuminating us as the hatch clanked down. We're completely vulnerable down here, I reminded myself.
And that was that. They knew.
And we knew they knew. Heartbeats were audible inside alien chests.
"Team, secure a perimeter."
"Blinx, Klargen," they messaged as they rushed out of the drop-hatch, unafraid. I couldn't have found or cultivated a better crew, I thought. The slow, dreary light of the bottom of the fold began to become my normal light. My Security Team could see all of it.
I tightened my weapons belt and stepped out.
"My love is at leave with the freeway,
Its passion will ride as the cities fly by.
And the tail-lights's on in the coming of night.
And the questions in thousands, take flight."
Robert Plant, "Big Log"
I'm so loathe to even type her pseudo-name again. (However, I might, if I feel squirrelly.) I'm fairly sure that - in the ongoing 'Airing of My Grievances' these last 7 months - she has determined that I may have some residual anger and related issues about her.
Of course I do. (I have a vast, easily replay-able memory.)
It's hard to shake 21 years of silence/indifference and the pointed psychological terrorism she mastered - and used - after we split. Dead dragonflies, attempted reverse-stalking(?), and personalized, symbolic graffiti were piss-poor substitutes for actual communication. In the early 90's, the "Power of No" was much larger in her than the "Power of Yes." Let's hope she's changed.
Apparently, she felt a 'shift' on the Mayan solstice. She's going to believe in this 'shift' without any apparent evidence, without knowledgeable argument, and without reconciliation, it would seem. ("Poof," and I disappear, yet again. Like she made me do before, under judicial force. Fuck that. I'm done with 'disappearing.' As an actual creature, it's an exceedingly hard thing to do. Try to take a class in that discipline, no one offers it. I could be 40 feet from you, and you wouldn't know. Hmmmmm - I've been 40 feet from you in the last three years, did you know that? In a new, red Camaro.)
A shift HAS occurred, but I don't think she's in on the 'whole thing.' Not Even A Bit.
We'll see about that assumption... she may proclaim all this New Age holisticity, co-existence in peace with all peoples, and 'intentional' recognition of the humanity in all of us, but I'm left out of her equation, completely.
Me=<0.
If she's ever thought of me, since, she hasn't mentioned it. Not even once, even obliquely. I'm still a black hole in her life history from which nothing ever exits. This is a woman I made love with like my life depended on it. I felt like our coupling was ordained by the stars. The intense gravity of her negativity is greater than anything else I've experienced ever, since. There's very little chance that 'what she says' on MYBOOKFACE will reflect itself in 'how she acts' regarding me. ("Boogeymen SHOULD hide." That's what I still get from her. In the absence of anything - anything- else.)
Talking the talk without walking the walk? (Sometimes I can't help but notice that you're 'full of shit' about this whole peace-love-togetherness/co-existence thing. It's all on your terms, so the irony gets really, really thick. You've created a 'World of Peace' mentality and left some people out of it. "Oh, never mind them," you seem to project, "Because THEY/them/That One Guy doesn't exist. Anymore. At all.")
Hypocrite. You don't walk your talk. (I'll know when you do.) You want peace and love and won't go through the actual steps of getting there.
Maybe bravery is in order.
I'm not a demon, you know. (?)
If this point in history is to be the end of individualism and selfishness, how will that reconcile itself with your continued/continuous/continual denial about our time together? You haven't once considered my soul, my feelings and memories, and done a single damn thing about it in thousands and thousands of days. (I don't even want to look that up, at this point. WAIT!!! Fuck it - it's been 7,732 days since you've spoken to me like a fellow human, with kindness, apathy, friendship. That is a big number.)
And we all know it is because of the residue of fear. A fear you can't beat just yet, and may never. We all know that 'coaching' doesn't involve the past, or seek any solutions to past issues, it's just an arrow forward, blind to the source, the context, the meaning. (And I had thought you were an acolyte of my world, a fellow shadow-warrior. Someone pulling discreet knobs in society, a lube on the gears, rather than being a monkey-wrench that never gets 'used' properly, or efficiently. You ended up being what you told me you were 'tired of being' - a "helper.")
I'm reminded of a lovely discussion I had years ago with a good pal I call 'Wheels." He's a neighbor, a friend, and a confidante. Incredible mind. We always find interesting topics to debate (even though we're usually on the same side) and this particular day found us asking...
"What is the difference between bravery and courage?"
Yes, it goes without saying that these kinds of answers can be found very quickly with our modern 'technomological' conveniences. I could just google it, right? But that's no fun for the sake of the discussion. So we consulted my trusty 1986 Merriam's/Websters' Dictionary, a voluminous red-fake-leather God of Information, a trusty ally of mine for decades now.
Wheels and I quickly dove into the roots of these words. Knowing a bit of French, 'coeur' came to mind - heart. After a bit of discussion, we came to the same conclusion that scholars had deciphered - bravery is an ongoing mental thing, an ethos, and courage is a momentary thing that springs from bravery meeting chaos, or perhaps it doesn't. Courage can come from nowhere, but bravery is cultivated. It's a mindset. Bravado has a place, and it isn't the end-run of cowardice.
If you live being as brave as you can, courage is a a side-effect. Unaffected, by a lack of bravery, courage blooms so slowly it never appears except in the midst of chaos, as a bystander. The heart takes over.
If I participate in this new 'belief system' (the one that accompanies HER new sense of a 'shift,' then I'll do ALL I can do to shed this anger, consciously. Been trying to do that for months and months, jogging with my dogs, as it were. Just writing about it has made things better in my mind. As far as I'm concerned, I had to reach across a great, invisible gulf to ask for her permission to 'quit hating her.' It wasn't about bravery, it was about honor, and courage.
"I don't love you,
And I always will..."
The Civil Wars, kicking duet butt in "Poison and Wine"
Late May, 1998. My lady and I were getting ready for a day-hike in the southern reaches of Grand Teton National Park. (Taggart Lake) We had been to Glacier NP, and Yellowstone NP, and seen bears. Lots of bears, both black and grizzly. On this day, after so many run-ins, we decided to be brave and not carry any bear-spray. The bears just hadn't been an issue, despite their proximity.
The trail led to the northwest, to a ridge between Bradley Lake and Taggart Lake, and then switch-backed to the south. At the top of the ridge, we met a couple who were busy looking downhill, at something we hadn't noticed. A bear, big guy at that. We mentioned that our best defense was to let that animal know we were there, and I suggested we sing or chant something. This couple, from upstate NY, didn't know any Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, or Beatles, any anything, so we started singing "My Darling Clementine" as we descended the switchbacks. A baby rattlesnake - just a toddler-snake, really - made them jump and over-react, and I realized they were profoundly afraid. Nature was a scary thing to them, in the raw.
The bear ambled towards the east side of Taggart Lake, basically along the direction of the trail, and my lady and I knew we had to keep noisy to drive it away from us. As the trail flattened, near the NE reach of the lake, we were bounded by an old fire/burn debris pile to the east, and the lake to the west. I picked up a suitable walking stick, maybe 5 feet long, a sapped-out, denuded pine branch. Don't know why, just did it.
Funneled into the trail, nowhere to go, our new mammal friend was waiting for us.
Twenty-odd feet away, he stood up on his hind legs, and began walking toward us.
And the other guy bolted. Ran for his life, back the way we'd come... the absolute last thing you should do. His wife was now hugging my shoulder, and my lady hugged the other. Without so much as a momentary thought, I knew we were in the 'shit' and I pulled out the only thing I had to fend off the bear - a mylar survival blanket. I tied it to the end of the stick in less than three seconds, and made an impromptu shiny-wall between the bear and the three of us. I began shaking it and moving TOWARDS the bear, expecting a flash of claws and whatever fate occurred after that.
That was that. It scared the bear away because I'm typing this now. My primary concern was for the women, and there was no conscious decision - it was an imperative. A lack of choice is a great focusing agent.
Maybe, that moment was the most courageous I've ever been. (Would've loved to be a 'fly on the wall' in the other couple's hotel room that night. You can't 'take back' cowardice regarding loved ones.)
Be brave. It's not a bad way to live. There is integrity in it.
Hope for courage, because you may need it at the times you least expect.
I dodged a (metaphorical) bullet once, and that bullet was you, Beatrix. I'm still alive.
Yes, that's a harsh assessment, but in hindsight, I knew things had that garish future to them. Reed College and the Renn Fair in May, 1991 come to mind. At that point, I just wanted to spend every conceivable moment of my life with you. I was under your particular spell. It worked. I was completely, utterly drawn in. And I believed what I said on that Port Townsend beach on May 30th...
(Here comes the inevitable 'however.')
Being cast out, persona-non-grata'ed, Clan Of The Cave Bear'ed - didn't sit well with what I'd already experienced and known. I'm far too grounded in paisleys of memory and training and schooling to 'pretend' like you wanted me to. You wanted a new reality and a new name. There was one iteration of your name - that I only used once and got 'fire eyes' from you - and it is your 4-letter 'friendly island name.' (My acceptable names were either 2 or 7 letters.)
But I get it now. For some reason, friendship with me was impossible in those days.
Friendship still exists, but you don't see it. Wake up! Leap the Elk has cultivated patience for a long, long, long time.
"I know you think that
I shouldn't still love you,
Or tell you that.
But if I didn't say it, I'd still have felt it,
Where's the sense in that?"
Dido, "White Flag" and it is applicable here.
I'm living in the real world, Beatrix-ter. When are you going to get here?
So tedious, this wait...
I didn't want to dodge that bullet, and I didn't know that 'you' were a bullet.
A real bullet may have done less long-term damage, isn't that a bitch?
Peace out, Fair Readers.
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