rhythmic. repetitive. involuntary. we do this (kind of shit) all the time. disregard the pollen count and the alto sirrus smog hovering on the horizon. feel the knot in your throat. the one even a seasoned boyscout would have trouble undoing. breathe in deep.

it’ll only take a moment. some moments last a lifetime. this isn’t one of them. this moment doesn’t even intersect with the fourth dimension. i guess this is what they meant by transcedental.

stepping back and looking at that ugly fucking carpet did me a world of good. that pattern’s not so bad after all. i found the beauty in its repetition. there it was. hiding under the soda stains and the high traffic pattern of a thousand pairs of footprints over a thousand day period. worn out. scuffed. trampled and tired. i wouldn’t want to see it everywhere. but it’s good enough for here. it’s good enough for now.

stepping back and looking at that terrible fucking moment did me a world of good. the hurt’s not so bad after all. i found the beauty in its brokenness. there it was. hiding under the heartache and the exhaustion of a thousand gentle beats over a thousand day period. worn out. scared. trampled and tired. i wouldn’t want it that way forever. but it’s good enough for here. it’s good enough for now.

the moment is coming to a close.

and i can exhale.

time to breathe again.

in the event that you ever catch me mid gaze- my eyes glossed over; wide open; furiously twitching to and fro with my heart beating out of my chest and a tension so thick you can’t begin to cut it with a knife- stay by my side. stay with me and turn your head slightly toward one shoulder. look around you. and keep your eyes open. god, just keep your eyes open.

i dream in color with my eyes wide open. i dream of a world where we fight for the underdog and the oppressed. where we take arms against indifference and mount counterstrikes against our own apathy. where we follow hard after justice and exchange convenience for consciousness. fuck the airbrushed affluence that is the ideal aesthetic. give me the tired and broken. give me the filthy and forsaken. let me hold up their hands and call them blessed. let me wash their feet. let me feed their bodies. let me hear their stories. let them have their voice.

can you hear their voice? i know that it’s being drowned out by the sounds of that hideous parade in front of us. the one that speaks of empty aspirations and hopeless tomorrows. the one with the caliope whose song fills the air with sweet sounds having no semblance of substance. one by one the performers march down the street in honor of themselves and their purposeless purpose. vendors sell wares that won’t even satisfy the most superficial of cravings. and yet we consume. yet we can not look away.

and we head home to our comforts. to our walls that keep us safe from what’s outside. we head back to the nice part of town. the part where we aren’t confronted with their bodies sprawled out in front of us. where they can’t get in the way of where we’re going. where we don’t have to consider what it will take to get there.

another world is possible. and we’re standing on it. a world where we call things what they are. where we value what will last. where we embrace the temporal nature of everything we thought to be valuable and invest in what matters. if you will call me a friend i will ask you to help me make this world. help me to love. help me to live. join me as we spend our lives chasing after our breaths. help me find the beauty in the broken. help me to call things what they are. help me make heaven a place on earth.

I Don’t Wanna Fall to pieces I Just Wanna sit & stare at you. I Don’t Wanna talk About it. I Don’t want a conversation…

i woke up two hours after i wanted to leave today. sonofabitch. i grabbed everything i own and threw it in the trunk of my car. this routine is familiar to me. i made a few more calls than were necessary and hesitated more than i ought to have. (dragging my feet is also part of my routine). i googlemapped my way home. second star to the right and straight on til morning if i remember correctly. this is not a difficult drive. this is not a long drive. this is not goodbye. this is see you soon.

i’m off to follow my lover. she doesn’t communicate well. she speaks in riddles. i don’t understand her. but i love her. she always gives just enough to keep me coming back for more. but i’ll be damned if she doesn’t have some cruel sense of timing. (she only calls when she knows i’m busy).

“ok dad. i’ll see you tonight. i love you.” i had the best intentions. i had already missed father’s day by 24 hours so i could try to meet up with my friend Rest one last time before i skipped town. i haven’t really seen her since i left my job about a month ago. i guess that’s my fault tho. i know where to find her. but she likes to call it quits pretty early on and i’ve become somewhat of a sucker for those arizona sunrises. @Rest, i’m sorry about the distance between us lately. it’s not you, it’s me. i guess i only have time for you when i’m at the end of myself.

i texted my aunt as i should have been pulling up to her front door. “i’m going to be a little late. just leaving town now” “you’ll get here by 9 if you don’t stop along the way” “k see you then. love you” “love you too”. five years of catching up glossed over in a couple texts. thanks twitter for teaching me the virtues of 140 characters or less.

all that’s left to do is fill up this mug with 100 ounces of goodness. try as i might i’ve never been able to finish this damn thing. it taunts me every time i pick it up. it’s heavy and my hand is tired. i’m on the fast track to kidney stones. there was a time where i was downing 150 ounces of dr pepper a day. 10-2-4 for life. but try as i might i can’t finish this thing. today will be different. it’s me and the open road. i will defeat you. one ounce at a time you will be mine.

three hours later my bladder and my heart (both the size of texas) are full to bursting. my bladder from dr pepper and my heart from the joy of victory. my desire to avoid public restrooms took a backseat to my desire to not show up at my aunt’s house having peed myself. thanks so much arizona rest stop. i walked past the homeless bearded wanderer without so much as a hello. (strange, as that is my favorite type of human). all my energy was being spent not pissing myself. success. i zipped up, washed my hands and then held them under that machine that’s supposed to dry them. on my way back to my car i stopped to say hello to him. at least i wanted to say hello. all that came out was “do you need a ride?” his sign said silver city. it could have said “not too far out of your way”. it should have said “where you belong”.

we compared notes on wandering. on the joys of owning little. on the joys of giving much. we talked about the way things are. the way we want them to be. we talked about graffiti. about what it means to be human. about fuck the border patrol. about posession. ownership. property. boundaries. rights. privilege. luxury. necessity. the real world. the plastic world. community. thoreau. alexander supertramp. slab city. kerr county folk festival. no more deaths. language. validation. hope. aspirations. dreams.

august (the wanderer) was wonderful. he knows my lover. seems he’s been following her for sometime too. apparently wanderlust knows not fidelity.

in exchange for his company and conversation i offered him a pair of socks, a marker and a partially used sketchbook. actually i offered him everything i had. he took only what he had use for. i love him for this. i’ll write him at his permanent mailing address. i hope he’ll call me one day. i promised him i’d do anything i can to help him out as needed. i want to be needed.

i’m glad i spent some time with Rest before i left town. i’m glad i finished all 100 ounces. i’m glad i decided to pee in a public space. they led me to august.

august (the wanderer) offered me a glimpse at what these next few weeks might look like. august (the month) is looking mighty fine.

i don’t know what to make of the fact that some of my favorite places i’ve ever lived are some of the most flawed. i love sleeping in a house where there’s no weather strip under the front door and the winter air comes in to climb into bed with you between the sheets. i love staying in a place where summer’s sweltering heat smashes in through the windows and pulls up a seat right next to you and drinks the lemonade straight out of the glass that you just poured. i could have sworn it had some in it a second ago.

i love when the carpet is soiled. when the laminate floor is peeling. when the drywall has holes in it. when the pictures hang slightly off center. when the offwhite walls don’t have names like eggshell or mother of pearl, but instead you call them what they are – dingy and dirty.

when you walk outside to a frontlawn that can’t seem to stay green no matter how much you water it. and you stand on the lawn and you can hear the house talking to you. the floorboards are creaking. the screen door is whispering. the pipes are gurgling. the fridge constantly needs to tell you how hard it’s working. those are the sounds of home to me.

thanks joel and geoff for the roof over my head the last few weeks. it’s been grand.

time to see what’s next. i have my fingers crossed that lolo’s house will be a little closer to comfort. however uncomfortable that may be.

maybe one day i’ll finally see what it means to be homeless. i think that will be my favorite of all.

Mini Mini 4×4 from Spraygraphic on Vimeo.

The Spraygraphic.com community presents their Mini Mini 4×4 show. Produced by Hoisted Sail.

I participated in this event a few weeks back. I”ll upload a couple of pictures of my contributions in a bit.

I was talking with my awesome friend steph and we were discussing things in our nature. My love of cuddling (thanks facebook for bringing this up as a constant point of conversation lately). Her hatred of it. My love of eighties music. Maybe another idiosyncrasy or two.

I decided that there is nothing wrong with me and that in fact, much like mary poppins, i am practically perfect in every way.

bam

i clip nine of my fingernails. i save my left pinky one so that i have one to chew in case i get nervous. i think it grows faster than any of my other ones.

Just a few visual reminders for the lovely people of Gilbert.

Short Sweet and to the Point. My favorite movie trailers (not necessarily movies).

5. Jurassic Park

4. The Incredibles

3. The Fountain

2. Troy

1. King Kong