saturday in the middle of the afternoon i set out to play basketball a couple hours ago but my body wasn't up to more than a few trips up and down the court and after one sour game where the proverbial team leader clearly frowned at my lack of mojo my man on man defense of let's call him "tim" not quite working out i left to come back rehydrate take a shower and return to full bore lizard position i had plans to go the gay pride parade today (post-script: it was actually sunday and i made it wowie i've never seen anything like that in wisconsin) but forget it i'm beat it was a really full week and i'm not saying that because yours was or wasn't but because its just a lot of talking and 'teaching' if that's what they call it and it wears me out so that by the time my last hour of pronuncation workshop came late on friday evening i asked the students if i could go home my person in front of me brain so tired and pretty much kaput but its saturday and later i'll finally get a chance to read people's poems that have been building up while i've been working the rough drafts of the memoirs from the other class thank the god of syllabuses for writing late work will not receive feedback because that's the only way i possibly could of gotten everything done but next week it will begin to taper off the friday the fourth of july a non-school day and the three twelve all class workshop getting into gear but i'm excited still mostly about the semester two good groups of students in my opinion last thursday we talked about haiku about basho and sent them out to do a narrow road to the interior type journey i'm excited to see how it comes out and translate a poem from the chinese wang wei deer-park hermitage that too i'm excited about but its time to rest now i'll try to do that without hurting myself

yesterday a student informed me that i used 'um' upwards of forty five times in yesterdays opening salvo lecture about sonnets the logic being that we start off talking about form before we get into content the idea that content will take care of itself as the writer one assumes has their own axe to grind or at least doesn't have the same axe as me but this is a matter of philosophy so we'll leave it open to the jury and other figures of speech to mark the day after the longest day of the year and yes its been a goofy long week and after this afternoon will mark the most teaching i've done in a week tweleve hours in a classroom and the connection between fatigue and the amount of times ones says um but in other news it was hot is still hot a haze wakes up the morning and traffic sounds go and go and go writes Witold Gombrowicz, "It is man who obliges man to work." and woman.

so saying 'um' or not actually has a lot to do with whether i'm tired or not or where exactly my motivation lies say the two o two class i taught yesterday the inevitable come down i felt in the transition from three twelve to the next day in a new building without the enthusiasm or at least not as much brings out signs of fatigue say 'um' but at least there is a santa claus virginia compounded with a study group for typography for which i embarrassingly had no answers to offer and instead offered aphorisms from the instructors mouth as a consolation but oh well we'll get them next time next life the half one or second one some kind of digital universe but to say the space in-between these places the morning as it shines my head to the north meets the sun rising from the east its all part of the wake up scheduale or its automatic when the sun begin to bake me laying in this small little box of a closet but also about school that the writing lab on tuesday will have to be cut because there was just nothing left absolutely nothing i can concentrate for a little while but in need to eat and eight hours straight of 'teaching' makes for mush mouth mealy mind today i'll plan class in the morning then take a trip to oakland to see my confidant if that's french the sun will be out all day if not we'll reconsider o lay

whell the semester started yesterday and it seems like it will be busy with a support class on noon a typography class where there's four panicking students thus far terrified of the instructors british accent that meets monday and thursday then after that its three twelve the creative writing class which also meets monday and thursday then today tuesday its 202 narrative documentary and also on friday but after today is writing lab and then the study group for the typography class and then wednesday will give me time to prepare for the upcoming classes don't ask me when i will be able to grade papers then friday afternoon its speaking lab all that to say that it will be a busy month and a half month but this is good because i've had a little too much time on my hands not in the form of the break but in the form of the last semester which was good but doing all kinds of support classes and having plenty of time for writing but it makes me think of that stephen king on writing book where he mentions that after his first big success he bought a gigantic oak desk and put it in the middle of his living space and it turned out that he didn't write anything after he did this the writing as the center of one's life metaphor that is to say its good to be busy and maybe the entirely polished lodestone of a writing practice that i've been fine tuning latey is good and dandy but it will be nice to take a break from worry about the relatively unimportant merits of what's happening inside my own head because i just won't have the time that is to say my new thing that i'm trying is to avoid saying 'um' and that requires that i just get it out before the whatever you call that has time to go back and filter through all my critical judgments and set the tone sort of say it don't spray it something like that to forget about tailoring one's speech to one's audience and instead to present oneself as one would have it it sounds simple but its not exactly a student i mentioned this to yesterday mentioned that they said cool a lot and i suggested we work on this together escaping our in-between thoughts and speak directly

You’re at your best when you believe or refuse to believe you or the idea of you, your self at your peak like your first kiss or paycheck. Your failings are your own, your problems to be dealt with by you, for you and nobody else. You mind your own business, you take care of yourself. You are healthy. You are clean as all get up. You feel good you feel proud of who you are, you are under your control, your watchful eye, your hands in your pockets fingering the money that you made on your merit, yours alone. Of course you don’t expect people to respect you immediately, but once they get to know you, the real deal, the real you, they’ll like you as you, your balloon says you, your clothes are so you. The you in you is the only you, unique and youthful, young and proud, brave and ready to move against weakness. You are a universal symbol of yourself. Your values are all you, no influence can corrupt you, the pure you, the unabridged entire you. Your smile radiates lakes and rivers and streams producing beautiful fish and insects on account of you. Your babies and your child, your children are you repeating as only you could. Adorable you you are adorable. Your hands mark your body, the beginning of your arms is in your finger tips. Your head is the size of your chest. Your grapefruit like eyes mark your vision as fresh as lemon juice. Your tight pecs and bi-lateral quadriceps make incisions of joy in your admirers, your friends are yours, buoyant because of you, the rock, your grit and steadfast ability to monitor greatness in others comes from your translucent you-ness, the essence in you is you. You know it. You make successful transitions from place to sea to shining waitress because you carry yourself well, your weight is your shadow and your shadow follows in your wake. You predict disaster for others because you know disaster, you devil you. Where you walk around, head full of ideas, your own thoughts like your dog or your clothes you take care of, wash meticulously and hang on the line in your back yard. Skip home you’re in love. Come home.

Writerly expressions with a big cursive bow on top of my head and music, softy playing while I casually massage a customer's shoulders and look up to see another come though the bell, a field of haze blowing my unholy mind into pieces: "Do you sell willful realizations?" and yes of course I jump up and destroy the distance between us, a thick gravy instead of legs transcending the space of a wallet's breath I show them a wall full of wrenches and screw drivers and tuck back into privacy to avoid saying "um" in between every breath and thought.

The customer wanes and I repeat myself in service, becoming the willow tree by the crystal river as a landmark of availability my watch says we're open for thirty more years and shoot lasers into the customer's Hepatitis B saddled liver or so I tell my doctor who doesn't believe me because I seem too "nice" to have dirty drug problems, but anyway, I lead them into the back room, cut off their hands and smear paint on their face and they thank me and I pocket a cool stack of appreciation notes.

Lunch time: everybody's favorite state of mind the realized swim about, I breakfast table the ambiance of a cat calling Wilco, the milk toast leprechaun, Chani, or other characters in Dune come through the doors slowly one by one and sign in rainbow script the will to turn mean evaporates and it's give give give with the corporate self consciousness, the "Indiana" of preventative measures the Anne Bancroft of hilarious stock room follies walks in and I practically give away pairs of jeans that fit perfectly a diamond 'x' pattern on the back pocket and a little hole on the waist band to signify an incredible style in tune with the very buttons on your shirt

because this is energy leaping over small woolen academics no more are we understanding embodied the skeletal remains of mix and match grouping herds according to cow stress the farmer transcends the dawn, puts on make up and barks orders at the chickens to "start clucking and put out some mother fucking roly polys" and I turn the sign around and count up my stack of nothingness and take some off the top and pull the metal grate down hard to attract attention from onlookers and passer bys and go home to my one bedroom summer cottage and turn the light on seen from the street seeming peaceful like a stranger winding down and getting ready for bed goonight.

Rosei’s Dream

Single and unhappy with life in his native village, Rosei sets out for the capital in hopes of becoming one of the emperor’s councilors. Not long into a journey made difficult by his relative poverty, he comes across an immortal who after hearing his ambition gives him a magic pillow. That night while waiting for his millet to cook he falls asleep, dreaming that he married the emperor’s daughter. In turn he becomes the emperor himself, a fifty year saga that ends when his son drowns in the garden fountain. He wakes up crying, and eats his millet. The next day he returns home.

here are two music writings i did recently for friend and artist cole pierce and his recent mix cd project that he exhibited as part of the vega caucus art show in chicago on the 17th of May. truly it's an excellent mix, two cds. maybe he'll send you one if you ask...the first writing block is what he used for the liner notes and the second is a false start...

_
Cole is a good friend and I think this is one of his best mixes. Like a lot of ambient music, it fills a space with feeling rather than hooks and lyrics and meanings. I write this out of experience: sitting in the kitchen grading papers and listening to these CDs over and over again. Later I put them onto my mini-disc (no ipod) and started to walk around with them, but I have to admit they work better at filling a room than a mind. What's strange is that I've never heard most of the musicians on these mixes. That there's this much supremely excellent music out there that doesn't even approach popularity is a comforting thought of what's to come. Now that the world has been discovered, our job, instead of succumbing to cynicism is to connect the disparate pieces that lie on the ground, or pull them out of dumpsters. Our job is not to create but to connect. If you find it easy to say what's on your mind, practice restraint; and if you have a hard time getting comfortable, insist on what you want. We live in a golden age of music.
_
Ambience allows for change: the bells outside or a roommate coming home. Any smell could fill the kitchen but there is such a thing as choice. Riding the train with my headphones on I imagine my life as a movie: somebody sees and hears what I see and hear and puts it into context; the back story, but we know there's no one there. I was told once that the only kind of work harmful to a person is mediocre work, work that doesn't care enough to be good or bad. "What is the definition of mediocre?" asked Krishnamurti. Answer: Pushing a rock half-way up the hill. I get angry at people who don't think this is profound. A song can be skipped but let it play. Speak clearly, sit up straight and be ready. It's hard to be ready.

The Warning
(MP3 File)

Earlier today I spoke with my brother by accident, stationed at my sister’s house for spring break. He was building a boat in the backyard. What kind of boat? I asked. “A row boat.” he answered, for his upcoming wedding. Somehow the ceremony will take place on an island, and all to bear witness will cross water to do so.

He’s enlisted me as one of the rowers and I’ll row, but rowing is difficult because my right shoulder is double jointed. Meaning I can easily dislocate my upper arm (humerus) from its socket (the scapula). If my arms are held straight above my head, hands clasped at the top, I can rotate one-hundred and eighty degrees backward, so that my elbows touch the middle of my back. Wow! Having this flexibility since I was a kid, my left shoulder, although it doesn’t come out of its socket, is practiced enough to go along with the right.

What this means is that due to a lack of tension, it’s nearly impossible for me to beat anyone in arm wrestling with my right arm. I used to think it was some kind of psychological failure, when in fact, there’s nothing to be done about it. This transfers into rowing, or any kind of upper body oriented activity, where this surplus flexibility makes it difficult to focus torque in a constant direction. I’m totally lost.

Three News Stories

TARPON SPRINGS, Fla. - Florida authorities confirmed that Deborah Jeane Palfrey, convicted of running a high-end prostitution ring in Washington, is dead in a suspected suicide, NBC News reported.

obviously, she was killed by powerful people (politicians) who don't want their careers ruined by extra-marital affairs. furthermore

TOKYO - Japan's oldest giant panda, Ling Ling, a longtime star at Tokyo's largest zoo and a symbol of friendship with China, died Wednesday of heart failure, zookeepers said.

obviously, she was killed by powerful people (politicians) who don't want their careers ruined by symbols of friendship. Better yet, here is an editorial that appears in this week's San Francisco Bay Guardian regarding organized labor and today's protest of the war. Briefly,

Members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) will lead the way by refusing to work their eight-hour morning shifts at ports in California, Oregon, and Washington. For them, it will be a "no peace, no work" holiday — in effect, a strike against the war.

Happy May Day. Workers of the world unite...now I'm off to work for a place with nothing even close to resembling a union and needing one desperately...get one's own house in order?

Two Political Paragraphs Ending in Cynicism

i.
Politics: Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama are both excellent choices (Obama more so) for the Democratic nomination. Either one appears to be capable of beating John McCain and hopefully changing the direction of this countries’ leadership. This in mind, both candidates should be careful not to mistake each other for the enemy. The only way that Democrats could lose the 2008 election is by political infighting and the disorganization it leads to. I suspect one tactic of those who do not wish to see either candidate win is to play up the divide between these candidates a la Brad and Jen, Paris and Nicole, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson, etc. One wins and the other loses while in reality both lose as the media sets the tone, writes the story, and solutions to our current political situation gets lost in the hype. God bless the hype. After all, how could we avoid ourselves without it?

ii.
Equality leads to competition and competition inevitably leads to conflict. After spending a year in Japan, a place where homogeneity is generally a positive cultural norm, I came to appreciate the peace of sameness, a peace all but impossible in the United States, seemingly. Then again, if all the same mass produced products are available to us throughout the entire country, the same stores and the same streets, couldn’t we achieve a peace (at the economic expense of small countries) through intensive homogenization? That globalization will actually lead us one step closer to communism in the sense that Marx’s vision prescribes all industry to come under state control (corporations) before they be turned over to the people. That a massive consolidation and single mindedness is the first step towards moving away from the short comings of capitalism, thus the ugliness of a Home Depot just outside of Baltimore, is actually a harbinger of communist revolution. Thank god for all the craft makers living in Brooklyn so that we may preserve our human souls!

Last night at the corner store I found a box of cereal and a half gallon of milk and paid for it with a ten dollar bill. The clerk gave me change but too much, he gave back thirteen dollars and some change net gain three dollars a half gallon of milk and a box of cereal. In the past I've always said, sir, you've given me the wrong amount of change and tried to feel good about my morality something something good but this time, a little tired from my day and not really wanting to rock any boat, do any good or bad, acknowledged the fact that he gave me the wrong change and walked out, wondering why exactly I didn't say anything. I asked my roommate what this meant and she responded that maybe this was a reflection of a more intuitive way of living but maybe it was just so I could write about it assumption of the common good it was yesterday I went up to the headlands above is not the only thing I saw today is another week of classes I slept well last night.

To react and respond. To keep going or not at all. This kind of writing as a form a meditation, to watch thoughts come and go, to be able to shift between perspectives a sign of health; thus it becomes necessary to write through patches of doubt. Last Tuesday, almost half the class didn’t show and I found this…discouraging.

The goal is to respond, to not be caught up in a premeditated program or meaning but it comes back to this: what I would say to my class about last week, about anxieties about being too soft or permissive. Anxieties about not being a good teacher; about not being good. It’s almost as if my frustration with trying to solve for x is the problem, my relationship to “problems”.

There is a rhythm to my thoughts a particular length of the line. The other day I was talking with a friend about Nietzsche, this idea that tragedy is actually comedy if we distance ourselves. Instead, to push forward with our will “to power”, the thing in front of our mind but what N. doesn’t speak of is the clarity needed to realize this will.

For example the misguided push of the Nazis, a mistake in thinking one wants to rule the world; caught up in false images the tip of their tongue layered in neurosis and dirt, failed reconstruction and low self-esteem. That clarity does not come from a supreme vision but from the everyday, finally, testing and adjusting.

A seagull stretches its wings in the air, flaps twice and disappears from view. The brooding woman has now shifted into the sun a jacket over her head headphones in her ears. Now I’m thinking about the weekend, schoolwork and Sunday, going up to the headlands to visit a friend and the beach. I don’t know what else to say this seems like a good place to stop.

Geometric Haircut

Liu Hai was said to posses a three-legged frog that could transport him anywhere he wished, but on occasion this frog would slip out of his pocket and jump into the nearest well. To retrieve the magic frog, Liu Hai would dangle a fishing line baited with a single gold coin, feeling for contrast. The same angle from a different side.

there was the man on the street i gave ten dollars a brand new ten dollar bill the story of a car crash a racist policeman and the need for a tow truck the promise of tickets to go see david letterman where cold play was playing i guess i looked the type and gave him my number to get the money back to get his car back in brooklyn on the way to my brother's to watch lost in my dream last night he jumped and didn't make it i woke up crying

and then another tow truck a kid talking frantically on a cell phone outside a bar a scam a set up and approach an idea premeditated a graduate school and a static flock of sameness as a known constant he asked I sympathized he gave me the deed to his car for collateral forty bucks later a couple phone calls to what may have been his parents to no fruition i threw the deed away in want of putting it away

i reached across his desk and broke his pencil both times in the middle of something both times in service to an abstract idea of good to quote again from 'tree of smoke' "I was dating Darlene Taylor until this hippie named Michael took her to a party and gave her drugs and fucked her and turned her into a hippie and if michael the evil hippie is against the war, than I am goddamn for it. That's all I know."

Sonnet

The town is empty because I have my headphones on.
Sitting in the cafe window two men with glasses eat breakfast.
Intellectuals need their space.
The stoplight was green but there were no cars
to go. I walked across the intersection.
I reached into my pocket
and found finger nail clippers. I put them there
to remind myself. John
handed me a pear blessed by Buddha.
Surrounded by statues of the Buddha.
I had been feeling kind of disconnected, and thought the pear
might help. By setting it on the counter at night
I remember to eat it the next morning.
My face is sweet like a teenager.

Holy Cow! This is even better than Richard Nixon's resignation speech to the cabinet...Barak Obama speaks on race amongst other things...

Found Poem

I saw a small parrot
yesterday in a restaurant. He had
soft blue and purple gray
feathers . I got a chance to touch him and to
play with him. I named him
“little blue.” No one knows.

We work to be with each other but are kept by the work. This is a description of loneliness but I am not lonely, worried about the future, the week off, the surplus of time and lack of things to do with myself. If I had an invitation to seize I would feel more settled and I do: Portland on the 20^th but until then everyday, get to know the city maybe travel to the grocery store and settle into this apartment. What I don’t want to do is worry about what I’m not doing or have to do or stay so busy that I run out of things to think and forget to relax to take my time, to ease into tomorrow its supposed to rain all day and I look forward to it, to be warm inside all day tippy tacking on my computer while the insects hide in their nests. I’m one of them I guess. But the strange thing about these fears is that they run deep and grounded in real life situations, because last night, I could not sleep. I tossed and turned. There were things on my mind marking an area to walk carefully around. What I really want is to lay in bed and smell the light streaming through the old barn window the fire high on the mountain unable to keep us warm so far away from home. We try to understand and engage this primitive mind without choices and try to quote from nature but end up with muddy things and rocks held between impossible straights the practice making us perfect and translation a result of our frustration it seems easy to reflect on the earth’s curve but there is motion to coming around.

When I was in 2^nd grade, we were given a crossword puzzle, and I sat at my desk and filled in the blank spaces to the best of my knowledge, unable to find the answer to a number of questions. My desk was in the front row and I could easily see into the basket where work was collected, completed crossword puzzles and all. Feeling a twinge of guilt, I filled in my missing answers with Kevin Gregg’s answers, and a couple days later when we got these puzzles back, mine was affixed with a bright sticker of a smiling bear and the words “Grin and Bear It” beneath the bear’s body. Confused by what this meant, Mrs. Rocco explained the word play and smiled at me.

the following is an email strain from the last couple days...

Subject: hello. please call me.

Tyler:

dear team: i've lost my cell phone. i think. i think it's turned off but am not sure. my worst fear is that somebody has found it and is making calls calls calls and i'll have to pay for it. if you get a chance to talk to this person please tell him that you are the police. the battery will be dead soon. if i don't find it in a day i'll get a new one. hopefully this loss will not tear me a new one. thank you to you and yours.

Aaron:

What is your current mailing address and if we speak to someone where should we tell them to return it to. Do you have a friend with a phone number that the person can call to coordinate a return? Did you call AT&T broadband and personal instant messaging service company to get your plan suspended?

Aric:

Did you fart into a paper bag?

Aaron:

I called your phone and left a fart message. It appears to still have
power and be somewhere. A trick I like to use is to go out on the
street and ask everyone you see if they've seen your phone. If they
say no don't just give up that easy. Sometimes you have to use a
little bit of "persuasion" to get info out of individuals.

Aaron:

Aric says it's at the Tempura House Restaurant in Coral Gables, FL. What the fuck were you doing in Coral Gables last night?

Cole:

Herons communicate by farting. I'm getting a new phone, do you want my
old one? its a little smelly.

Tyler:

thanks everybody. please give it a try later on tonight and tomorrow if you will. i'll get a new phone on saturday if it doesn't turn up.

Aaron:

Dude, go to the Tempura House Restaurant. That's where it is.

Aaron:

That doesn't ring a bell?

Aaron:

Hello? Anybody?

Aric:

Hello? Tempura House. Would you like to try our lunch special?

Aaron:

Uh, yeah, that sounds good. Can I have the vegetable tempura, and my
friends phone as well. Also, what types of beer do you have?

Aaron:

And I just want to double check...you're not the police, are you? I
would naturally be worried about an officer serving me lunch.

Aric:

No sir, I am not a police officer. But I just finished serving a police officer our lunch special. It's a grilled heron breast served with 2 quail eggs and a cell phone in a brown paper bag farted into by our top chef.

Aric:

Oh, and for beer we have Molson, Coors Light, and Woodchuck hard cider.

Aaron:

This police officer sounds familiar...did she have short brown hair,
about down to her shoulders? I think that might have been my wife.

In any case, was it my friend's cell phone that you served with the
grilled heron and then handed over to the officer?

And can you make a black and tan with Molson and Coors Light, with the
Coors Light on the top?

Or would you recommend a cider bomb with Molson and Woodchuck in a
sake glass suspended by chopsticks just seconds before I slam my fists
down on the table thinking about that Bitch and then plop! A nice
mixture of Molson and hard cider.

Aaron:

Oh, and Tyler...don't forget to check at the Tempura House Restaurant.
I think you might have left your phone there due to a recent visit.

Aric:

And as a reminder Tyler, if you've recently been inside of an Asian restaurant in the San Francisco area lately, particularly any restaurants specializing in tempura, they may have your cellular phone.

Cole:

is it an iPhone? those are pretty sweet.

Cole:

this cell phone mess is about as confusing as this story
http://www.kansas.com/news/updates/story/339011.html

Tyler:

you know, it's funny. the last place i ate was a tempura place. really. i'll go ask them tomorrow.

Aaron:

Now I think he's on the right track. Was it called the Tempura House
Restaurant?

Aaron:

Way back in this email session I wrote, "Aric says it's at the Tempura

House Restaurant in Coral Gables, FL. What the fuck were you doing in

Coral Gables last night?" I wrote that because Aric called me and
told me to tell you it was there. He must have had someone pick up on
the other end of your phone from the restaurant. He told me to tell
you presumably because he wasn't next to an Internet terminal. So, I
thought I would "tip you off" by mentioning the tempura thing.
Apparently it didn't ring a bell at the time. I added in Coral Gables
(the city that I work in), for comedic effect, but this may have
sidetracked you further. I think you should check at the restaurant
that you ate at recently that served tempura.

Tyler:

yeah yeah i get it now. i'll pick the phone up today. you know, it's hard to take these emails at all seriously, but i should of put two and two together. the story: tuesday night i got some chicken donburi at a restaurant called the Tempura House Restaurant, right before class and I was in a hurry and only ate half my meal and then asked for a box and made a little to go package and in the process forgot my cell phone which I had set out on the table to remind myself how much time I had to eat...

reading this emails, at the first mention of the tempura house i thought about where i had eaten but didn't understand why the person from the tempura house had called one of you guys, which is a total failure of my imagination in the sense for some reason i couldn't imagine that you all had called and spoken to the guy who works there quickly enough...i think that was the thing: the rapidity of the response that threw me off, (and the fact that i wasn't in coral gables), because i sent the email and then ten minutes later you mentioned the tempura house and i thought it must be a conincidence. what finally did it was maybe the fifth blatent reminder, i think written by aric, that asked me to think about if i had eaten at a tempura restaurant in san francisco...that one hit. thanks for keeping the in formation coming. the funny thing is that i was actually going to get a new cell phone this weekend.

The void eternally generative. Wen Fu. It feels good to say that, to imagine myself saying that. Had a conversation with Shorewood following Chris’ lecture on Alberto Masferrer, an El Salvadorian writer; the lecture’s history leading to a memory, leading to a sense of place and closure. Always a beginning, I asked Shorewood, the man sitting next to me what he though gender normative is and he replied the societal standards enforced by our culture, manly men and those around us. One Big Self. Photographs of walls being built and children painting them.

He cited the example of his sister’s children being given things to play with based on gender, and encouraged. This an example of reinforcement, a virulent idea of ourselves. I responded that it seems like the same day for everyone in the terms of “getting over” ourselves as children; that regardless of where one comes from the necessity of self-actualization remains. Our conversation stopped. We looked away. I was self-conscious of the rapidity that I responded; the eagerness to disagree, at least rhetorically, and wondered if that was a bad habit or a brave one.

The lecture ended on a question, that of translating things for oneself, a theme of the evening, and an idea I can understand. The how more than the what the what the content of the lecture the how how we might make sense of it. Translation and talk of translation, to follow up on, to lecture and ask questions. That to become ourselves we must translate for ourselves we must make our own meanings from our own words as opposed to letting someone do it for us. Here is the link to Chris' lecture.

It's great to be back. Thank you. Thank you very much. This morning the sun burnt a hole in my head the sun came through the french doors and hit the guy this guy sleeping in the closet which might sound bad but its actually a large closet and the mattress fits perfectly so as just enough room to extend fully and wide enough to have a small stack of paper goods on one side without rolling into them throughout the night. All of the above frees up the rest of the room to form some kind of living/working area, two desks, a little couch, plants in the windows, the street outside filling with cars and people slightly asleep from the new style wake up time the sun in a new position the mailman chuckling with his mailman buddies and babies pushing daddies and strollers staffed by mommies and construction workers down the street come back to find their machines covered in graffiti and bikers and bikers and bikers and instead of a small window facing a yellow apartment building there is a entire panoramic view of Valencia which is different if noisy at night meet the artist meet the drunk college kids meet the surly punk rocker selling delicious pizza again the sun burning holes in my head it's time to make breakfast drink tea sit back down its Monday the last week of school before spring break.

A month ago I asked Amy if, when rescheduling our couples therapy appointment, she would “tell her” (Lesley, the therapist). Amy responded that she would tell Lesley that we were “broken up” and I responded that a better way to say it would be that I am “moving out”, and went on to justify this as a more accurate assessment of the situation; that “moving out” is literally what is happening, thus avoiding the dramatized “break up”; lives crumbling and tears flowing. I don’t think I could go through with moving out if I were to think in terms of finite separation, or terms that never made sense to me. I think it’s more complicated than that. And when complexity arises, I figure the best way to accurately represent a the situation is to explain only what one can see; to let the actions speak for themselves.

Two summers ago in New York, I went to Burning Deck’s 30 Year Anniversary reading. There I ran into Michael Gizzi, who I knew from graduate school, and he introduced me to an older poet whose name I don’t recall (sorry). I was telling this poet about my plan to move to California, to be with my long term love. Later in the conversation he asked when I found time to write, and I responded that I had so much free time living alone and working (painting) on my own schedule, writing came out of a kind of boredom. He pointed out that living with a woman would seriously hinder this kind of boredom. I laughed, unable to foresee the problem.

I remember my radio show in college, where at 1:45 AM Thom and I would stage the “1:45 Talkabout”, where instead of playing music we would talk to each other, take calls, play sound effects or what-ev; fill up the fifteen minutes until 2. Once, talking about a local scandal that neither of us knew anything about (the resignation of the student body president), a call came in telling us to quit talking about things we didn’t know about. The caller was angry and well spoken. We laughed and then changed the topic.

A Sunday when I was nine, my father laying on the bed watching 'This Old House', and the press of the impending parental switch in my mind: I walked into the room and declared "I am so bored" and laid down alongside my father and cried. He held me and this is all I remember.

I remember this feeling of emptiness, beyond nothing "to do" into feeling nothing inside of me: no direction or will, no 'spring' of life bubbling up from the platform of ourselves. I began to tell this story for the first time about three years ago to a therapist, randomly trying to get to the bottom of my relationship with my father.

The feeling could easily be confused with depression but I don't think a nine year old can be depressed, at least not in the way that I understand depression. But whatever this feeling was, it has stayed with with me. Psychologically (I think), what is at stake is not the feeling of emptiness but the fact of my perception regarding it. Inherently there is nothing wrong with nothing, right? I mean, how could "something" be wrong with "nothing"? Beyond semantics, nothingness seems to me the baseline for the universe and by universe I mean everything; that is, we return to it always hence the term "eternally generative void" (Wen Fu). That always, something emerges from nothing; our being being born and the silence at the end of a sentence, just beneath the surface of everything we do.

Psychologically, what is at steak for the science of, is the concern or direction and quality of my attention vs. this observation. In other words, why does this bother me? Why do I remember? What is the stress or what am I really talking about? George Oppen:

The self is no mystery, the mystery is
That there is something for us to stand on.

(from "World, World--" as found in the book This In Which)

Recently I’ve been thinking about the importance of community and the pointlessness of an isolated practice in anything. This is the short version. The long version begins with The Grand Piano, a series of “collective autobiography” books by the Language Poets about their experiences together in the late seventies. The books have been enjoyable, learning about their lives and the movement, but only yesterday, reading Barrett Watten’s passage in the 5^th book of the series, did their ‘thing’ being to clearly emerge. That is, a stress on group dynamics and honesty rather then on an individual aesthetic or the craft of a poem; coming up together or all boats will rise. Watten mentions the modernist movement as cementing the artist as individual, and in thinking about some of my favorite poets, like Wallace Stevens; the awe one feels when reading a Stevens’ poem seems built in, and results in a distancing effect. Never am I inspired to write after reading a Stevens poem, and if I try I fail, discouraged by the perfection of his words and ways in my mind.

Then again, other favorites like George Oppen harp on the notion that we live amongst each other by choice, and in reading him I feel as if I am gaining know how of what’s going on, akin to reading a newspaper or an essay that resonates. His form inspires me but his clarity of thought seems singular, though I’ve had more success after reading him than Stevens. I’m coming to realize that the emptiness that is showcased at the center of a lot of my writing (and myself), is not just a thing that happens to be there, but a result of the method by which I choose to write and live. I’m talking about the immensely competitive ‘best-writer-in-the-room’ mentality that I’ve been developing since college. Its affect, though helpful for producing fine tuned pieces of art and gaining individual recognition, is unsustainable as a way of life in a world where frequent if short interruptions/communications/events (think email, text messages) determine the rhythms of our lives, for better or for worse.

In a way, what I’m trying to say is that my mode of being is outdated. More importantly, I’m trying to say that living right as an everyday process and the value of living immediately and without compromise sustains people in the long run. That accord, though subtle and anything but spectacle, is a preferable way to live; the life as art kind of thing rather than the other way around. In terms of my past practices, I’ve willingly alienated myself in name of ‘art’. This seems wrong, not in the sense of an individual choice, but in a communal this needs to change if we want to keep on living, persevering.

To me this is what the language poets were suggesting, at least in The Grand Piano. In practice, who knows if that’s how it turned out. But I imagine that this is how the language poets could be read: that ultimately a book is credited to a single author and in this context, talk of community seems like lip service to an idea that ultimately showcases the individual: the individual as our most basic unit of our humanness, our dasien, our being; that can’t be transcended. How to co-exist as an individual and a member of a community seems to me, one of the more immediate questions that they raise.

Or, what’s more helpful and less Californicated to me, is the realization that 20^th century poetry is full of tragic stories and craziness. The idea that poetry must somehow trace the border of mental illness to be authentic has, despite our best intentions, stayed with us and our culture. Kurt Cobain, Nietzsche, Karl Marx, whatever infinity; the life of self/other-destruction. Instead, maybe it would be more helpful to look towards the long term model and use this as a basis for value. That the measure of an artist should not only be gauged by the work but by the artists ability to “be there”, or simply, to persevere and adapt. Robert Creeley, though some people say he did his best work when he was young, lived on and taught and was available: a model that changes and knows that there are other ways to be.

here is a "play", circa 2004.

2004

Setting: A hotel room in the style of the Best Western or Holiday Inn. A queen size bed, a low dresser, and a television on top of the dresser for example.

A man in his 30’s dressed in causal garb (slacks, tennis shoes, polo shirt) opens the hotel room door, enters with his bags, set them down on the side of the bed closest the window, and sits down on the bed. He takes off his shoes. He looks around. He gets up and slides the window curtain apart and looks out, seeing nothing, then opens a few drawers on the dresser. Seeing nothing inside, he closes them. He sees the remote control sitting on the television and picks it up, and returns to the bed, this time propping himself up with pillows, his legs all the way on the bed. He turns on the television and watches it. He flips through the channels. This goes on for five minutes.

He turns and picks up the phone on the nightstand. He pauses briefly to look at the information posted on the phone and dials one number.

Man: Hey there, this is room 227. I’m calling for a wake up call at six o’clock.

The man listens to the voice on the phone

Man: Great, thanks. [hangs up the phone]

He leans back, continuing to watch the television. This goes on…

1^st Person in Audience: Boooooring

The man looks out at the audience with a confused/pained expression, then gets off the bed and leaves through the door.

The television remains on. Two minutes later, the hotel room door opens and person in a chicken costume enters, holding a silver platter on which a letter sits next to a letter opener. The chicken turns off the television and sits at the foot of the bed, opening the letter with the letter opener. He begins to read…

Voice Over: Dear chicken. I got your urgent message. I understand you.

Today is the first day of the new semester, which means my break is over and now I need to start thinking about how I can be of service. Can I help you? Things like that. I've arranged my schedule so that I'll have three to four mornings a week free to write. This is the first time ever that I've arranged my work schedule around writing, versus doing what work work calls for, and trying to fit myself around that. Hopefully the wealth of me time won't overwhelm any sense of purpose that I begin the day with and lead to an existential crisis centering on the gaping pit of nothingness that I seem to stumble into given too much time to myself. But on a brighter note, after raining hard the entire weekend it's cleared up today.

I'm teaching one class this semester (Narrative Documentary) and supporting three other classes, which means that I will sit in on them, take notes, and offer assistance to international students that may have lost something in translation. That, and also working with international students in the speaking and writing lab. I enjoy the smaller groups of students, and also the international students, the opportunity to be a stranger in a strange

Audience: Booooooring

Aric and I used to go to an Arcade in Madison named Tilt. One day, scrounging together nickels and dimes, we presented our wealth to Pete, the manager, and he complained: "Can't you guys go to a bank?" Later on around this time, after our relationship with Pete matured a little, he let us stay after and play for free. He took the glass off of the Jurassic Park pinball machine and let us flick the bells and targets, unlocking all the secret levels and bonuses without having to put in the work; learning what would happen if the game was played to its end. I never played the Jurassic Park pinball machine again.

Two weeks ago I told Ted about my plan to go to China and visit a friend, that I was done travelling around the United States, that is was all strip malls and parking lots. I take a drink of water and forget all of this, thinking only of how thirsty I am on a plane in between Salt Lake City and Oakland. Neither nor. Gradually, throughout the day of travel, I came to the conclusion that I am distracted from the fact (the proof) of being unable to concentrate on a book I'm interested in: Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson. Jerry liked it but mom didn't. Removed the dust jacket so it would travel better.

_

But all this about concentration, it takes me a while to realize that it's not happening. I feel that there is a significant delay between a feeling and the fact of my noticing it. And a feeling changes often, so I need to stay alert. The remedy is always to write. Not that this is what I always do, or need to do, but it always works if I 1) think to do it, and 2) do it. These days its not automatic, simply because I'm not in the habit. This is what discipline is for: keeping things even keeled or predictable. Then again over time, jaggedness becomes predictable and then who knows.

_

But I wanted to go back to an earlier point, that I'll spell out further. Not because I want to but because my mind has returned to it: that my perspective is very much dependent on what time of day it is: be it thirsty or tired, happy and silly, pretty much everything I say is bound to contradict itself sooner or later. I like to believe that the only true measure of reality (certainty) is based in doing, i.e. actions and presence. For example continuing this blog at predictably intermittent intervals speaks to my actual commitment regardless of what I write about it, the idea that every outcome is intentional. I forgot my keys: I meant to forget my keys.

_

But this doesn't explain anything. The engines and climate systems make for a rolling and droning ambient rumble that feels good to listen to. Is there any thing else? I'm sure there is but I'm going to go back to reading. Here is a quote from the book: "In order to be good, they just have to fight awhile and then leave."

Dreamt about my feelings but would rather write about my dreams: a settlement occupying most of Texas, underground, like a subway station and there are rooms modularly attached. No trouble, no demons or people out to get us but a meeting: a friend is coming in from somewhere else, maybe another dream, and needs instruction on how to get here. I give the phone to my brother. We learn they are coming from Los Gatos. It was much like a video game in that the world was simplified, grid like. The last thing I remember was controlling a little robot pet to earn experience points...Woke up with a dog splayed across the bed. She was like that throughout the night. A thick fog out the window makes the already white world look even white-er. Ghosty, like waking up inside of an angel food cake knowing there are only a few soft layers before day light. Kill Bill. Smashing a coffin with your fist. Fisting an old master. References to slavery and race relations while all I'm trying to do is wake up. Smell 2 coffee. Still got it. The dog was annoying and I would rather not sleep in the same bed but no one else was home she might of been lonely. Spent an entire evening on the bed before I was in it thus a sign of intention, getting in the car before its time to go. Writing from a place not grounded, careful not to make a mistake, defensive. The frantic jerky motion of trying to fill a page but now, infinate concentration: I feel as if I could stay on topic, stick to a topic like Gumby or Goompas Goomba need be or spin off into abstraction that automatic goodness that comes at the risk of two bags in the window resembling the world trade center before it fell. Last night I watched an interview with Beppe Severigni about the differences between Americans and the rest of the world...he seemed like a reasonable person.

New Year: New Dreams: Riding a large cruise ship with mother, brother, and jerry. We earned it. A student brings in a small monkey shaped bottle of cologne. Another student named clover, who in real life proclaimed the possibility of having genuine luck was consoled about her grade. Proud I was to be giving a passing grade. I too feel that I am lucky. Walking through the big city I come upon a milk crate sitting on a stool, items someone is throwing out because they are moving away. Sifting through, I take a bike innertube and a patching kit. A little jar of honey shaped like a bear. A small vial of sexually potent herb juice. A small monkey shaped bottle of what I don't know, but it was the same jar the student had shown me earlier. I was not surprised to find this container again in the dream. The gigantic boat was ours, though we were returning it to the government. Earlier, I found myself in a place like Esalen, the self-realization center institute on the California coast. Amy had signed me up for a class at the same time I was supposed to teach a class. I chose the class I was signed up for. No problems. During class I graded papers. Neither here nor there, but comfortable. Glad to see my students. Nervous to be one myself. Brother and I, scouting the water in a smaller boat, turned around to see parents in small boat as well. What happened? we asked, Where is the big boat? The government came and took it back. No hard feelings. Swiftly turning on the open water.

the last day of the year and i spent it working with j and damien on an old victorian on the east side of madison mixed sand in with primer and prepared new walls to match the old walls while they installed a floor where a bathtub will one day sit it was exhausting having not done a day like that for a while afterwords i napped had a cup of tea and will go out and have dinner with an old friend and some new ones at a sushi restaurant but may not go out with the crew for the gigantic count down not because its a bummer but because of todays work and have secretly been hoping to not celebrate new years waiting for an excuse for a number of years which is funny as it used to be my favorite holiday going out with friends and most certainly getting drunk and doing funny drunk things but those guys aren't here tonight and really what else is there to do once all that has been done not that there's a reason to move on but i just don't feel like it and that will have to be okay and i'll see what it feels like to not celebrate new years in grand fashion and then we can compare draw up some charts take notes and consult the experts i mean stars for how next year will turn out if next year will turn out not to rub anything in but i did see that movie i am legend and that movie no country for old men and that movie blade runner on the other hand i did see that movie juno and somebody asked me what i do for fun the other day and i answered that i watch movies which makes my answer half true more like something to do and when noticing this and then in choosing not to noticing a thud like a sack of old letters falling to the bottom of an elevator shaft, listening, and then reporting back

It's awesome: sitting in the guestroom of my parents' house, reading and writing under the warmth of a wool blanket. It snowed all day yesterday but today its just overcast. It. The weather. Things happening. Last night I went out with some old friends and a new one, and drank more than I meant to. It wasn't bad, but the same thing happened two night previous. Today I got a pair of shoes with my brother and a friend, and we ate lunch near the shoe store and talked about things German, a few movies, and sort of watched the Badger game on television. They won. Hooray. There is a month and a couple weeks between classes and I'll be here until the 15th, working with my step-dad and crew on an old Victorian house on the east side. I'll start Monday, and then New Years and then a couple weeks work and then back to Oakland. I'm thinking too much about what is okay to write and what isn't. Sticking to one topic or writing tangentially. Forgetting how to write, or how I wrote previously for this blog. What worked. Have been writing a lot in notebooks, but maybe that is a different kind of writing. Forgetting. Always a beginning. Tomorrow I'll drive up to Menasha to see and old friend and his new baby. Yesterday I dropped Amy off at the bus station.

Sitting at work is this work I'm thinking speaking lab speaking lab speaking lab where the students come and sit and we talk maybe work on pronunciation issues or simply work on fluency or work hardly at all just talk just practice talking and this is helpful we think they think somebody thinks this is helpful who keeps coming here but nobody thinks this is helpful right now as I am here alone not lonely because I have you but am alone no appointment: a ticking clock that reads 3:58. A Korean fan pinned on the wall. A hot room, an open door, a hallway. A restroom door that people come and go from. We are on the first floor but there are no windows. In a half hour a student will come give me a presentation and I will give them feedback. I received a note on my door today. It reads: Hi Tyler. This is A____ who used to attend your conversation group 6:30 on Monday! I just wanted to say Thank you and Merry Christmas!! (I can't come today group cause I have an appointment). End of note.

Earlier this year I met a Marine and we talked about weakness. That the boot camp instructors’ job is not to teach specifics, but to weed the weak out of the group, those who can’t be counted on when the situation intensifies. It made me think if I would be weeded out, and just now, it makes me think of teaching: how a portion of students will decide a given subject is not for them, and the teacher might decide a given student isn’t going to make it. No hard feelings. One of the loneliest things I’ve ever heard were the long-distance phone conversations of an old roommate, a Marine, speaking in loud, halting English to a Filipino woman he hoped to marry. She couldn’t understand a word he was saying.

On my way back from the corner store a man stopped me to say that hands in pockets are a sign of sexual frustration. I took my hands out of my pockets and continued walking down the street. He walked with me, telling me that despite the fact that we was in his late thirties, young girls were still attracted to him. And he was tired of it. I looked at him. A clean dark sweater and some jeans. His eyes were yellowed and his breath stank. He asked to see my hands. “Yep,” he said, “stay off the…”

“drugs?” I suggested. “The Internet.” he finished, and we parted.

border="0", is what it says every time I open a window for a new post. I've been deleting it but I wanted to show you, my friend, that it says border= "0" and what this feels like exactly. Do you have the feeling? Good. It's a sunny but kind of a chilly day in Oakland, and I say that knowing that California has made me weak. I no longer understand what cold means. I was working on things I found in my notebook this morning and had posted a couple but then removed them because it didn't feel quite right. Plus, the person who commented anonymously three postings ago kind of freaked me out due to my inability to receive compliments and my trouble with the word 'genius' so instead of rising to that challenge I'll just ramble on to fill the space so that posting gets far away from the first thing as possible. These are the kinds of problems that come up once the empire gets established: maintaining its borders. Of course I could just erase the compliment but that seems unfair. "One confides in what has no concealed creator" writes Wallace Stevens, and that seems like a reasonable policy to me. In other news I had a good if unusual weekend hanging out with two factions of friends, and spending most of Sunday doing absolutely nothing. It was different and feel like I'm in some kind of alternative head space in that it doesn't feel muddled like it usually does on Monday. I'm thinking of eating a can of chili. This is the kind clarity that comes with striking out of the usual. Also, we got a Christmas tree that is still alive I mean growing in a pot. It's nice and small. A fir but I'm not sure what kind of fir. Maybe its a spruce and they lied to us, but I think its a fir. I'm coming to realize that its a good idea to set aside time to do what I want to do, and sticking to that schedule. In the past I've believed myself to be enormously flexible and okay with whatever. Unfortunately this wasn't true at all. Amy compared my lack of plant watering to a boy who got bored with his pet turtle. Charles Schultz is quoted as saying "It took me a long time to become a human being."

One day lighting off bottle rockets with my brother, we went back inside to watch to TV to be alerted by our baby sitter that the field behind the house was on fire. Luckily she knew what to do, and equipped us with wet rags and a bucket filled with water. We ran out and wapped the flames down. This was one time. Another time we lit a field on fire on accident and scorched fifteen feet of fence. Another time we accidentally burnt down the large hollow tree adjacent to our house. Fireworks are wasted in the day.

I am consciously shutting off my mechanisms of openness because I find it difficult to depend on others to support me. That, and it’s not working, especially now when I’ve lost my rudder and am starting to notice real world manifestations of my own passivity.

I worry that some person who I used to be is dying, some sweet open guy having a difficult time finding his way. Maybe if his luck had been better he would have found the necessary community to embrace him and take care of him in a meaningful way.

Instead we get bitterness the outcome of failed expectations but there is more to it than that, that a construct of some aspect of personality, once uncovered, must be changed in order to avoid excessive self-consciousness; in the name of perseverance and adaptation.

If what is really there is unchanging, some idea of movement or the sudden stillness that attention brings, ideas of who and what don’t matter. That willful naivete is actually harmful past a certain point, and though we like to be reminded of children

and the unspoiled mind, it’s important to consider that time goes on. In eastern philosophy this seems to be one aspect of life that is portrayed much more successfully than in western philosophy; the spring pond and the moon rising, the long winter in a single sentence.

Can you believe I spend my time doing this stuff? It's hard to believe November anything. A true voice like a true conviction calling and maybe calling back when I get a moment can you hold this please? Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and this is hardly bearable with the turkey and all that stuff. If everybody had a Thanksgiving could we change the world one thanksgiving at a household per capita millions? Tomorrow we'll go down to Joel's down there in San Luis I'm afraid to spell Obispo wrong but will go ahead. Amy is making some kind of c/kale? dish and I'm making a key lime pie. Maybe two. They're good. My mom makes them. Yesterday I bought plane tickets to go to Wisconsin for my/our families central holiday. It's a big deal. Sometimes I think I'd like to get out of it but know if that happened I'd regret it. Something Cheer. But its been a busy semester and am glad for the break, even if it's just a couple days. Finally we are done with the argumentative essay so we can move on to less judgmental kinds of works. If the glove doesn't fit you must acquit. These kinds of messages. But instead we move on to the "feature story" which is a little bit more wide open to interpretation as long as its interesting to read. Who am I to be the judge of that. In other news, the cats are laid out by the radiator. Kitty Girl is sick with something (keeps throwing up, coughing) and I'm going to take her in to the vet today. Plagued by guilt, the other one has been acting strangely, barging onto our pillows at ungodly hours and meowing loudly. I've been waking up really early for some reason. Had a dream about the cat eating a cockroach two nights ago. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Lotus Rhizome

I look for an authority and find none. A true conviction, as if writing is your middle name, contentment, and leaving behind old habits. Still, we insist that I work. Floating just above the water, above the unpotable murk; lotus seeds, or nuts, can be eaten raw or popped like corn, boiled down in a paste and when combined with sugar made into delicious pastries.

Canada

Where is your family? On the porch
talking.
The neighbors, they said
it’ll rain tonight. We
sat and had drinks, all of us
free.

On the edge of the bed
the day is getting on. It hasn’t yet
rained, but it will
I believe, and soon it will be
time for dinner.

Since the days of my middle life
I was deeply devoted to Tao.
Recently I came to live
in the mountains of Chung-nan.
Oftentimes--with joy in my heart--
Alone, I roam here and there.
It is a wonderful thing
That I am aware of myself.
When the streamlet ends my trip
I settle down and catch
The moment of rising mists.
Now and then I meet
A furrowed dweller of the woods.
We chat and laugh;
Never do we want to go home.

-Wang Wei

**

When it was dark, I reached the village of Shih-hao.
Late at night an officer came to recruit men.
The old man in the house climbed over the wall and fled.
The old woman opened the door.
How the angry officer was raging!
How bitterly the woman was crying!
I heard what the old woman said:
"I had three sons for the defense of the City of Yeh.
Only one of them sent me a letter.
The other two boys were killed in battle.
The one who remained may not live long.
The dead are gone forever.
There are no more men in the house
Except my grandson who is still fed on milk.
Because of him his mother stays with us.
However, she has no whole skirt to go out.
Although I am old and have no strength,
Let me go with you, officer,
To immediately answer the urgent call from Ho-yang.
At least I can do some cooking for the soldiers."
Later in the night their conversation stopped.
What I heard was something like sobbing.
At daybreak I started out again on my journey.
I could only say "Good-bye" to the old man.

-Tu Fu


**
These poems were taken from "Creativity and Taoism" by Chang Chung-yuan

earlier in the day cats recognized dogs as heroic figures matter put into their own hands like chefs at a rodeo wandering between fences and dirt ball clowns trying to pull one over the bull riders and friends of the bull riders otherwise known as the blue riders in german expressionist talk the wiggle puppies or the fun buddies a lamp with no light bulb as good as a grey goose a hedge fund prepaid and ready to matriculate and ten other way to name your baby circa field 1937 the plains spread out before the paupers and home rehabilitation projects as seen on tv the teeth puncturing an already raw wound no money to brittney spears commercial clad all wheel drive muck a luck tee pee wendigo tank track but a rolled out new line of far superior soap stone products a massive surge of energy building and bludgeoning the work release program circa cricket teams massively over wrought metal sculptures and our dreams yes our dreams to be corporate sculptors making large aluminum waste products for us to walk around and seemingly to bother us not to make sense but pulmonary fibrosis circumstantial message to god reads if he did it hello of course he hates me hats off to the victor and motorolla deluxe reference book editions of limited leather bound tooth detectors and detective wandering between missile silos looking for monographed copies of not one weasel court but four seventy three hoboken avenue nobody saw us pick a new renegade cop blaster give it some time he'll come around said the most of the hosts brain wave usually after so much blah blah i'll come around and say something some clarification of perspective and where the meteorite originated from but instead halle bop i waited on the roof for aliens in the summer of eighty three barely old enough to talk or formulate thoughts like mostly we've lost our nerve and other barely legible wanton plus weight hold overs um yeah i'm just tired barely keeping me eyes open but will sit up a little for a drink water

Today I got a text message asking "why no blog, dog?" and I replied "time and materials" which maybe seems like a very text messagey kind of exchange but I think the question is a good one and not that I'm going to attempt to explain anything because that would be a strike against our good judgment but for the last fifteen minutes my thumb has been twitching. Have you ever had a twitching thumb? I don't know what it means but I'll proceed to diagram my day spent morning early got up at seven put on shirt/shoes/packed bag and went to get into the car pool which worked it's quite remarkable I think the carpool system here in the bay area where strangers will drive you free of charge over the bridge which is faster and cheaper than any other form of transportation and they do it because it's much much faster like today where the highway was backed up for miles and the carpool lane was kind of backed up but not nearly as bad as the rest of the lanes regardless we got there alright and was dropped off at the curb of 1st and Harrison from an Audi A5 the man was listening to some kind of christian music which wasn't as bad as it sounds, probably, regardless I went and spent the next three hours in the speaking lab helping some international students mostly Koreans mind their upcoming presentations and talked about cats and dogs and then took a break where I ate a bag of chips then onto the writing lab where I helped more international students with some writing issues, two essays and an autobiography three hours later I waited an hour then met with the philosophy study group where I helped one student from Jordan work on his essay and then that was it I came home. It's been a while since I've touched the blog because I like to think I've been so busy but I'm not sure that's it. After all those little story posts I sort of got confused as to why I was writing thinking that my job was to write little stories and when I didn't have any little stories to tell I didn't have a job to do but that's not true I'll just post whatever no pressure but really I've been quite stressed out with school that is teaching this semester which is strange because you'd think that after a couple semesters it would get easier and maybe it has but instead it feels harder the ties that bind solidifying and this is what is difficult for me staying on one thing and instead of expanding horizontally from place to place getting a little bit of everything instead its concentrating on one thing and sticking with it that is difficult I think that is maybe what has happened this semester the long term possibility manifesting itself in the form of relationships with co-workers and students that necessarily move past the passing through stage and the conversations need to progress I mean you can only ask someone where they're from a couple times before its necessary to talk about something else like the increasingly complex web of expectations built up from repeated interactions and alarmingly enough the possibility that people can know you.