The spires of churches, the bare baughs of light-covered trees and air-blown figurines, uprise throughout the town.  Ubiquitous songs of Christmas reverberate along the crowded shopways.... I pass them one by one, every morning and every night.... yet somehow I seem to missing it all this Christmas season.

Too much, or not enough.  I'm not sure what, or maybe both.

"Life is a journey," I hear a voice whisper.  "Next year, the experience will be different...."

I am going to pay for this in the morning.  I normally sleep soundly.... but tonight I just couldn't for some reason, whether it was the alien parasite trying to bore a hole through my chest wall, or this crazy over-affectionate cat we took in which a) won't stop purring, b) won't stop trying to "make biscuts" in my hair (which feels like it's trying to suck what's left of my brain), c) won't stop trying to pounce my feet every time I attempt to move them....

I have decided, I am married to a rather prolific blogger.  It is an admirable quality, if not completely adorable.  It takes me far too long and far too much effort to do this than it ever used to, for whatever reason.  It never seems to wane for her -- perhaps I am much less in tune with my inner thoughts than I should be, or else, simply forget them too quickly before I can make any sense out of myself.  Or maybe I'm just more comfortable making nonsense, not to myself....

I used to travel a lot.  Three times a year, maybe more, I would go somewhere.  English speaking countries mostly, and typically cooler locales.  Living in the deep south, I sought refuge from the heat and monotony of constant summer.

Then there was September 11, 2003.  I was sitting in an early morning terminal of the Atlanta airport waiting to catch a flight to Jamaica, of all places, half listening to the news people commemorate the second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.  It seemed appropriate enough of an omen for me -- I was dreading the trip, a ten-day descent into 100-degree hell and unbreathable humidity even worse than what I was used to.

I was not exactly excited about going.  It hadn't been my idea.  I was going along with my wife as a part of a "mission trip" to share God's love to hundreds of Jamaican school children and various market peddlers, by passing out box loads of donated goods and supplies -- and by making balloon animals.  (I made dozens of varieties of balloon animals, and was mobbed by islanders like a rock star...)

September in Jamaica is brutally hot, and a tourist dead-season.  Our group of six was just about the only white people on the island -- thus, we were given a prime resort villa at a cut-rate price.  We had three or four separate thatched hut buildings with their own private bedrooms and baths, our own library, kitchen, entertainment room -- and our own beautiful blue private pool overlooking the ocean.  We even had our own maid staff. 

My wife and I were quartered in a private cottage up a bluff overlooking the entire bay.  I quickly fell in love with Jamaica, with the heat, the postcard perfect sunsets, the movie set perfect setting, but my experience there made me feel more wistful and alone than ever. 

I spent much of my time around the cottage alone, agonizing, smothering in the passion I felt emanating from the heat, from the salt air breezes and the tree frog serenades.  And I wanted to fuck.  I wanted to make love constantly like two animals in heat, covered in sweat, the sounds echoing around us like a low budget porn flick with the volume all the way up.... Only, I didn't feel that way towards the woman I married.  God help me, I couldn't.  The chemistry wasn't there, and we never seemed to get it.  And so I dreamed....

Sailboats floated towards the deep blue horizon;  snorkelers skirted the shipwrecked cove searching for treasure; and I, I sat along my balcony and pulled out my laptop, put on my earphones, and watched Solaris.  Solaris.  The one with George Clooney.  Not the classic, the Russian masterpiece (which I also watched before and was hardly even moved.  But this time...)

I will always associate Jamaica with Solaris.  The two are inseparable to me.

As the sun began to fall into the horizon, just above the heavenly blue sea, the movie had ended, and my heart was pounding.  How I ached for that kind of passion.  How I ached to fear that kind of loss.

I thought about it all night, as the rest of the group gathered at our cottage and took photos of my wife and I against the backdrop of the setting sun, now forming a tear drop into the sea during its dramatic seconds'-long plunge at sunset.  I thought about how phony I always felt, being treated like newlyweds, or like a couple "in love", when there was clearly no passion present between us.

That night, while I tossed and turned in the King-sized bed that I should have been using for anything other than sleep, I listened to the intensity of the tree frogs -- they are so loud, if you allow them to enter your head at night, you lose yourself to their song.  And so I lost myself to the tree frogs, and I was awash in pleasure -- I felt it rush through me in waves from head to toe.  I convulsed, and gave myself over.  I became whistles and chirps and high-pitched groans....

In the morning, I found a tray of fruits and toast (with the best jam imaginable).  It felt heavenly, except this urge to drag someone hot and sexy into the shower with me.... I remember thinking that I would never be with someone that I could share such passions with.  Not honestly.  Not truthfully.  And I remember how guilty, how depressed that made me feel.

I have been burning up inside lately.  Churning.  Boiling like a steam-powered engine.

Sometimes this produces idle frustration -- the kind where I stare blankly at the ceiling (or a pair of breasts walking by) and slip into a sort of brain-freezed autism -- the sort of autism where the breasts stare back at you and unveil the meanings of things -- of truth, of life, of places and things.  This of course, cannot be shared with anyone I know.  No one would ever believe I stare at breasts.

I am almost too tired to move.  So much in my brain to type, and I cannot type it.  Not that it's any big loss to the world -- but, sooner or later, I would like to get back to writing and blogging and goofing around on motime again.  Something to make me feel more alive.  I haven't felt much of anything at all lately, except physical pain and fatigue -- save for those momentary bouts of intense pleasure brought about by bodily friction and fluid exchange....

I am tired.

My legs ache.  My thighs are so sore and tight that they may snap at any moment.

I've simply had enough.

I've rushed and rushed and rushed hurried and been pushed as far as I can go, and now my body can't take it anymore.

Neither can my car.

They're both on strike against me.  They've formed a union.  I need scabs.  Quickly.  Somehow I need to show them I'm in control here.  Not them.

I don't need their cooperation.  I'll get rough.  I'll work without a leg.  Drive without a tire.  Drive with my feet... er, foot, if I have to, dammit.

Whoa.  Am I ever drugged.  And my legs still feel like they have pins stuck in them all along my thighs.  I am trying to type quickly and coherently while reflecting on exactly how I got to this point, get my thoughts out before I pass out here in the dark.....

My Angel worries about me.  I think practically anyone who didn't used to be married to me worries about me.  I have worked so much for so long lately, I've dropped 25 pounds in two months.  I simply haven't had the time or energy left over to eat anything.

None of this bothers me, really.  None of the money I earn goes to me.  I'm not doing this for myself.  Every effort I make, every breath I exhaust, every day I spend inside getting hastled and jostled -- it's all for something so much greater than me.

I can sleep peacefully with that in mind.

I walked in.  The place a mess.  Three hours behind.  Behind at nine.  I want to run.  Far and far away.  But bossman wouldn't pay.  The people fuss.  They shout and curse the gods and throw their fat-assed tantrums in the overcrowded aisles.

Oh why can't I go?  Why can't I go?  Oh why can't I go to where the mountain meets the sea and where the sealine meets the misty sea and Plato meets the Odyssy and no one knows what time it is and this and that and etcetera.

I worked away.  I worked all day.  They cursed the time.  I paid no mind.  I worked past nine.  I walked away.  They can kiss my ass.

Oh will the ringing ever stop in my sleep?  I hear the ring the ringing the ringing!!!  Is it done yet is it done yet??  Why an hour why an hour??  Four dollars four dollars will my insurance pay for that??  Why hadn't it been run through??  What the hell is wrong with you??  Oh the ringing the ringing the ringing, the incessant infernal ringing!!!!

The screaming the cursing the ringing the hurry the now the now the ringing the crying the now dammit now dammit now now now ringing ringing a ling ling ling now now now now!!!!!!!!!!

I got pulled over for DUI for the fourth time THIS YEAR.

This would be amazing enough for most people.

But what makes it especially amazing for me, is the fact I've never been drunk in my life.  Never even been slightly drunk.  Hell, I don't even DRINK.

Imagine the disappointment of TWO squad cars, and the late arrival of a third, as they all gathered to cart off the "drunk guy" -- only to find out he's just a really bad driver with a really messy car who only ACTS drunk even though he's perfectly sober.

They made me blow into the tube FIVE TIMES!!!  My face was turning blue by the time I was through blowing.  Then they flashed the light right in my eyes to see if my pupils were dilated....

Dude, I've worked on days and days on end, I've been up for 16 hours, driven a couple hundred miles to get here, it's pouring rain, I'm horny, and I've got a really hot babe just two miles down the road -- you do the math.

I couldn't find my license at first.  It wasn't where it usually was in my wallet.  I emptied everything out.  I was dead tired and frustrated, laughing inside while they searched over all the empty cans in the back seat -- and empty boxes of what at first must have appeared to be twelve packs of beer, but turned out to be, in fact, chocolate royale slimfast boxes and empty cans thereof.  FINALLY -- FINALLY -- I found my license after practically tearing my wallet apart for five minutes, during which time one of the officers spotted a bag of "pharmaceuticals" in the seat and demanded to know what I had in the bag.  (now I was an official drug trafficker, and there were three squad cars on the scene....)  I grabbed the bag and began handing him, one by one, each drug like it was show and tell.

I explained to the officer that I was a pharmacist, which I'm not too sure was a good idea or a bad idea, but I was tired and I didn't remember exactly what I'd filled for myself -- oh well.  I pulled out one uninteresting drug after another until the officers finally just began looking at each other and realized they'd gotten their tazers out for no reason.  They all looked heartbroken.  I almost wished I could do a crime real quick and help them out or something....

I must fit some sort of profile.  I dunno.  I get pulled over more than your stereotypical black guy in Beverly Hills.  And unless I'm speeding, I never get cited for anything.  Just a lot of disappointed cops shaking their heads in disbelief they didn't get themselves a really nice catch.

I really need to find a more efficient way to do this -- like, download my brain into motime or something.  I don't have the time it takes right now to write down all the stuff I want to blog.  Of course, I know a lot of pornographic material (mostly involving Angel getting spanked A LOT) would wind up on here if I were to do so, too, but still, it would make my blogging life much easier!

I just have to say -- Imus is a complete idiot and deserves his fate.  I have never in my life seen anyone mishandle something so incompetently.  To summarize:

1.  Okay, it was sorta funny when he called the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy headed ho's", and it was still kinda funny when he continued to insult the entire team by saying they looked like the Toronto Raptors or the Grizzleys or whatever.

2.  He should have IMMEDIATELY REALIZED that he just insulted an entire collegiate program on national television and radio.  Had it been me, I would have been on the phone ASAP with someone over at Rutgers arranging to have the show broadcast on campus there for the next week, and offered up a dozen or so "Imus" scholarships to Rutgers and become Rutgers' number one fan.  I would plug Rutgers U at every possible opportunity.  Shamelessly.  Wear Rutgers U T-shirts and hats on every program.  Become a booster.  MAKE IT ALL ABOUT RUTGERS RUTGERS RUTGERS!!!!!

That is all.  That's what I would have done, anyway, and I would have had a lot of fun with it.  I mean, WHAT IN THE HELL was Imus doing hanging out with Al Sharpton of all people???  You cannot dignify groundless accusations by acknowledging them, let alone responding to them.  By catering to Al Sharpton, it became racial, and thus racist.  What was once humorous at first, became downright offensive and ugly and inexcusible.  I don't know what Imus was thinking when he first made the comments, but his response to criticism has said TONS about what's going on inside right now.  And it ain't pretty.  Fair well, Imus.  You're a crass-headed lout.

I made a promise to someone that I would start posting again.

It would seem that most of my life has been completely marginalized of late by my constant need for money.  And since, as of yet, my clone research is still not working out -- I still have to do my own work in order to get paid.

I am almost too exhausted to think by the time I get around to pick up a computer before falling asleep at night.  My ability to form complete thoughts and put them into writing may not be pretty, but I will make the best of it....

I am lonely and sad tonight.  I am far away from home and I feel it intensely.  It has been over a year now.  I am tired of drifting.  I wish for permanence.  I have a place to call my own, a partner to go through time with and be with forever, yet I continue this way for whatever reason the gods allow......

Been thinking a lot lately about the lives we used to have, the people we used to share them with -- my ex, her ex.... how different we were then.  We were made to be different.  It makes me so angry at the people we were with, to think there are people so intensely insecure and self-focused that they will suck the life out of another person and feel utterly justified in doing so.

I've been invited to go drinking with the girls next friday night.  I jokingly accepted -- though I feel it's become more and more of a dare, since it would seem we're headed for a gay bar full of drag queens.  And I'm the only guy, with at least a half-dozen or so coworkers that I only vaguely know.  And I don't drink (it's not that I don't like to feel tipsy, I just think alcohol tastes NASTY).  And I'm not the least bit interested in drag queens.  And I'd prefer to be on my most outrageous behavior with my wife -- hard to really let go and relax without her around when there's debauchery involved!

I'll probably take a pass on the experience and get some much needed rest.

Twilight shadowing west, even the willow looks tired.  I've mellowed to a calmer state, teeter tottering to acceptance.  

You smile, I'm up tilted over the playground, swinging toward freedom from those depths.

A minute shifts the world, word, face turns to the other side of real and bumps dirt, stones again, like a sliding board with rust -- you won't slip straight through, but scratch down part way, or you go around, around.

Someone spins the wheel, crazy running, sky twists into kaleidoscope shards.  Dizzy. You want to oh just jump off, catch bearings.

Some kids can go straight across the monkey bars, hand to hand in smooth self-propelled ride, settling feet first, striding to evening.

Did you ever wish to close your eyes and wake up 8 again?

I wish the mist
would swallow me --
it swallows trees
in white oceans
where I could swim
across valleys,
peering at birds
asleep below.

I would ride slow currents of clouds -- catching the crest of the morning until soft waves slip me ashore... then drift away to summer skies....

Poised before an impossibility, I pause to pontificate the simplicity of a leaf, drifting down on a sigh of serendipity --skimming, soaking,  finally riding the current beneath it, alone.

Embracing without question, it feels its way with muted perception as the world floats by, subdued.

The tapestry hangs before me.... when I look at the words woven in the fabric, love stands out. 

But see, it needs a place where comfort resides -- a poetic declaration threaded out of life.

Tragedies of yesteryear become explorations written in metaphor.  Sometimes understanding is all it takes.

There is strength, a caricature -- omnipotent and alive. 

It needs you and the work will be complete.

You flip the coin and it lands heads.  The big shiny NEW head.  Jefferson's head.  (Not the lame-ass granny-style wig head on our older nickles).

I love Jefferson.  His accomplishments are so numerous, so legendary.  But the nickle.... that's his greatest prize.

Jefferson tells us to go left.  We go left and it takes us home.  Jefferson never lies.

The dime guy, on the other hand.... he has his share of screw-ups.  Who the hell is he, by the way??  I swear he looks just like Harry Truman.  But others tell me he's anyone from Ike to FDR.  Not so sure about that.  Still say he looks like Truman.  The bomb guy.

My heart's racing at the moment and probably will be for the next day or so, so if I manage o coherent thought here I will accomplish the thinking thing..

300 looks like one of the best 300 B.C.-era war movies ever made.  I'm excited.  I always considered those wars the "forgotten wars".  The vets got lost in the turmoil of the times.  I mean, it was the B.C.'s, after all!  That knowledge alone would tend to make one a little on edge.

I feel..... I should probably stop there.  No good blog post could ever come out of an "I feel" beginning.  I can do better than that.

My body is tired.  I work crappy hours at the worst effing pillmill several hours away from the only woman in the world who lets me spank her and pull her hair and call her dirty names without charging me by the hour.  And right now, after days like today, I could really go for some of that.  Actually, every day I work is like today.  Thankless and exhausting and demoralizing.  I get told so many times by so many different people how completely stupid and utterly worthless I am, I'm amazed to see a constant mob anxious to receive the fruits of my incompetence.  You'd think word would get out by now.

Translation:  long waits = my incompetence. Bad insurance = my incompetence.  Bad doctors = my incompetence.  Pretty much, anything that doesn't go their way = my incompetence.

What makes it worse, I actually like my job.  That's a bad thing when your job totally kicks your ass everyday like this one does.  It's just, certain people make it almost unbearable at times with their complete and total lack of respect, understanding, intellect, right to live, or whatever.

I ate nothing today except a couple of over-processed "chicken" nuggets I had for my sad excuse of a lunch break.  Until just a few minutes ago, when I unwisely decided to down a Ho-ho.  Now I feel shaky, tired, and just plain miserable in my newfound hungry state with no desire or ability to get off my ass and eat something halfway filling.  Oh, and I hear I'm missing out on a shit-load of snow tonight while I wallow away my time here.  Great.  Not a good night at all.

Dammit.

I needed some kind of change to get me going again with this blog thing.  Thanks to Howard and that adorable Angel chick for giving me SOMETHING to work with.  I'm a complete neandertal with this computer stuff now, sadly enough.  Hard to believe, once upon a time, back in the 80's, when the PC first hit home, I was way ahead of every kid in my class up until junior high.  Then I discovered breasts....

I think it all started when my seventh grade Spanish teacher first stepped into the classroom wearing something low-cut.  Or maybe it was the first time she reached into her desk for some paper and revealed enough cleavage to cut off all blood flow to my hormonally overwhelmed brain, creating the oversexed disconnected weirdo I turned into today.... ahhh yes, those were the days.  Ironically, I never learned how to say "breasts" in spanish during the two years I spent in her class ogling her.  I always remember her boobs seemed to bounce a lot, because she always seemed to laugh.  She laughed at EVERYTHING.  She was one of those rare happy people who really enjoyed what she did.  I always sort of felt guilty about this later on, for shamelessly fantasizing about such a wonderful person, and taking nothing else away from her class except the excitement of seeing her curvaceous body everyday.  And I was glad, twenty years later, to be able to find her and tell her so -- much to her amusement and flattery.

"You got me through puberty," I told her, with a laugh.

Modestly, she tells me she never knew the effect she had on men until AFTER her "looks" were gone.... "I bet I've gained a hundred pounds since the last time you saw me...."

As I listened to her giggle and laugh hoarsely through the phone, I was reassured -- for now at least -- that the icon from my past is still very much at large in a classroom somewhere in western Pennsylvania.  Her looks may be gone, but you can still hear her laugh and watch her jiggle.  And I'm sure she's something very much to see, still, after all these years.....

I used to see the world with clear defined lines -- in high definition claritiy that Texas Instruments would be proud of -- 1080p clarity, the sort of clarity where you could see the slightest blemish on an actor's face....

I find, however, the world is much clearer the less attention you pay to the finer details.  The trees, the forest, the road -- the general picture -- it's all what you make of it, but it is really nothing more than that.  The chronology of our life, when and who we shared certain of our life's experiences with -- a hodgepodge of places and events and people -- connected by dates and seasons of time....

I have learned to cut away that time in my mind -- mix and match the events, places and times with the right people in a way which makes more since to me.  Wasted periods of my life suddenly become so much more meaningful -- priceless....

Those potentially romantic walks along the beach, when I was longing for the woman I'm with now -- in my mind, I walked those walks with her.....

Some days you just know are going to be great, like when an aardvark bites you in the ass and you discover the recipe for everlasting bubblegum that never loses its bubbleliciousness....

On that note, I wouldn't trade places with road kill, no matter how pretty the colors match once the carcass has been run over several dozen times and its internals have been flattened all over the pavement....

No, really.  Some days are just meant to be great.  The aardvark is the key.  The ass is the portal.  Teeth, the conductor.

I am too tired to move, too wired to sleep.  About the only thing I CAN do is blog, other than keep the wife awake all night.  (Given the fact I'm not exactly lying right next to her at the moment, there isn't anything "fun" I could do with her right now besides pester her with your typically weird middle-of-the-night disconnectedies.....)

Before I zonk.... before my brain gives out to mush and my mnemonic network ceases to fire coherently with disseminating thought patterns.... I just wanted to wish the world a pleasant good night.

The world has been good to me this day.  This day, in which I woke up with a pseudo hangover from staring at a computer screen late into the night and arising much too early the morning thereafter.... only to find myself coasting to work at an even keel, feeling the world at ease, on lightly traveled roads on a sleepy Saturday morning, staring into the mirror into a pair of hypnotic flashing bluish colored lights atop the aft vehicle nearest me.  With several hundred yards' separation, I eased my chair back and glided down the roadway, inviting the lights' pursuit.  They lagged behind at first, so I accelerated slightly and drifted over and back again, and then again.  After about another mile, the lights drew closer to me, and I gave into their demands.

I spent the next half-score hours being berated for my incompetence as a human being, as an organic life form, as an organism, as a molecule.... completely solidifying my theory that humanity will not survive another generation of the sort of ramped stupidity which currently serves as the bulk of its rank and file....

But you know what????  It completely doesn't matter.

I am married to the absolute most amazing, brilliant, thoughtful, independently willful, and soulfully beautiful woman on the face of the earth.  And nothing could detract from the importance of that in my life right now.  Or ever.

I know I write about it ad nauseum, but do I really ever take the time to CELEBRATE it?  Particularly after going so many years of constant longing and barely hidden misery.

I used to have to travel all over the globe trying to find something "romantic" to do with my wife, trying to gloss over the monotony and obvious non-existent chemistry.  Everything hinged on "creating" moments... because nothing was natural.  Pictures had to be carefully posed so that we could look back and make ourselves believe we were happy and "in love".... or whatever mood we were supposed to be in for the created mood....

Not anymore.  Now, I could sit in a bucket of oyster shells with my woman and it could be romantic.  I could sit dead tired slumped next to her three hours before I have to work watching "Snakes on a Plane" and it could be more romantic than any "moment".

Because we are both to each other what the other sees inside whenever we are unable to see for ourselves.  We are two lights above the ocean. We are the lines inside the finger print.  We are the rat's star.