Today Will and I hiked around Devil's Lake, about forty five minutes north of Madison, climbing up the large granite boulders to the ridge trail around the lake. Will asked if I would write about it in my blog and I said probably not. I asked Will if he read any blogs and he said he read a couple political blogs (Talking Points Memo and The Washington Monthly). More happened but right now I feel more tired than smart, and its a good feeling. Tomorrow I'm getting on a train that will drop me in Ashville Kentucky, where I'll meet up with my brother and sister enroute from D.C., and we'll continue on to my Uncle Jim's in Mt. Sterling Kentucky.

After dinner I borrowed my mom's car and drove down town. It was the second part of my three part shopping expedition in Madison. The first part consisted of going to Capital City Comics where I browsed around and asked about a comic named "Y: the last man", but was also there to ask if they wanted to buy my old Transformer comic books, that I figured had high resale value due to the Transformers movie. The man, a white haired man who seemed kind said he might be if they were in good condition, that people who played with Transformers as kids might be interested in them. I asked how much he would give me for them and he handed me a comic price guide. After looking at the guide and handing it back the man asked me if I got what I was looking for.

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This seemed like strange question until now that I write it out it makes me think of the antique road home show or whatever it's called and some article I read about "value porn", where you start with a dusty old item, listen to the expert talk about its history maybe how special it is building to the climax of assigning a dollar amount how much its worth, being disappointed or surprised, and then you start again with the old dusty thing, build to the pay off, etc. Over and over. Like looking up old things on Ebay, a short high preceded by research. Raising worth through things you mostly forget about, as if some mysterious force is taking care of us, lucky, or lottery winners our virtue comes naturally. After sharing his excitement about Y: the last man, the store keep seemed disappointed that my real reason for being there wasn't about comics.

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After that I went to the CD store next door. Flipped through some used CDs and listened to the new M.I.A. Huh, so that's what she sounds like. Made a note to find the first M.I.A. at a used store. But I want to go back to the Transformer comic story: I don't need a bunch of old comic books that I won't read. Regardless of the time I put into collecting them as a kid, the only reason I can think of not to sell them is sentimental, or, their value as proof that I was a kid. I would like to think that past attachments can and should be thrown away when they are no longer useful. That a build up of junk to be hauled around and taken care of, limits our possibilities. Then again maybe this idea is an example of junk that I haul around. I decided not to sell them but only because I couldn't come to a decision. I'll put them back in my mother's basement.

Am in Wisconsin now. Fresh off the bus. Five hours. Traffic delay. Went camping with Cole last night at the Indiana Dunes. Climbed Mt. Baldy. Sat in the sand. Earlier in Chicago met the new one, Adele, and woke up to Ethan sitting in the lotus position completely naked, bright blonde hair. Flew from Oakland supposedly non-stop but instead Las Vegas and St. Louis. Nine hours. Too long. It's storming as I write this. Lightning and Thunder. I'll be here for about five days and then to Kentucky to see uncle and cousins and second cousins. Then to Virginia hopefully to see Erika and John. Then to DC to see Abby. Just the facts.

Today was the last day of school for the summer semester. This means that until September 6th I am master of my own time. Master and Commander. Tomorrow Amy and I are going camping. No specific destination in mind but we were going to head out early and try and find a good spot along the northern coast. We'll eat sausages and walk around, hopefully swimming and get our rental car back in time. Pontiac Sunfire? Only time will tell.

Insects as the kind that waddle, I know the future because I let it bother me, hoping for alternative methods of prayer: listening carefully and hearing a marching bands pass. An elderly woman moves out of her apartment. No action, appalling heights or those who conquer them. Other havens, the mother’s apartment and noticing the dialect, the story has been related as we trust one another to tell us the truth. We may trust our advisors, those without time, and then there are those around us.

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Setting or sitting I entertained myself and preformed as I might in public, slightly confident and talkative, loud and able to hold and answer all questions relevant. And we see what we’re looking for, what we’re told we see. As children, our conversations run against measure. Tonight the cat ate a mound of used up garlic, cooked in olive oil so the olive oil would retain some garlic flavor. I’m not sure if it worked out but the tomatoes were good in the salad and it’s hard to know what happens when what happens won’t speak up.

The cat ran out the door and up the stairs to the apartment above. “It’s the same fucking apartment dude, it’s empty too.” As if something different is out there. Raw raw pessimism. Alive with the purpose of flexing muscle, doing the duties we’ve been requested to do. Malcontent. Pessimism. Or something like that. Autobiography of the general surgeon, or the surgeon's general views on life cycles, the cat is licking its fur. This cat? Undecided in terms of grooming. We’re grooming absolute measurements. Cyclical. Or cycle through the list of accomplishments. Tanks and warheads later.

All systems go. Go fishing in the bay. Working up to the last pail of water, to feel as if we’ve done something evil, or provocative. This circle of fluff is hairy fur. Tweeter got knocked by smelly. Tool got bent. These observations mark the seventh anniversary of marking things down. If it makes you feel better you may proceed. The real penchant is training grounds for excitement, the excitable allies of the gravel truck. Yuck. Politics manifest as production towards procreation. The subtleties of production marked by manufactured homes and the products within these homes. Loosely based on a true story, the truck is filled with kinetic passengers. A hobby is more like a flotation device, and floats to the surface.

Looking for direction the pig takes its cue from the farmer’s schedule. Rent a car and submit to fines induced. We all pale Friday, finally. Cats will continue licking their fur, cleaning by and for the most acceptable of weevils. We evil. Recharge the booty call. Displace depth, diaphragms, pregnant axles and gums of steel. Release all agents marked “toxic.” Worry. This is the story of the day. Dreaming this morning of a train on a schedule away from the base, we might ask what the water flows to, but, ah well.

Author's Note: "New Place", a new chapbook is now available via mail or email via five dollars via the Pierce Press website. See the link in the "OTHER" column or click on "New Place" in the "CHAPBOOKS" column. Expect the cover of "New Place" to look slightly different than the picture. Expect another brief but well made book from Pierce Press this winter. Expect it to be written by Matt Turner. Expect more from your loved ones: when they track mud across the floor make sure they clean it up.

I was staying at my brother’s apartment in the interim but it was already three days past our move in date. As Adam, the previous tenant, and I sat in the mostly empty apartment, she repeated that she was doing us a favor by making it easy for us to move in, that she saved us a significant sum of money by not having to get a broker, that we actually owe her. During a pause in the argument I offered that you do things because you want to, not because of their exchange value. That if you expect to get something back, you’ll be disappointed. Brooklyn, New York.

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The space was rented and Adam was amassing books. I started the work of getting the walls into paintable shape, and with the keys, would let myself in by nine. Adam was mostly absent during this part and all of a sudden I felt like an employee. That, but I was also personally invested in the store as poem or process. There is a line on the ceiling, where the purple tin meets the white plaster. The paint follows the curve of heavily layered caulk, letting the brush settle into the contours of aged plastic through the slow and steady press of attention.
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My brother sketched some designs and measurements on the unpainted walls with a pencil. Adam wanted the shelves to run the entire length of the three walls, and we figured the height of each section as a length of a pine board. I had lobbied for used bookshelves, to spare the construction labor and wood. I didn’t consider myself a motivated carpenter and worried that Adam would abandon the project in the middle. Who would do the work? Adam insisted and we built the shelves with a short tutorial from my brother. It took about a week. Staining them took another week, but I cut out in the middle.

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Adam and I were having a drink after the bookstore had closed for the night. At that time I had other work, and with him running the store by himself we didn’t spend much time together. We started talking, then arguing about placing a foot mat at the entrance. The conversation shifted into a discussion of limits. Adam’s insistence that the facilities are relatively low on the priority list and my insistence that the space is as important as the books. Dogs pay little attention to birds. Men to bugs. In terms of poetry, the bookstore as an extension of the imagination.

One turns over
We hold ourselves responsible
“feeling sorry,” feelings
We
The gutters and the buildings
The message
The dampness attached to this story
I wouldn’t like to write
A narrative is a word
But this is a collection of instances
Interested souls, the measuring cup the length of a stick
Sickness and in good health
Absorption, a pleasant space
Rains here in May
Letters to friends and then there are the friends, Saturday I arrive into Canada
Sunday
Trace copy, insert a space, turning the page my concentration
Bends, grateful.

The dogs got wilder and wilder until one day nobody looked after them. They could tell that something was wrong with my father and Susan wasn't usually home. He paid them no attention and they knew he was no longer the one to feed them. He who wasn't there. Andy stared at me as I loaded the truck to return to Seattle. After Sterling was neutered he became easier to hold. The sweet one was eaten by coyotes.
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Tuck, the new one, wasn't properly house trained. I had never been in charge of training the dogs and didn't realize that neither my father nor Susan were handling it. Tuck peed on the carpet even after she was old enough to have puppies. Sitting on the lawn we let her puppies fall over each other in the grass as Andy and Sterling looked on. We took pictures. These pictures, that day, my father's hair blown out in the wind. One by one the puppies were sold and I cleaned up the kennel and Tuck ran back out to play.

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I feel like I haven't been sad enough, or that it's too late, or that I don't feel about my father's sickness. There was a time in Seattle, after I had come back from the farm, jobless and isolated in a moldy apartment, when I thought about it constantly. In retrospect I think this would of been considered mourning, but I had nothing to show for it, no funeral or confirmation that anything had actually happened. At that time, the only people who had any idea of the damage were those that were there in Mineral Point: Susan, Ted, and a few other good friends of my father, the ones who come to visit even when he can no longer remember their names. It's a beautiful day in Oakland. I need to get ready for class.

When I get scared on an airplane it feels like the plane were made out of paper and could be blown apart at any moment. It shakes because the wind is smashing against it and we are trapped in the tube and there is nothing to do about it. I grip the armrests tightly when it dips and when the gravity pulls on my stomach I lower my body in hopes that bending with these forces somehow wills them to straighten up. A kind of solidarity. I look around and most people are sleeping or reading.

Flying used to be exciting, full confidence in the machine and the people who fly them. I would fly to Oakland from Seattle to see Amy, and every time I stepped off in Oakland I was struck by her presence not one to remember faces and I never had pictures. Every time it was new and I would think all I have to do is sit here for the next hour and fifteen minutes, no necessary alertness to keep us in the sky.

It helps if I look out the window, amazed by perspective and engaged in trying to connect the shapes and colors of the fields and cities with the fields and cities I know. Maybe it’s a distraction or simply trying to remember what it was not to be scared.

Hi. The reading went well. Blogger flagged my blog as a spam blog so they stopped me from posting anything. But I was gone anyway. Today I was doing some school work and catching up. Tonight I'll try and put up some more posts that have been marinating in my computer as well as put up the Pierce Press website. Through it you can find true happiness. Like a gorilla eating ice cream. Or a gorilla communicating to another gorilla with forceful sign language, the other gorilla not understanding because he too is trying to forcibly communicate with sign language. Mike Conley Jr., the number four pick in the NBA draft was quoted as saying "I'm part of my own collection." Firmin Didot, a French printer and type founder coined the word stereotype, which in printing refers to the metal plate that prints the page, reducing the cost of printing by considerable amounts. Save money save time. There are workshops all around the world devoted to these topics and there are workshops all around the world devoted to saving yourself from these topics. Acculturate. My neighbor invited me to a workshop this weekend regarding financial empowerment through an understanding of your own relationship with money, your purpose and the connection between the two. It's more complicated or less complicated than that but I was interested in going. It seems helpful.