Palo Alto is filled with helium balloons floating up above the heads of its celebrating citizens. Last night Obama talked about "...an economy that honors the dignity of work." Wouldn't that be nice? Watch the speech here. It's important. And have a most excellent day. Friend Liz is coming down from the city and to go swimming, the last days of summer break...

Palo Alto is filled with cars and streets. It is also filled with hot weather. I went to the pool yesterday to stretch my swimming muscles and found hundreds of children who had already found the pool. Last night I watched Joe Biden offer an amazing speech an amazing account of his life, what needs to change, Obama etc. My favorite part of the speech was the beginning, after his son's introduction, how proud he is of his son, and what his father had told him,that if your children come out better than you than you've done a good job. Or what his mother told him after his first wife and daughter were killed in a car crash: god gives you no cross that you cannot bear, which is probably a religious cliche but it made sense to me last night. These are the bits that moved me and the rest was mostly politics, justified attacks on the current Bush administration and the likelihood, based on McCain's record, that he would be continuing the current administrations policies. Then it got weird, the convention, Obama accepting the nomination a day early, and then appearing on the stage as a "surprise guest" like some kind of reality show where the contestants get their next assignment from Hulk Hogan or Marissa Tormey. But it must be kind of strange for Obama, with everybody around him and supporting him significantly more experienced. I don't mean to bring that up, the experience issue, but after all that Clinton and Biden speech making and conviction and confidence, Obama's stage appearance made him seem like the junior senator he is. I guess we'll see tonight, through his speech, what exactly he has`to offer because even though he was out and about in the`spring, it feels like it's been a long time since I heard him speak. I write this with one hand, the other holding a warm compress to my eye which seems to be going through some kind of sty, a side effect of swimming and goggles. Thus with one hand and one finger, this was typed s.lo...w..ly. Don't forget about w.yo..min..g

Personality Test

Do you pay your debts and keep out of trouble
Do you admire beauty in others you have loaned to
Can you accept defeat easily in an emotional situation
Do you throw things away only by looking
Do you speedily recover from it is too late
Do you often feel for no apparent reason
Do you find you make yourself nervous
Do you work and work against you
Do you consider the disagreement
Do you browse through behavior
Are your opinions projects
Do you turn up about you
Hear the wind or you
Do you belong to you
Do you turn unreal
Are you an effect
Are you involved
Is your life a fear
Do you consider
Are you aware
Are you original
Can you easily imitate
Can you accept
Can you trust
Do you often
Are you always
Would you like to
Work against you
Do you throw things
Do you have few
Do you refrain
Do you find it easy
Do you feel
To express your
That people are
That the speaker is
Do you turn off
Do you turn unreal
Would you admire
Would you prefer
Is your life
Do you find
Do you keep
Can you stop
Would you give
Do you have
Do you resent
Are you readily
Is it normally
Would you usually
Have you any
Are you so
Is it too
Do you not
Do you speak
Do you work
Do you tend
Do you try
Did you ever
Were you ever
Will you ever
Know?

Moving to New York in January (circa 2006)

Adam was the first person I spoke to in New York.
Rain was the first weather I experienced in New York.
A Honda Civic was the first car I rode in in New York.
An apple was the first thing I ate in New York.
My brother is the first person I called in New York.
“Turkish Kitchen” was the first restaurant I ate at in New York.
Barbara is the first person to not call me back in New York.
Johnathan is the first person I wrote and email to in New York.
The L was the first train I took in New York.
Grape Juice was the first thing I bought in New York.
The first meal I made in New York consisted of sausage, cheese, and horse radish.
My first breakfast was waffles and tea in New York.
Barbara was the first person who called me back in New York.
Union square was the first place I met someone in New York.
“The Cellar” was the first bar I went to in New York.
Talking about pulling skin off my lip was the first time I felt awkward in New York.
To buy fabric with my brother was my first outing in New York.
“American Ape” was the first book title I misread in New York.
Adam's black hat was the first thing I borrowed in New York.
Janet was the first person who referred to me as a poet in New York.
My brother was the first person to tell me their dream in New York.
The first snack I ate in New York was peanut butter and crackers.
“Who gets to call it Art?” was the first movie I went to in New York.
The “Foxy” was the first gallery I went to in New York.
B. was the first person to tell me “We're not getting back together” in New York.
14th and 1st was the first corner I tried to change somebody's mind in New York.
Adam's apartment was the first place I was bummed out in New York.
Molly was the first person I called for comfort in New York.
Adam's desk was the first place I wanted to cry but couldn't in New York.
Adam's sublet was the first apartment I rearranged in New York.
Adam's sublet was the first place I wished I had a television in New York.
My zipper was the first thing to break in New York.
The 19th was the first time I didn't care that I was in New York.
Fort Greene was the first place I went jogging in New York.
H_NGM_N was the first journal to accept my poems in New York.
“Kafka on the Shore” was the first book I finished in New York.
Nate was the my first visitor in New York.

The train rolls by the tram. I'm laying in the grass of the ever so popular Dolores park. "I see her walking down the street and just feel like she doesn't belong." A young guy with an orange beard and no shirt gets stoned just up the hill and makes a phone call. Yesterday, same spot, I watched a different young guy with a beard get stoned and make a phone call. What's with this place? Eventually I relent and give into the plot, the sun attacks my back and the voices and grasses. Swimming changes music into deep exhales or cubes of sleep that one brushes their foot against, waking up periodically throughout the night. It's taken me forever to realize I'm lazy, much less liberate myself from this spoiled state, a willingness to capsize the boat to meet a girl. I am thinking of breaking up with myself. After talking to Chris briefly, I spoke about the difficult semester and he said two things: nobody died (at least we have our health), and maybe you've learned something for next time. I told him about the anxiety dreams, and the fact that I'm still having them two weeks after the semester ended, of students upset and complaining about the class and then it became obvious: I put all of myself out there for the three twelve and wasn't prepared to deal with a few choice assholes. My brother tells me to "toughen up."

I smoke cigarettes because I am addicted to nicotine.
I smoke cigarettes because I have time to spare.
I smoke cigarettes because my wife is giving birth.
I smoke cigarettes because it's midterms.
I smoke cigarettes because I've been drinking.
I smoke cigarettes because I am on vacation in Italy.
I smoke cigarettes because I am a metal worker.
I smoke cigarettes on a hill in a park.
I smoke cigarettes habitually.
I smoke cigarettes because I don't know what else to do.
I smoke cigarettes to be controlled.
I smoke cigarettes because my imagination fails me.
I smoke cigarettes because I don't like to hang out in bars or cafes.
I smoke cigarettes because my wife isn't pregnant.
I smoke cigarettes because I'm single.
I smoke cigarettes because I like them.
I smoke cigarettes because my parents did and they seem alright.
I smoke cigarettes to take a break.
I smoke cigarettes because the fifties weren't that bad.
I smoke cigarettes to reward myself.
I smoke cigarettes to signal that I don't care.
I smoke cigarettes to have a reason to get out of certain situations.
I smoke cigarettes to suppress sexual desire.
I smoke cigarettes because I'm lonely.
I smoke cigarettes because it reminds me of old friends.
I smoke cigarettes because I don't have any better ideas.
I smoke cigarettes to breathe.
I smoke cigarettes to slow down.
I smoke cigarettes because I do not believe I can stop.
I smoke cigarettes because the sky is falling.
I smoke cigarettes to take care of baby.
I smoke cigarettes to rebel.
I smoke cigarettes because I think I am cold and they are hot.

The world is a tiny tiny place.

The world is a food processor.
The world is a mouse fart.
The world is a rich text document.
The world is a fine toothed comb.
The world is a mushroom.
The world is a bag of mushrooms.
The world is a gravy train.
The world is a grape fruit squeezer.
The world is a small handsaw.
The world is a busy airport.
The world is a recalcitrant chair.
The world is a jumping jack.
The world is a metaphysical conundrum.
The world is a rich text format.
The world is windows.
The world is a shelf covered in dust.
The world is a famous writer.
The world is a recent memory of a faun being birthed.
The world is a handsome beast.
The world is a muddy cup of river water.
The world is a leaf.
The world is a deep pond.
The world is a gravity bong.
The world is shameless.
The world is sadness.
The world is suffering.
The world is a greatest hits album.
The world is a recent acquisition.
The world is a greasy spoon.
The world is a western civilization.
The world is an industrial coal mine.
The world is a treatment program, in and out.
The world is barely old enough.
The world is a shopping cart filled with cans being taken to the
recycling center.
The world is a busy beaver.
The world is a soft and fuzzy place.
The world is an axe handle.
The world is a model.
The world is an ingenious invention.
The world is a can of peas.
The world is an oily fish.
The world is a list of things to do.
The world is a recent history deleted.
The world is a tuna fish sandwich toasted, and with cheese.
The world is overpriced but of good quality.
The world is a ham fisted soliloquy.
The world is a radioactive hamster.
The world is a mutant star.
The world is a returnable and reusable ink cartridge.
The world is Ellise coming to pick up the table.
The world is a quick conversation with your roommate.
The world is an apology.
The world is a wedding announcement.
The world is an unreadable penmanship.
The world is an expert marksman.
The world is a shaky arrow.
The world is a nameless hay bale.
The world is a really upscale laundry mat.
The world is a wire mesh box filled with bees.
The world in a minute a mess of fruit flies.
The world is for fruit flies too.
The world is a warm beach clogged with jelly fish.
The world is a reasonably priced four door sedan with a "moon roof."
The world is ice cream.
The world is your entire crew.
etc.

On a train in-between San Luis Obispo and Oakland, reading "The Emperor's Children" by Claire Messud that I had wanted to read for awhile and then not at all, and then suddenly again this afternoon while at the book store, looking for something for the train. Jen wrote a brief review of the book, and to paraphrase, "what a disappointment," but I'm only on page ninety three so I can't confirm or deny this.

The book is about people in their early thirties who went to Brown as undergraduates and aren't finding their way exactly, living in New York. The conversation between Marina and her father, the expression of parental disappointment when Marina confesses that she is lost and her father's thoughts of entitlement and a spoiled child. The bit about Julius wondering what it is that successful people posses and setting his sights on a relationship with his boss.

The conversation from a week ago, the unabashed yes, I want to be involved with a person who outwardly pursues what I find attractive so that I don't have to. The excerpt from "Alive in Necropolis" in the book review about the yuppie party full of two types of people, and to paraphrase again, those who are living their parent's lives and those still living their college lives, a false dichotomy but it makes me think.

The day I turned in the summer grades I ran into Katie and Jim and we had lunch at a small breakfast place in a not too bad at two in the afternoon block of the Tenderloin, happy to finally spontaneously go out with people who I didn't feel any obligation to sleep with. Back to the book, another hundred pages in, themes so far about privilege and disappointment, and like me on a foggy day, a group of people who feel their only choices are to try for eight gold medals or smoke hashish.

The question of what we want or at least the question of admitting this insecurity as the question: do we admit these times of doubt or wait until they pass? Do I keep posting through the muddled time or leave a record of where I am? In Portland, my roommate Craig had a nervous breakdown during his first year teaching high school. He told everybody about what was going on immediately: his family, his roommates, his bosses, his co-workers; took a week off and got himself together enough to finish the year. I attributed his quick recovery to the fact that he was comfortable enough where he was to ask for help.

This could keep going, these paragraphs, but I'm going to stop now. The last two weeks have been vacation like, seeing friends Johnathan and Anna and Bill, entertaining and day tripping around San Francisco. The past weekend was in San Luis Obispo helping paint Joel and Jesse's house. I have a week of intentional grounding here at the apartment on Valencia and then I'm doing a tiny house sit in Palo Alto, followed by Buddyfest up in Portland. Then school starts. Let me know if you have any questions. See you later.

today was the last day of the summer semester a full class of presentations of proposal arguments that i will attempt to topically summarize in the following story: walking through an alley on my way to class today i noticed a stray cat unable to defend itself because it was missing its claws so i stopped to take it to the animal shelter but realized the shelter will most likely euthinize this cat or sell it to the animal circus where the circus trainers will negatively reenforce it to learn tricks like carry the babies of other cats for money or smoke cigarettes or force it to take standardized tests that obviously it will not pass because cats can't read so i took a picture of it with my digital camera, adjusting the colors to give it that 'natural light look' and brought the picture home to my roommate who is always stoned from pot he buys illegally from people who buy legally from cannabis clubs but it's his choice so i don't say much and instead focus on the vast knowledge and many opportunities he gained from his global education and he looks at me and says dude, why are you so concerned about a cat when we've passed peak oil and our institutions are deeply discriminatory against women and by the way, this picture looks like shit. and i so i said how would you like to walk around on your knuckles? or be forced to walk on your hands because your feet are too burnt? if we had a symbol for this cat crisis or the environmental crisis like a man on the moon or two buildings collapsing in the middle of new york would we take it more seriously? urgently? just because the streets of san francisco have an open enrollment policy doesn't mean they're a lesser institution than a gated community. and with that, i returned to the alley, found the cat, and enrolled it in a chinese cooperative institution after a lengthy and frustrating financial aid application process. currently, this cat is being positively reinforced and rehabilitated with snacks.

Fin

by the same token (conversation with self continued), this two o two class has almost single handedly restored my faith that this teaching is a job worth doing. seeing the proposal arguments come together and having some students genuinely engaging with research, reading, and putting it all together reminds me of the enthusiasm i had when i was an undergraduate studying sociology with professor peterson, his enthusiasm and passion for trying to make sense of the world, its structure and abstraction and why people make the choices they make. that is to say, some of these papers are really good and wow, i actually helped teach someone! so, not to project that it's all doom and gloom but after next week, the end of the semester, i will be looking for other work while living off the government dole (adjunct teachers are entitled to unemployment). ideally i'd like to find a part time research/writing job and combine it with teaching part-time. the academy pays for shit, but sometimes it's almost sort of worth it. welcome to august.

(from today's three twelve class) I'm totally and absolutely flustered, coming in from supporting Rene's class once again, trying to pull my thoughts and myself...in. Not that it's dramatic, or too dramatic, but this morning I focused my breathing for a good length of time, trying to locate the big white ball of stress caught up in the in the middle of my diaphragm. I actually got somewhere and it would be a mistake to say things have gotten out of control. Vibrating phone and world comes back. If there was a way into the chapter, I could play the location game with confidence. Instead it's the grind, as the say, another day another dollar. The beatings will continue until moral improves. I entered Rene's class in a good spot, but after all this pushing and shoving about trying to understand the student's final projects, I've ended up back inside my chest. No location or locution. An awkward position and coming in late, men with no conscience and the women who love them. Tonight at eleven. I'm looking forward to doing some gardening on Saturday.

Two on the War

i.
Perhaps the way to implode radical Islamic militants is to legitimize their authority and presence. Give them something to lose. As an organization or bureaucracy grows so does its ineffectiveness on the street; the strength and seeming root of fundamentalist belief. Fat cat unioneering and giving everybody what they want. The middle class: some thing to love.

ii.
Insects hatch while they can, all at once. Red ants and flying ones, within hours they were all gone. I would've liked to have told you. I would've liked for you to have seen it. They were swarming up the banister out of the concrete, thick and of one mind. Why did I forget to to tell you? Why is the answer to the question always the same? A semi-circle of mushrooms grows undisturbed. If only I had thought to bring this up, the beginnings of a radical script.

Relevant Employment

Free Lance Painting, WI, WA, OR, RI, NY.................................................2000-Present
Painter, Four Square Painting and Home Repair, Madison, WI........................Fall 2005 & 2006
Maintenance, The Perry Center for Children, Portland, OR.................................2002-2003
Painter, River Bend Youth Center, Oregon City, OR........................................2002-2003
Tom Naue Painting, Madison, WI.........................................................Summer 1999
Factory Work, American Pine, Prineville, OR...........................................Summer 1998
Landscaper/Laborer, Midland Builders, Madison, WI............................Summers 1995, 1996
Laborer, Merry Christmas Tree Farm, Mineral Point, WI (family business) .............1985-2000

Relevant Skills

Painting
Oil Painting
Faux Painting
Removing Paint
Prepping Walls for Painting
Plastering
Sanding
Taping
Drywalling
Basic Carpentry including knowledge of tools, and ability to read blueprints
Wall Paper Removal
Water Damage Repair
Driving heavy machinery including tractors and Bobcats
Lawn maintenance
Construction site maintenance
Putting up Barbwire Fencing
Using a chainsaw
Brush Burning (Fire Safety)
Wood Staining
Rock Work
Hay Bailing
Weed Wacking
Tree Trimming
Tree Planting
Field Mowing
Vehicle maintenance
Sewing

consumption as a break from desking, i went out to amoeba records yesterday afternoon, riding the thirty three over and down the hill to the upper haight. i had a list of records i was interested in, and found most of them, took them over to the listening station, previewed and picked a few, went back to the stacks, founds some more etc. but in the end, unable to decided amongst the multitude of options, i put them all down and got back on the thirty three. i'm not made out of money you know. today's sunday paper had yet another five articles about how we're all headed for economic/spiritual doom once the lenders come calling for their money, and by lenders i mean foreign countries who are invested in these big (morally) bankrupt companies such as fannie mae. apparently the only way that we can save our selves is to keep spending money. but if we are using all our money to pay off debt, we don't have much to spend on ipods, or rims or whatever. um, (say something smart say something smart,) i think it would be best if we all got some rest. this morning i woke in a panic prompted by dreams of class (school class, not economic). it's been quite busy lately. my mind is a ball of mud.

on the bright side, today i went to burger king and felt extremely lethargic for about two hours afterwords. it was totally worth it, but you would think a wax paper cup full of ice cold coca cola would burn through that bloated salty feeling. there was something wrong with the straw. when i was ordering i almost (almost) said to the cashier as she told me my total of six dollars and seventy something cents, you know, when i was in high school, whoppers were only ninety nine cents. for two dollars you could feel totally bloated and blob through your fifth period psychology class, repressing farts while listening to the funny psychology teacher talk about pavlov's dogs while waving around a diet coke. or that time cole and i thought it would be a good idea, while we were living in prineville and working at a lumber mill during some weirdo summer between our sophomore and junior year of college, to buy a bag full of thirty nine cent hamburgers from mcdonalds to take advantage of their sunday special, and eat them all throughout the week. that lasted three days maybe. the hamburgers began to not taste so good after awhile. it's possible that they never tasted good. god is good. it's a beautiful night.

(notes from class today)

Today is muddled. Today the barometric pressure has dropped. Today not all that many students came to class. Today is cloudy. Today is a mud ball. Today is a plate of beans. Today is the color green leaking slowly from low hanging clouds. Today is the expression on my face. Today is not my first language. Today is a grease trap. Today is a pound of bacon. Today is a glass of water sitting on the counter collecting dust. Today is a wide mouth pop top. Today is a wool sweater. Today is a low quality sausage with just enough pepper for it to taste good. Today is a clown snack. Today is an extremely large glass eye.

What is this arguing for? The world in a minute? The world is a vampire? The world is a cold and barren place? Damn I need a sandwich. Damn. Damn I'm hungry. Damn you're hungry. Damn. Damn. Damn.

There's a poet named Vernonica Forrest-Thomson, or, rather, there was a poet named Veronica Forrest-Thomson, who published a book of literary criticism named Poetic Artifice posthumously, following her suicide at the age of twenty-eight. Bummer. I woke up thinking of this, not her exactly but one of the ideas from this book, a book that I read while living in Brooklyn a book that was at the New York Public library and is considered a rare book because not many were published, thus you can't usually just order one on-line. You have to find it in a University collection (if you're lucky. Anyway...). The idea that as readers we have a tendency for "external naturalization" when we read a story or a poem; a tendency to try to create a comparable meaning outside of the writing that we can compare the two with, for example "this poem is about the writer's relationship with his father" or "this story is about living in Israel as a Palestinian"... something like that. We do it all the time: remove whatever it is from its context and put it into a context that is easier to understand and explain. Think 'soundbite', or your friends in the avant-garde explaining how a particular piece of dissonant music was made.

This isn't a bad thing, our tendency to relate, and in fact it's why we're able to make sense of things: because in our readings or listenings we relate what is being said to ourselves and our own experiences. In reading a poem or listening to a song, we'll go back and forth between paying rapt attention to the thing, and rattling around in our own minds. Like a pop song, think verse chorus verse, and the chorus is when our ears take a break and we sing along, or inhabit the persona of the hip-hopper, or whatever. She writes:

"Our reading must work through the level of meaning into the external world and then, via the non-semantic levels of artifice, back into the poem, enriched by the external contexts of reference in which it found itself momentarily merged. This is what continuity in poetic language means."

Or in other words, every time we go into our heads we bring back something new to the poem or piece that we're interacting with, and with that new information or memory, we go back into the poem's structure, thereby setting up new and fresh comparisons until we are once again sent out into our own heads...back and forth back and forth etc. I write all this because I woke up thinking of what we were going to do for today's 'freewrite', where at the start of every class we spend about ten minutes writing and then sharing what we wrote. My question (or topic) is not who was Veronica Forrest-Thomson, but does everything we write or say or do have a comparable external meaning?