For The Manicured Utopia

Respect my worry.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 18:14:00 +0000

Work is a second life and a second skin. It's not me, but it is. I'm in here, somewhere. I know the tasks and what they mean to "us," to "we" the company. I'm in it. I used to be a different man but with the same flaws. What's changed in me is the worry.

I'm old enough to know that failure doesn't take a lifetime.

No strains.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 17:02:00 +0000

I'm the second set of eyes. Work is done and put in front of me to dissect. Tear apart to find its faults. There is no optimism in this. There would be no point in looking for the good, you cannot approve upon the "good," and there is no enjoyment in looking for it. It's there, out of the way.

It's the faults that hinder the view. Those mistakes that people make that ruin the shine of life. In being the second eyes I am not the good and I am not the fault, I am the tool that attempts to bring them together in the hope of making a perfect world.

A world where everyone shuts their mouth, and minds their own business so I can tend to mine.

All Knowledge is Accounted For

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:10:00 +0000

The world is indeed flat, ideal for the constant run of technology. It is a hub, connecting life into itself. Beneath this landscape are millions of strands of pulsing fiber optic cables deep in the ground, quietly relaying our speech and thoughts from home to home and then up, rays of data into the atmosphere, deeper, into the far distant yawn of space.

I hadn't worked in months and had found a job at the telecom company in a customer service position. It was all complaints of poor reception, lost minutes, and over charges for text messages and data plans. After a few days of answering phones the managers pulled me aside, if I wanted to keep working I would need to move down to the Interiors Building. I agreed and they stuck me in front the Interference Monitor, a lone computer that's only function was to blink when the main satellite lost signal.

"So, I just stand here?"

I had been guided through the building by an interiors prefect, a huge man of fat, bone, and latticed muscle. He smelled of cinnamon and burnt toast. The screen was fed data by the sea of satellites that hovered above us, invisible. Our department received a stream of information from these satellites in the form of radio waves telling us the strength of cell phone reception across the country. These satellites, twisting in the Godless sky, rang with the ghost voice of American chatter.

"Sit."

"What does this satellite do?"

"Pasha."

"What?"

"The satellite. We named her. She's Pasha."

"What's Pasha do?"

"The usual. Reads the global strength of her brother satellites. Passes along phone calls and text messages. Pure generic civilian data. That’s what we call it. Pointless intel."

"That's it? Seems like a waste to have it floating in space just to bounce around phone calls. It could be out there looking for life. Water. Stuff like that."

"Oh, she does."

Each day, nothing happened. I drank coffee and stared at the screen, waiting for the satellite to speak to me. It was a mindless job, but it kept me away from people and I was paid well enough. They couldn’t have a machine watch another machine since they hadn’t figured out what would happen if the initial surveillance machine was faulty. They would need a never ending chain of electronic eyes; all watching each other, but that would cost the company too much so they opted for me. Human to machine contact was the cheapest option.

The big man came and went. His position gave him access to all the company had to offer and he was free to wander the departments, free to touch anything. He would drop by every few hours and during my graveyard watch I would get phone calls. A few days into the job, boredom set in and I tried to keep him on the phone with questions.

"What does the satellite see out there? Does it tell you anything?"

"Yeah, all the time. Pasha is always sending us information back beyond what we need.’

“Where does the information go?”

“Another building somewhere. We have years worth of space mapping and data compiling stored in mass storage. Every inch of space is accounted for."

"Really? So what's out there?"

"Nothing, man. Nothing at all."

My phone went dead and the screen blinked once and for that second of time, a million cell phones lost service.

The one hundred percent.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 05:10:00 +0000

Mediocrity seems to be where the bulk of humanity exists. You would think a better word would be made for it; some sort of beautified version designed by the relentlessly growing average majority. Perhaps the word was devised long ago by someone of higher intelligence, greater success and superior luck who made the negative connotations stick. I believe in greatness in man and I do not see it in everyone, let alone myself but there has to be a goal to strive for so I do but my current visions, outside of my inner-fantasy of living as a wonderful being, fully understands the word "Mediocre" and its current connotations because I live it everyday.

Those that are of average existence are corralled into a bin of inadequate feeling. A place that lets us know that this world isn't for us and what we are here to do is to clean the muck and stay out of the way of those that can actually do amazing and beautiful things because, for us, the mediocre, are not capable of doing or creating anything beautiful. We are the clerks. The accountants. The ticket takers and assistants of those who are golden.

God, if there is one, created mankind ninety percent eyes to the ground, and created the other ten percent eyes to the heavens. We, the mediocre, can raise our eyes to heaven but heaven will not look back upon us and that is our curse. We are left alone, amongst ourselves, the many, to remain, to feel and be, eyes to the ground, where we will all end up. All one hundred percent of us.

Concerning the eyes.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:17:00 +0000

After roughly one hour of being at work, sitting at the desk, front staring at a screen I begin to feel something in my eyes. Wet and heavy at the corners and there's a chill within them, a sort of tired that doesn't come from a good night's rest or a night spent tossing and turning. I recognize this softness in my head. It is the outward and easy breath from time spent crying with a face puffed from tears and weak from heartache and why I feel this way in the morning I do not know.

My current plan of action is to videotape myself sleeping. There should be an answer in the logged camera time. What happens to my face, to my eyes? I can only hope I don't catch myself crying in my sleep, the embarrassment alone would only add to the mess. God, let me wallow alone in whatever this mysterious hurt is that only hits me in dreams.

When only the names change.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:08:00 +0000

Some called her "Doodie" and others "Dods." "Dots" was common but most of us, those that knew her, just shouted "Dorothy" when her breasts came out beneath the colored lights of The Casbah.

She was the only girl there who bothered to dance, who tried to smile. She had a touch of the gymnist in her so she twirled and bent. There were steps of flamenco, high-legged lifted foot stomps and arched back moves with a face stern with false yearning.

That one always got a laugh from the crowd.

The scattered voices in the dark would caw and shout, "Doodie drops!" and Dorothy would bolt onto the brass pole and hold herself erect, her arms strong and her body stiff, levitating two feet from the floor. Her legs would begin to rise into the splits and she would hold that pose, all reference to the ryhthm of the music gone. It was her whole time and space now, we shared in that pause, mirrored across the colored darkness of the club. Once silence hit the crowd Dorothy released her grip on the pole and dropped and with her legs in that floated split and just as she was to hit the ground she would grip the pole once again and come to a complete stop like a televised car crash put on freeze frame before anything bad could happen.

The voices bellowed and barked, deep sounds like sudden fog horns and then "Let's hear it for Dots!" would shout from some obscene voice within the walls and the crowd, the men, would drift off into the restrooms or trace the room for a girl available for a few minutes to bounce topless on his lap in a coffined box while the steady drone of drumbeats erased all reason to talk.

I'd go outside to smoke.

I knew her name because there she would be, not on the street but up in the alley, covered in a heavy pea coat and wool cap, doing a crossword like always. Dorothy. She'd pace the room of men and if there were no buyers for a dance, she'd get out of the club through the side door and wait until her next time on the stage.

"Did you need a cigarette?"

"Need?"

"Want a cigarette."

"No thanks. I'd rather die slowly, the natural way."

"They're not bad for you. Not anymore."

"Who told you that?"

"I heard it on the news."

"You shouldn't trust the voices of people you don't know. Or the ones you do."

Her voice was bigger than her body. A monotone husk. Somewhere, I knew, she could sing.

Dorothy was an attractive girl, perhaps beautiful. I'm not sure. Her body, all the skin and bones of it, was tall and stiff. The frame of a young twentysomething raised somewhere healthy where the sun beat down and the earth grew her meals. She had no trace of city, but no trace of country either. She was collegiate and academic. When you saw her, if you had the chance to, you would see that she tried too hard. It wasn't the same as the other strippers, the ones who tried too hard to be sexy, Dorothy's was another form. She tried to hard to not care.

"Making good money tonight?"

"Do I ever?"

"Tonight could be different."

"Never is."

"Good response in there."

"They laughed. They always do."

"You're consistent."

"I know."

She could smile when she wanted to and it was a wide, brilliant smile; all white horse teeth, perfect in size and shape. Her nose dipped low and ended in a small marble that could touch the deep red of her puffed lips. There was blood of Eastern Europe in that nose and the bright green of Ireland in her eyes. Her face was awkward. Fanned ears and dull brown freckles, a mane of thick brown that shot straight out in twists when cut too short.

Inside the club the men stayed away. After her second turn on the pole only a few dollars rested on the edge of the stage. She walked the floor offering private dances, and no one said "yes." It was in her face and her walk. She was as naked as the other girls but her body didn't strut or stroll, she didn't glide like them, she moved like something more industrial; a crane or an ocean liner carrying cargo.

"Twenty bucks for a dance. Ten bucks for an extra song."

"Nah. Can I take you for tacos? Good place around the corner."

"I don't eat tacos. Too many onions."

"You don't have to have onions on 'em."

"Then it's not a taco is it?"

We walked the streets together, hoping to find a diner that was open late. In San Francisco and climbing its hills that curve through the neighborhoods, you can lose your sense of direction. We headed towards the water and the Golden Gate Bridge. A cover of fog wet our faces and coats, and in the mist the street lights gauzed the world, the trees and storefronts faded away.

"Around this corner, I think there's a pizza place. By the slice."

I've walked with girls before, but Dorothy was different. I bought her dinner and then we walked, mostly in silence with the occasional, "Hold up" or "Let's try this way." The air was crisp and damp and she marched on steady, pea coat buttoned high and her wool cap tugged below her brow. Her cheeks glowed pink and her lips shrunk down in the cold. Water crested at her eyes yet she didn't complain and there were no comments about the weather. Her arms swung at her sides, hands scarecrow long and blotched white and blush. I wanted to take her hand in mine, warm it up and race my heart but that was wrong. She marched on, so I marched along at her side.

"Here."

It was past two in the morning and we were in the empty streets of the wealthy, where only churches and hotels stood. Built deep into a wall length stretch of brick and mortar was a metal service door.

"Go in."

The room was long and narrow with a ceiling of water pipes that twisted and curved overhead in a maze. They were painted black like the ceiling they were rivited into. A wooden bar stretched the distance of the room, a barman stood behind, hundreds of bottles at his ready. From what I could tell we were the only ones there.

"Come on, there's a place in the back."

The floor gradually sloped until we submerged below the city, beneath what must have been a hotel or a hospital.

"What are you drinking?"

My voice came out weak, cracked and hollow from the cold. It was the only sound beyond the hiss and sput of the pipes.

"Hang tight."

The barman brought us two glasses of scotch and took my twenty dollar bill and walked off.

"The man likes to tip himself I guess."

"It's past three in the morning. He can do whatever he wants."

Dorothy took her wool cap off from her head, the burst of hair flattened with rain and sweat. Her blue sneakers had turned black from the slow rain and puddles in the streets. Our first drinks gone, another round was brought. Dorothy was now a being at rest. Her bones loosened beneath the fight of muscle and she sat limp in her chair, at ease in the damp musk and hum of the bar. I didn't need to be there but I stayed and we didn't talk. The light from a desk lamp on the barstand at the side of her chair was sucked up in the black painted walls but what was left of that amber glow hit Dorothy. She unbuttoned her pea coat and it fell around her sides like a blanket. She was nude under her coat, only her green bikini bottoms covered her up. The night's mist and cold soaked into the wool and her skin was pale and damp, the air around us a gentle stink of wet dog.

She sat naked and sprawled, inked in the cold sweat of the walk and drip of alcohol. I can still remember her in that recline, her breasts and the formation of her freckles and moles across her sunken skin. At that moment, no one knew where I was or what I was doing, I was lost and there was closeness between Dorothy and I but also the load of her cold and awkward self. She was in the moment with me, but not having it herself.

The romantic in me thinks she's dead now, killed or overdosed from some unknown drug addiction. The realist in me knows she just left the city, moved on. Found a job elsewhere or returned home, wherever that is. She's gone, but not. All I have are made up, false, memories. I'm some vague hero, wandering to and fro, holding hands and letting go.

Dorothy, I know, I disgusted with our adventures in miniature. They're pointless and didn't get her what she was ultimately after. Money.

Forward, always forward.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:28:00 +0000

I have lost my job, lost it, and now I have to find another. This job I lost I had held for five years and worked very hard to get and now it's gone and I do not want another like it because in hindsight, it was not a healthy or rewarding career to have.

So here I am. Months without work and the career path I'd been following since junior high has crumbled and I don't have the desire to piece it back together again. Now I'm tired all of the time. I want to sleep in late and go to bed early and those hours that I am awake I wonder how much a gun costs and if showers clean well. Work shouldn't mean so much to me but it does, I'm lost without it.

I will find something else, I'm sure of it, but how often do you stumble upon a job, a career, that's the love of your life? Hopefully it happens more than once.

San Francisco is now gone for me and I live south, down in the heated valley where technology breeds. I am not a technologically minded man, I use words and this skill is useless I've come to find unless you know the languages that build the invisible worlds of servers and databases.

I will march on as always, going forward, always forward, and I hope that again in hindsight I will find that this lost patch of my life was necessary to get somewhere far greater, far more fulfilling than where I was headed before.

No more solid hours.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:35:00 +0000

There are no more solid hours. Time slips and clumps together, dripping to the floor like sunlit jam. I gave up coffee so now there is no way to know when the morning is over. I fall asleep only hours after sundown, so the night disappears.

I've read that every life has a purpose. When this statement is said, it is always by someone who feels it is their purpose to tell people that they too have a reason for being here. Those are just words. There is never any help, or understanding, of what any of our lives are for. It is easy to be a cynic when the optimists have nothing behind their words.

I still believe in that image I've always held of a great golden statue, tall and proud, standing for the perfect American life. There are ideas why this statue should exist, but there is no reason for it.

This statue of man has no purpose.

So now I mingle about my new city. It's freeways, highways, and side routes. Dinner in the strip mall. All my shopping done in a giant "under one roof" superstore. All of this to simplify life, but now what? Was life so complex before? What is there too really focus on? The truth is I want to find something to focus on. Something to discover, nuture, and build. "Something" that I pulled from myself. "Something" that gives me purpose.

It is an odd feeling, I must confess, to be out of work.

...

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 06:34:00 +0000

Silence. Is it golden? A virtue? A testament from the meek? A malady of the tongue-less? I have no idea. I am not the one to ask, and I don't know who is. Maybe it is one of those questions that only get answered when you die and if so, I hope it is a long time before any one of us find out the truth.

But until then. I will do my best.

To keep quiet and listen to what those who know it all have to say.

It might be good for a solid laugh for when I hit my deathbed.

People love a laughing corpse.

In a sudden heat.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:03:00 +0000

It's drier than it should be. I think. I can't say for sure. I have no facts and I know next to nothing about weather systems but what I can be certain of is the fact that I walked two miles, past the railroad tracks and the parking lot of the apartment complex and by the time I reached the main intersection I was dehydrated and cramped in the knees. All the water in me sweated out.

I am home these days. Sitting. Drinking water, face in a low-speed fan giving a steady drag of air the temperature of an armpit. I sweat and think I need a haircut. I'm supposed to have a job, but I don't. I should have a career, but it's gone. Now I have family and friends and that is fine. There is money in the bank, but there is also money to be made.

The sun and its horrible heat drops from the sky only after I am asleep. The sun, it hangs. The heat, it sits as a dense invisible fog. There must be oven grates below my feet. A heated copper wire running through the trees, stuck close like ivy. Nothing moves here because there is no air, only heat. No breeze from the sea because there is not sea. No pockets of melting snow finally making its way to us, because there are no mountains. There are no hills and no creeks. Just flat. Just freeway. Apartment complexes and antennas dug deep into California's arrid roadside.

Maybe they need tending to. Perhaps there is a job there, a need for a man who can play witness to the existence of satellites and solar panels because I can do it. I can sit and watch. Clean and maintain. Interact with the sun on its own level. A solid give and take.

And those antennas facing skyward, reading truth within the atmosphere, they must have some information about what is going on here because I certainly don't.

I can only sit, sweat, and repeat again, "What is going on here?"

She is the one, when there is no other.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:45:00 +0000

I have followed the seasons closely, and I have reached the point where I am prepared to put new windshield wipers on my car, as well as replace the fuse that gives power to the speedometer. I will be driving more, in the train less, and my walking will be drastically cut. Mute footed, coasting through conditioned air, I will be covering a greater distance from home to work, as "home" is being redefined. My new roommate has breasts and a love for me in her heart.

I am moving back into the suburbs, swallowed into the stream of highways that spit you out into strip mall'd towns, down river through cul de sacs and tree lined streets like grocery store aisles. Home, again.

The great pretender.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:14:00 +0000

It's just weight. It's just a puffy face, or full cheeks. No jawline, it is all shadowless patches of beard hair from the ears into the collar of the shirt.

This is from a lack of exercise and the near constant flood of alcohol into my belly. I am a full grown man of middle-age proportions, body size and financial debt finally at a meeting point, each avoiding the topic of suicide which as been hard to ignore since childhood.

"I was waiting until 11:30 to see if you were going to say something, and nope. Nothing."

"I wasn't not talking."

"If you have nothing to say, fine, but at least talk to me about it."

Traveling by car is always best done alone. With a passenger; family, friend, or lover, there are requirements put upon you. Entertain. Be entertained. Laugh. Instill interest. Persue vacant thought for topics of conversation.

You must enjoy singing along to the radio and bobbing in place of dancing. Most of all you must leave your own thoughts behind and feel the grip of the wheel only and ignore the longing for the future that this trip will not bring you closer to. You must enjoy the simple thrill of being alive for no reason at all.

It was George Orwell, among others I'm sure, who saw the life of a tramp as proud and true tradition of life. The poor. Those that are trapped in empty existences due to lack of money and an employer that frees them enough to go after more fulfilling work. In my case, I am a tramp, I am the poor, because I lack the skill to do anything other than what I am doing, and not doing all that well.

As a child I always dreamed of greatness that now I look at and cannot name it. I cannot see why I thought I would, or should be great. What was I thinking I had to offer? What great skill was it? Some unnamed artistic pursuit? Was it singing or drawing, painting, writing? I think it was all of these wrapped inside the skin of a golden boy with a mouth for charm and charity. A strong and clear mind.

I sleep on the floor of my studio, neighbor upstairs plodding along the ceiling. Dense steps of human earthquake. The front door, crooked from the forever fog that glides up the driveway. I sleep and hope it takes me. I know this all must stop. I know I cannot go on like this. Tired. Sleeping and drunk and growing fat from uselessness.

I can see now why people feel the need to get married and make children at thirty. It gives a useless life purpose. As of now, I'm trying to make use of myself, for myself. Then, and only then, will I have something to offer another love, a child, and this world.

When the bow breaks.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:25:00 +0000

"Is this how you meant to live your life? Doing nothing?"

It wasn't out of anger. Her voice quivers when she's quick with spite. This was disappointment. Possibly frustration. Her little boy, last child of her womb, had managed to stay long enough to achieve common goals. College, career, friends, and love. Each of these events had happened, but with no semblance of success.

He had proved it was possible to work hard and get the very basics of an American life, and still be a failure.

"I should go. I'm tired."

His mind had wondered about from overwhelming uselessness. It was still there. It had always been there and there was nothing to do about it. Now, he just wanted a drink. Anything that could burn his throat. Liquid smoke. The couldron of tempered meats that was his stomach. He should stay and argue, he thought, put up some words that would take her time to get through. Minimal defense at best, he knew. It would only prolong the situation where he would have to say the words to her, that yes, she was right.

His studio grew dim, the day ending in that generic way. The science of stars and rotating moons, distant planets, and the ground beneath his feet. It didn't hold the wonder it should have for the man. It was just night into day, sleep into the waking hours into the work into money into sleep. Yes. Sleep. That's all he needed. Soft dreams, a world held in cotton. Those faces and bodies of women that made him feel alive, but only in sleep. They were formations of past faces he knew, voices from the television and bodies from magazines. Creatures of heaven'd sleep.

That's all he wanted now, was that sleep and those creatures. Those women and their arms opened, voices of language yet written.

He just wanted to sleep forever.

Ageism in the vital city.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:35:00 +0000

The summer is settling into the City, even as it rests months off shore. I know what will happen. Trips to the beach. Drunken afternoons on stoops, patios, and residential streets. There will be talk of vacations, that will end up not happening. Towards the end of the season I'll begin to feel morose, dead inside with a swirling rot, as my birthday approaches in mid-September.

I will do my best to keep at my dreams, and what hopes I can comprehend I will hold dear. The desire to move and see a new coast with its own distinct summer, and its own individual repeating cycles. It will all be new to me and the flying insects and their metallic squeals will set a scene for a life I've never lived.

There is a lot to be said for the strains of "all work and no play." What is play? What is work? Each man has his own say in his own life about what it all means. I just hope to figure it out before it gets too late and I've stood between two granite monuments, believing in neither until I realized there really is no choice. They're both the same.

To call out what you want out.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:39:00 +0000

My memories and past highlights are slowly slipping. It takes longer now to remember how I was as a boy in elementary school. It's all going away, the ability of recall. I was not born this old, it has just set in and when I look in the mirror I no longer see the boy I was.

It is not that my childhood was any good. I am thrilled to have it over and never return. All of its anxiety, depression, anger, and paranoia are things that are not good to have in the growing body of a boy, and even though I am older and still worry over these things, my body is big enough now to shift and scoot these feelings into the cartiledge of my elbows or at the bottom of my feet.

On the train into the City, a group of fourth graders held the rails and stood the length of the city streets to school. There are certain parts of me that can still feel that small, that can still feel the clench of a tight backpack on my shoulders and the cold fear of sitting in class facing an unknown future. The only thought of an older me was the sense that I would be dead by the time my twenties hit. I had no reason to believe this, but I did and it was a comfort of sorts. Life is best played out over time, I understand, but without a sense of purpose it can slosh still in time, just age happening, and nothing else.

There was a moment when my father drove me to school and I had to do something after. But what? Day care? Did I walk home alone, eating junk food and watching cartoons until he stepped in from a day at the office? I know the facts, but the details are fading.

Knowing this does not make me feel one way or another. I care. I think. I should care, but the reality is that it feels good to have some memories disappear to make room for the new, especially when the new could out do what I've ever done before. Life, a work in progress. You die when the machine is fully constructed and thrust into the earth.

I was a child at one point in time, but I'm going to leave those memories to my parents now. They seem to have more interest in that distant self of mine than I do.

Mouth done tricks.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 06:33:00 +0000

Some people make the words they say and speak into fancy antiques. Guilded placards on high steeped walls, trivial mantras of vague language and custom-built hubris. To them I say good job, well done, and fuck off. Poetry is for eulogies from mothers of dead sons, war criminals, and murderers on death row.

Poetry. Empty words of voiceless hearts. Keep your generic thrills to yourselves, and I will mine own.

Eat shit and die. Modern poetry is the sitcom everyone's seen.

Gentle miles.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:22:00 +0000

The darkness of morning should be explained to me, but not now. Now, I have calls to make to police stations and ambulances to warn of crashing trees and ponds flowing on the freeway. The yellow lines disappeared in waves of red break lights. The sixty miles to the office slowed to a puttering of black wheels in a slack mist.

My car, with its floors of sanded mats and dashboard coated in miniscule debris, has not left the City so often as it has these last few months. My centered life is expanding, first over bridges and now across miles and miles of freeway, where signs hang above, city and street names made of glittered sticker so you will not forget. So you will not get lost.

I sit in recline and the car drives. Pushed, pulled by the wind. The car drives, thrusts of gasoline and fire through piping. The hum of oxygen and water. The sweat of oils in truncated pipe. I do not know how these pieces work but they do so I leave it at that. I know to steer and shift and watch as we drift through the carved landscapes of the hills, making my way to the City of splinters and shards of glass raised upward, outward towards the bay. All I have to do is sit and be with my thoughts, whatever I want those to be. Until I leave the car I am whatever I make myself out to be. I slowly transform into the worker bee, or the lover, or the friend. At times I become the beast when I slam the door and give the parking attendant the keys and a twenty dollar bill. Bound for the bars and the streets of the City at night, yes I am the beast until it is time to return and drive home, simmering in alcohol, back home in the car, again becoming, the lover or the silent mule.

Slowly simmering, slowly becoming anything.

All bills paid.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 20:22:00 +0000

As has been said throughout modern life, money comes and money goes. Like water, it is always there, at our feet, above our heads. In our bodies keeping us alive. This last thought might be going too far, as money cannot help you stay among the living. It makes life easier and without it, death could find you far more quickly once you are out of your coverage of currency, but it does not do the same for you as your blood.

In thirty seconds I will be a new man. Not reborn or rugurgitated, but a slightly older version of myself.

All bills have been paid but many debts remain. This new me will have to deal with that when the time comes. I will have to answer for my former self's lack of planning and general short comings as a person in this world.

So I will sit here calmly, shut my eyes and let the air in my body exit and enter, exit and re-enter. In thirty seconds I will open my eyes and start new.

Starting now.

City flat lines, water charms.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 20:06:00 +0000

I've grit my teeth into dog fangs. Low and spreadwide, the horizon line of distant mountains. The base of my neck, slipping numb from the peak of my hair. The slow pain of the jaw is horrific at times. I fear I'm slowly dying, minimal pain by minimal pain until I grow so used to it I'm walking cancer and lose my objectivity.

There are moments in the day when a pause inside of me strikes and I feel the breath in me. I am alive and walking the world. I don't know how it happened, even more so, I wish I could stop thinking of it. To quit the worry of a serious life.

There are men out there who have moments after moments, small events that end when the job is done. From school to internships to the workplace, I have lived with only a career goal in mind and now approaching thirty, I am no longer tryting to get my foot in the door, but I am in the door and I have found my chair. The problem that has arisen is, I do not want this. I've put more and more of my loves into hobby form.

The question is always asked of the young, "What do you want to do with your life?" Career is implied, not truly what you want to do with yourself. It's as if I've been in the military my whole life, working hard for another's well being, not my own.

I'm ready to disappear. I'm ready to retreat and fall beneath the crowd and be less American and more human. There is always the option of suicide and I must say never trust a man who has never considered taking his own life. Someone who has decided to not kill themself is someone who has chosen to live, with all of life's minor charms and sour heartaches.

Summer fields.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 17:52:00 +0000

It happens with every girl you love. The first moment alone, summer light, holding her close on the rumpled bed. These kisses are new, these lips have never touched before. Her breath, somehow you compare it to that of the other girls and at that moment there is no comparison. She’s here now and real and it might be love, you want to say it’s love so you do. You love her.

Her hair, you remember her hair. Not so perfect now, it dangles like the overgrowth of southern trees. Whispers muffled, she lifts herself up enough to pull her shirt off over her head and with two crooked arms, she twists her bra off and there it is. What is forever hidden is now yours to see. And at this moment disappointment sets in because, you, because I, want this moment to be important, moving towards a powerful future, and all you (I) can think of is, “How many other boys have had this experience with her?” You might be number seven. Higher. Lower. You are not the first and likely not the last.

This moment, however exciting and monumental it is, is truly not unique. You question your love for her, if it is there or if it is growing. You assume. You feel. You assume she wants you. You assume she feels something for you. You assume because you want it to be real enough to actually be a moment and here it is, another example of mindless giving away of yourself and you never wonder if she’s thinking the same things about you.

For every girl you love, you pray it is your last. That every experience together brings her closer to you. She understands and digs deeper into you, wanting to be your light, and you hers. In this modern world, these ideas are romantic and out of date. Love like this died long before you were born. We've let go of our spirit, our souls, so only our bodies are left and without that anchor tethering us to something higher, we are free to roam the earth, it being made of dirt and rock until we too are nothing but dirt and rock. Nothing entirely unique.

We all ask forgiveness.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:34:00 +0000

It's been summer for weeks now, but somehow I've missed the heat. The sun is not doing it's job. Each morning I leave jacketless, with a stiff chill up hill the to work.

The office. It's left me empty. There is the promise that hard work pays off and makes you a better person, but in truth I have no idea where I heard that.

There are planes leaving this coast regularly. At some point I will make sure I am on one of them, without a planned return. An escape. There are too many failures and acidic memories that won't leave me alone. Everything reminds me of what could have been. This landscape. My own voice. I need to be in a new city and be mistaken for someone I could be.

If words worked, or if God was real, I would ask to be a different man. This life I was given doesn't seem to be one I can make successful, but I will keep trying. The biggest failure a man can achieve is giving up on himself.

As the body grows.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:02:00 +0000

I have no cares left in this world. In fact, I would find it hard at this point to declare my true love to any living thing, not even myself. My stomach has grown fat. My body fights between sleep and boredom, neither getting the upper hand, but hanging mid-air, arm in arm.

I could see how someone might say this is over a girl. There was a girl, then she left. This I understand. I can also see how someone might say this is due to my oncoming thirtieth year of life. Again, I understand. One more spark is my work life. Career. This is a more subtle tease that might have contributed to my current state. My job, of course, is rather interesting and fine. The pay is not what I would hope for, but I always told myself being happy at work is more important than making a lot of money. I regret ever saying this. I've decided it is better to make your riches and worry about your nine to five happiness on the weekends, when you can afford to do the things you love.

I do have a large variety of skills as any man should, but mine are far too personal to bring about a substantial paycheck. Music and writing is all fun for the brain and empty weekends, but where do they fit on the resume?

The resume. The obituary of your living years.

In this City there is constant talk of the great outdoors and the beauty of this coast. How we are all lucky to be here. Luck. Pure coincidence. I could argue that we are all free to leave, and anyone is free to move in. That is not luck but choice. So I choose to be here, I've decided on this piece of land. I do dream of a larger city, one on the opposite coast cut by the Atlantic. It's foresight that keeps me here, knowing I would go and just want to come back. Perhaps I need that experience to revive my blood in this City. At times I'm too big here, or too invisible. Too loud or too poor. There are no corners or streets where I belong. In this great earth, what made me think I belong here? Could be laziness, most likely is, since I am too complacent to search for the answer. Added, searching requires money. Legal tender to pay for passage and to pay for time spent somewhere I don't own a thing.

That is the stage of this man.

I have seen some sort of light. There have been stories of men on ships pushing out ino the black water to fish for aquatic meat. They never sleep and they never tire and their minds go blank and numb as they focus on the task at hand. They come ashore and drink and count their money before heading off into the land. There are girls waiting for them. Women to love. Women to care for them and pray for the safety of the men they love as they let the oceans push them to the edge of the world.

It would appear that all it takes is love to make one happy. I wish I had the capacity to not think, and only taste the simple things and be fulfilled in my life, but it is not so. Television and dining out and only watching the waves does nothing for me. I want to create the show and grow and cook the food and ride the waves with my frail body. I want inside of everything. I want what burns inside of me to be within another.

I want this love for her to be returned since I cannot kill it myself. Alcohol has not the ability to put it out. There is no work on this planet that can take my mind off of her. Now there is only danger and risk left. To fill myself with fear and feel the pull of ocean, the way it wants to take us under. It wants to drink us all, so stand at its mouth and fight to get back alive. I need to care more for my own life than someone who has given up on me completely. If only all women knew their power, the way a man's love never dies. Once her love for us is gone, the only thing left to do is get rid of our own, but it does not leave too easily. Some men drink, some men find themselves with lesser women, but if your true love leaves you, I am sorry. There is only the risk of death to truly wash the heart clean. And it does need to be cleaned, because as they say, life goes on and in turn you will meet a new woman, a new love of your life. It would be impolite, and improper, to carry the weight of love for another that has long since gone. So for the future, for my future and for the future of the woman I have yet to meet this is for you. I am out here in this world preparing my mind and my heart to accept you.

Although if history proves me anything, it is that none of this matters. She will not care, for she will have enough weight on her to keep me from being able to fully love her. We try to love, and each attempt makes the next even more difficult. Reborn from certain death would do us all some good.

The din of our harbour.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Thu, 24 May 2007 18:51:00 +0000

Some could say life is a series of mistakes you either learn from or are destined to repeat. In a broader sense, this one life we live might be a link in a longer chain of our existence. These are the simple questions I take into account with the passing of the City out the train window. I see a girl standing at the door, "That girl over there. Maybe she'll find me interesting. Funny even." This could be thought because she shares a likeness to a girl I once knew who, at one point in time, was fond of me. So I gave my feelings of a past acquaintance to this unknown face.

I have easily fallen in love with countless girls over the course of a week, from only a look. It has taken a good number of years of experience to understand one thing, females just have something special that defeats logic and reason. Volumes of words written about them as a subject could never fully explain the beauty and awe that a woman brings a life. Once this is understand, my thoughts turn to me, of course. Does a woman see the same thing in a man? Am I a being to be in awe of? To draw inspiration from? It does not take long to see that in the history of the world the pedestal was made by man, not for him. That is the balance.

So every night I stand in the bare dining room, two stories up, and from that height I can see to the ocean. It is not hard to see that a few rebel waves will destroy this coast. A violent storm, a tsunami, something tidal, will wash us all away. So I drink to the ocean, because it gives me something to fight against.

For those that dream to leave.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Wed, 16 May 2007 17:46:00 +0000

There are times when you are with someone and you wish to understand why you want them there. There is the feeling of love, but most love is accomponied by pain and doubt. The fear that the other will read you, and know you wonder why they're around.

Things to question all the time. Infinite thought dutifully processed.

She hadn't wanted me around for months, almost a year, before she realized she had no idea what she was doing. Each past moment, where there was anger or hurt, I took the blame for. "It could be me. My fault. Sorry." This worked to a point and now she is gone and we both no I was wrong. It wasn't me. It wasn't my fault.

She's waiting for the answer of what to do with herself. I wait too for her answer. For a decision. To see if she can love with her full heart, without fear. I have to make a decision as well. To be stronger. To not accept fault or defeat or take on someone else's drama, that only exists inside of them, realized or not.

I let her fear become my own, and blame myself for it. Life was easier spent alone.

Signed and released.

noreply@blogger.com (cpj) — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:37:00 +0000

I wish someone would mention the day. The hour. Count off the seconds just so I know where I stand. How I exist in the constant timeframe. It's always pleasant to know that time is moving forward, keeps the mind and heart alive knowing things can change at any minute.

It was Friday when the train stopped, full capacity of commuters, and I walked off. I was tired of standing, of pretending I did not hear those around me. Ignoring that I was pressed against the strangers of this City. Instead I walked a new neighborhood on the edge of the freeway. Fresh contrete stretch into a two lane on ramp. New parks pocked with the roaming homeless, eeking out a life on recenlty planted soil.

The wind had picked up as I stood outside of apartments, waiting for something, or someone, to happen in front of me. There was a bar, as there always is, where I drank too much and returned later, in the night, to the train. After sleepless hours in bed I forced myself to throw up and out came the beer and whiskey. I had forgotten to eat.

In the morning I remembered someone with a guitar. He sang and played in the bar and perhaps I was overly grateful with too much praise. I loved everyone. Or at least him that night. Anyone who would listen. New faces with names I lost, gone, in the toilet, or in sleep. But then in the morning I did not care anymore. I did not love anyone. The music from the night before was a simple drone of buzzed strings. I can't recall. She had gone out too, with friends, so I had made my own. New friends that lasted as long as the alcohol did. She left me alone and out of fear I felt abandoned and forgotten.

There is no simple way of explaining, or of acknowledging one's own truth. One's faults. They always are free of blame. Movement in the gut lets you know you are right and have been wronged. If those two poles even exist anymore. In the morning I called to tell her I loved her, and like always she didn't say it back, but said she would be over in a few hours.

It was up to me to think no more of it. To see her coming to see me as her way of saying "I love you." Some would say actions speak louder than words, but I promise you, nothing speaks louder than both.