Cranky Disdain

In a lightning strike in reverse, it became more clear. The rolling thunder, building in the distance, forshadowed the realization, the truth to come. It was lunch, around 2 o'clock in a higher quality chain sandwich shop known for toasted sandwiches and pepper bar. All was reasonable with first contact....conversation of hello and what I would like prepared for me...ok. Down the prep-line I went, grabbed a bag of chips and waited behind the only other person in line to trade the representation of my time and efforts for food. As I waited the pile of food containers at the single bay sink caught my eye. The austerity of the shiny black plastic was compromised by little bits of food clinging to thier sides. The way they were precariously stacked, some nested, some leaning, piled over the entire shelf of the sink hinted at the environment they existed in: busy yet methodic, multiple tasks demanding a single attention with the rhythm of production, machine operators. The thunder grows louder. I approach the counter for trade and am greated by a young lady looking like she should be sitting in a classroom or a cafeteria, in need of mental and physical nourishment. How does one know this? I don't typically pass judgements on appearance even before actions, but this is the scene through mine eyes.

The trade. I declare again the product I want from them and after moments of intense scrutiny over color coded and labled buttons, some number is told to me. I was not listening, and as the blind march of cattle, the Jackson is produced, offered, and taken. It is growing close now, the thunder; the windows rattled in thier metal frame streching from floor to ceiling. The bills in her hand are piling up now, accompanied by the timid clink of change. Another number is told at me, I was listening more than before, enough to know the last numbers I heard and these numbers I am hearing now do not belong together. The twitch you feel when passing a car door ajar with none in sight, yet you do not investigate, only log it in as 'not right'.

Not until you see on the evening news, or when you log the transaction into your budget, does the truth reveal itself. The tumbling thunder creshendoes into a crack, followed by a flash. The last number read back to me, the change, was indeed not the first's compliment. The "18" at the end that didn't match up with the "27" - the "14" not matching up with the "7" - what is actually an inability to read, critically think, "do math" - all of it comming down to getting the wrong change. The actual change recieved back was the miliary time of the transaction: 14:18. A smirk painted my face first followed by another flash of realization. Is this the reaction of an "older generation" to a young one? Is this the preamble of cranky old timers harping on younger generations' ineptitude? If it is, I think I know where mine is comming from. I have worked places similar in concept and nature to this place. Washed similar dishes bespeckled with bits of food destined for the wastewater system. Transacted exchanges of paper for food and goods. And with as much modesty a judgemental "older generation-er" can muster, I was above average in the execution of said tasks regardless of what mental or physical state I chose to be in while executing them.

Now begin the questions. Its two-eighteen on a Friday in mid-December. I have been out of the high school scene for some time now, but I'm still pretty sure school won't get out for another hour at least and the person working here wouldn't start until the afternoon shift, 4 or so if not 5 to close. Drop out? possible, and would explain most. Post-graduate? the clouds are growing darker....enough said....

its just one of those times, growing increasingly more frequent, when I am taken aback, suprised even, and have to ask...Really? You couldn't do this.

LUCY ((Australopithecus)

well, can't sleep.
LUCY is at the Houston Museum of Natural Science http://http//lucyexhibition.com/about-the-exhibit.aspx in what I believe to be the first US tour, if not, ever of LUCY the little hominid that could. The exhibit touts the culture and history and richness of Ethiopia with Lucy as the ambassador. It does accomplish that, but what struck me was the dichotomy of theory. The majority of the first part, the Ethiopian culture part, was focused on the area's strong Christian ties: Kings converting, meticulously carved wooden crosses, and architecture - churches carved out of stone. That was quite amazing. Rather than quarrying the stone, carving, and stacking it up, the Ethiopians carved down into a hillside some thirty to fifty feet (10 to 18 meters).

There are no scale figures in this, but the doorway in the bottom right corner is about three feet wide 9-10 feet high. The exhibit didn't have any interior images; i would love to see what happens inside. Really, quite spectacular; and the lovely red stone with yellow/green mold or sulfur or whatever, weathering it.

There were a few Q'uran from the 17th century, some illuminated scriptures, some painted wooden planks with Christ depicted in THEIR image; although the nose was always to thin...even in their burial carvings, thin nose, massive male member. Anyway, after wading through all of the Christian icons, a spear or two, and a couple of coins, one would walk into a fourth room where a movie narrated by the 'founder' of Lucy played along the far wall. The other two walls contained the story of evolution - our mutant ancestry - and in the middle of the room before you arrived at the movie benches, were five skulls ranging from first break from Chimpanzees to Lucy's lineage. Ah, what brow ridges. The next room was Lucy's. She's small: about 3'-6", 80 to 100 lbs. Nicely done display: her life size, furry mock-up as she would have been was in the middle, encased in glass. Off center to that was her skeletal remains laying down on black foam, encased in glass. Those bones were 3.2 million years old.

3.2 million years old......damn, that's old.

And, at the top of the room along a wall was here skeletal remains standing up, in their respective locations facing the furry mock-up. In a half moon shape, lining the rounded walls was the evolutionary story of hominids and such: ending with a very clever piece about homosapians being the first of the lineage able to record and contemplate their own history. At first I didn't realize they were talking about current homosapians - clever way to include one in history and mark them in the timeline and sell you or charge you perhaps the evolutionary notion. I wonder if the exhibit would have been constructed differently in other areas? For a moment, I thought I was back in Kansas - bible beaters drumming away on animal hide instruments...I wonder what Ethiopians, the average one, would think about the strong christian balance to such a strong evolutionary theme? To me, a clear example of how our perceptional lenses frame, alter, distort, and/or otherwise create both history and contemporary thought/theory/fact. Could it have just been presented for what it was? the science of it? the archeology? probably not considering Galveston/Houston has the largest Catholic diocese in the country. Just had a Galveston bishop? or Monsignor? elected to the college of Cardinals.

scary pumpkin...

April 27th...april 27th was nearly seven months ago. a bit has changed in seven months: finished a 'capstone' or final project of an undergraduate degree, graduated and recieved said undergraduate degree, awarded Hienzelmann Prize for outstanding project of the graduating class, moved 800 miles south, began career at architectural firm, moved into apt with my truest love, ..., traveled to and fro hometowns, ..., finally posted blog.

I think this is the part where the long lost blogger would pledge to post more often and advise the reader of what new and great things were on the way having seen realized and shuned my ill ways of old. These promises I will not make. It is what it will be. Its late, for me: the "get up earlier than I ever wanted to but actually do get up and can't beleive I actually get up everyday I'm supposed to at that time and actually function or at least drive twenty miles an hour for thirty to forty minutes staring at the tail lights of some oversized pick'm'up truck until I drink two cups of coffee before 10:00am CST."

good night.

welcome...

umm, why in the hell is my prairie blue?
its a meditation chapel


this is a 'haven of repose'. the young lady is drying in her private bath courtyard, and oh look, some new found freinds are trying to get our attention across the way.
why in the hell is it blue?

Irony

nyc city hall circa fall 2005

Just a thought...

I live in a 1960's (probably, guessing by the decor) eight unit apartment building. Its construction does not lend itself to close quarters living, i.e. thin walls, poor layout leading to acoustic problems, little to no insulation, and leaky connections. This all contributes to poor acoustic separation. I live on the second floor (more like one and a half) and my neighbors below are with the Big Red One at Fort Riley (local Army base).

Typically, every Friday and Saturday and sometimes on Sunday, a hip-hop party with bass so loud my pictures shake. Its funny, the music is so loud in the living room, most of the party goers congregate in the kitchen to yell at each other. hmmm.

Speaking of yelling, the evening typically ends with a domestic dispute of some kind...yelling, car door slamming, some scuffling, and more yelling. If I was to pyscho-analyize, this is what they are supposed to do, as they are 'warriors' and battlers trained in confrontation and aggression.

As of late, the parties have been silent. My guess, they are either in tight training preparing for Iraq or they (their friends also) have already gone.

And it makes me think...these are the people we are sending over there. Sure, they aren't all, but stereotypes and assumptions grow from experience. My experience with military folk of this age are as follows above. Rowdy, partiers, confrontational, and not folk I would classify as upper middle class.

Makes sense too. People need money for college, training, easy escape from situation = military service. Whoops, we're in a war now and I have to be a soldier.

These people don't want to be a soldier any more than I do. They're not really the type of person I would consider to be a 'good' soldier. Maybe they have discipline when they are 'on duty,' but true discipline is a life style. Maybe they are rowdy and party obnoxiously because they go places like Iraq. Understandable.

I feel that if you're going to be in the military, be there. Don't let them into the general population until their service is up. Put them on base, keep them there, and make them live the live they have chosen: discipline, order....weekend passes not withstanding. maybe some of the results in Iraq might be different (performance, scandal, dissent...) The majority of the blame lies with leadership at all levels...but the leaders at the unit level are the same...

Maybe I'm just tired of living next to bad neighbors and broadly making assumptions about the military...maybe not.

military, yeah i support them, doesn't mean i can't criticize them.

architecture, my mistress

Long before our love making sweat has gone,
an early morning beckon arouses
smoldering desires of another.
Time knows of no hour I will not come
to my mistress bathed in inspiration.
To selfishly satisfy needs making
an hour into days, effortlessly.

The dancing phone, up to now obscure,
blending into the un-world beyond,
begs my attention and explanation
upon your discovery of the void
in our bed made of a different love.
The moment’s fever distorts our timeline,
holds it in a glance lasting just breath’s length.

its quarter of five.
tired.
another model production day/night/day.
more tommorrow.
more drawing tomorrow.
tired.

State of the Union

i
upon the sidewalk that children and mothers stroll
while shopping for glamorous trinkets
whose worth will evaporate into nothing
during the car ride home,
are the dark splattered stains of misjudgment.
lined in a row at the base of the wall,
cowering in the corner,
unapologetically in the center, mid-stumble,
their memory endures beyond the night’s.

ii

the hollow light box bleats
questions, amazement, concern, analysis, commentary.
about the untimely, tragic death
of a drug addicted, pillaging white trash whore
impregnated by a faceless seed.
when i asked the girl
exchanging my plastic card for beer
‘who really cares?’
her answer stammered out with flashing eyelids
honestly shocked at the notion:
‘i’m just worried about her baby.’

indeed.

iii
the yellow metal monster rips across the landscape
with the indifference of a hand to mosquito.
what took a lifetime to build is cleared in minutes.
the grave marker posted at the asphalt’s black edge reads
‘ivy woods coming soon.’
their majesty replaced with dried and hollow carcasses,
fallen friends clumsily piled high
in the dumb repetition of a skipping record.
the only means of survival
is sucking out the sweet marrow of life
as a parasitic cancer on the land.

iv

i want only
to want what i need.
i’m supposed to want;
want what I need and more
until want becomes need.
needing to want is what they want.
they want me to need them.
they need that, not me.
i need what I don’t want,
i’ll never need what i want.
Want is wont,
but wanton need is worse.
i don’t want to want.
i don’t want to need.
why can’t i just be?

restored faith

while i only have twenty hours to finish a model which deserves about forty, a series of events this morning (half hour after i wake up qualifies as morning even if it is one thirty) that deserves note.

i didn't realize it was missing until i stumbled up to the counter to buy basswood for the aforementioned model, reached into my pocket to pull out only a phone. flustered, still sleeping, and disappointed at the notion of spending fifteen more minutes to return home to retrieve it, i left to do just that. after a fifteen minute search of the small apartment, car, bed, the only three places i had been in the last four hours, the realization of the only explanation enveloped me like a warm bath.

i tried to visit McDonald's for a quick and somewhat tasty bacon bagel, but they did not accept plastic at the time. i have not carried cash for about two months now and probably won't anytime soon. again, disappointed but satisfied not to spend six more dollars, drove home and fixed two salami sandwiches. the wallet on my lap stayed there until i got out of the car and fell to the ground.

*FUCK* capital letters does not describe the resounding scream, yell, exclamation which left my body in my parking lot.

i resolved it was gone and began to process the chain of events to simultaneously sever and reattach myself from its contents. i knew it was gone because of the riff-raff who lives below me who had stolen mail out of the mail box. i knew it was gone because the only parking spot at six in the morning was right next to the sidewalk. i knew it was gone because it makes sense, things were going too well, rather, too smoothly.

rummaging in my bed for the third time, a knock on the sliding door. the neighbor below and to the west, not the hoodlums who have hip hop parties every night with bass so loud my pictures move, asked if anyone had lost a wallet.

you're kidding.

his buddy had found it, turned it to him believing it was someones in the complex, and the exclamation clued him into someones frustration/realization/problem.

if i had any cash, it would have been his, but for now my gratitude, my restored faith in good people, the remembrance of a bumper sticker on chico's car 'good stuff happens,' will do.

what's even more amazing is the residuals, the lingering smell of your pillow from the woman you love when she has been gone for a week. i returned to buy the basswood for the model i'm still not working on and the girl i've worked with, seen countless times over the last three months, looked just a little cuter, her smile just a little more genuine, bright.

the perceptional framework one lives in is fantastic. how it shapes our reality. how the gesture of someone doing the right thing, being a good neighbor changes the face of a day, hopefully days, in an instant.

we need more of that.

thanks neighbor.

mmm, berlin

believe it or not, this is a transit stop on the Museuminsle in Berlin. though fictitious, i think it would be a nice installation...some day perhaps.

Planetary Motion

Beyond the bare sycamore tree
the sky’s fire submits
to the deep sapphire of night.

The three colored points
I have been tracking
converge among the swarm of white fire-flies.

Sitting on the frozen mud
I hold them all in my hand
even though I am their passenger.

Quarters!

while watching the history channel or discovery or some other pseudo-educational show...actually, i think it was CBS News during the wee hours of the morning, the news lady informed me that a new gold dollar coin was going into circulation __ again. after the news folk talked back and forth with experts, treasury officials, and citizens at great length, they resolved that most of the people who actually care about such things and purchase rolls upon rolls of coins are collectors or numismatics.

Quickly they recounted the story of the ten year state quarter program. while still having two years left, the state quarter program has generated 29,132,760,000 quarters. (29 billion and change) [nice pun, eh?] the total worth being $7.3 billion. now here comes the interesting part...it only costs $0.09 to produce each quarter. that means the mint turns a nice profit of $4.7 billion thus far on the state quarter program with two years remaining.

wow. like those who we despise 'trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents' the mint is making money off of money and marketing it to us as collector items. who would have thought consumerism could be so fun and exciting. i wonder where all that 'profit' goes? what does it buy? might making right probably. actually, in the grand scheme of things, its not very much. when looking up the national debt to get some scale, it turns out that if these profits were distributed, every citizen, actually, not sure if that's accurate, every person comprising the 301 million in US would get $15.48 compared to the $29,082.08 we each owe on the debt. still, i think the principle here is important. it feels like i'm being taxed $.16 for every quarter i purchase. it's only worth nine cents, but i have to pay 25 for the chance to use it in 'all debts public and private' and i should be happy about that 'cause the is a picture of a bison on it.

does it bother anyone else that the government is making money off of money, and more accurately, me. i wish government was a not-for-profit organization run by businessmen who understand that if you spend too much - you cease to exist; if you piss off those you serve - you cease to exist; if you exploit those you serve - you cease to exist. where is perot when you need him?

Drawing the First Line

Pull slowly from its thin cell
the ghost of everything and nothing:
A dignified face of virgin snow
helplessly waiting for a plow to soil it.

Laid upon table as offering
spread the rag smooth along the border.
Corners clamped with suppressive care,
its pure color glares indignation.

From the cache choose certainly.
Prodding finger shunts them
back and forth; their hollow jingles
pledge allegiance.

Wield the shank dulled by sacrifice,
and grind back its sharp vigor:
scrape flesh
from bone
reveal
its soul.
Another couple of twists, firm yet forgiving,
a quick burst of air to shed its tears.

Woven through fingers with feathery grace,
gently brush love’s airs
as a spring breeze persuading prairie grass,
wisps less caution strewn.

Yet with unshaken faith
crisp edge cut again n’ again
on its face breaks of black
shards exact n’ crisp.

the bottle of merlot begins to have its perscribed effect. looking for some productive distraction i thought it might be fitting to begin posting some of my poems.
thus far the topics and format range and i am engaged in the search for a new topic. i am leaning toward the current state of our (as in society or at least the culture i am imersed) 'priorities.' perhaps priorities might be too strong. the manner in which i determine what is important to "us" is the dedication and allocation of the things we value. now, the whole argument may be knocked out if you contest what is valued, but let's not do that, i'm still new at this.

i think all of this is beginning to fester again while i waited in line behind who i assumed to be a 'frat' boy purchasing nearly $300 of alcohol consisting of cheep vodka and several (7 i think) 30 pack cans of back-wash labeled "natural light." obviously, i'm an elitist because i was purchasing merlot and guiness, but that's not the issue here. while waiting, the constant babble of a 'concerned' and inquisitive news reporter noisily assaulted my ears, intellegence, and social ego. for what seems to be an eternity, at least three days, the media has been obsessed, as they always are, about a drug-addicted, white trash, gold-digging ex-stripper who 'tragically' died in a hotel. when i asked the clerks 'who really cares?' one was quick to answer "i do...i mean.. i care about her baby who will have serious detatchment issues."

are you kidding me. mothers die every day, but where is their story? does this woman represent, is the spokeswoman, for all of those unwritten stories, investigations, and days of non-stop media coverage? hearing in great detail about this woman of a five month old who nobody knows the father of, does this accurately represent all of those mothers we don't hear about? *sigh*

why do we have to hear about her? does it make us feel better about our own lives? does it make for an interesting story, 'cause everybody likes a good story? its about money, because the medial is not about giving information for the sake of information but to make ratings, sell advertisements, and propetuate their own existence. so why does this sell? just another distraction i suppose to what we really have to deal with in and out of our control.

productive procastination

Well, I have gone and done it. It's 6:00am (regardless of the pacific time zone stamp i believe will be imposed below) and i'm feeling the tension between productivity and sleep. In a keen diversionary tactic i visited the only two readily packaged, waiting, binary, one-sided conversations known to me, and was glad to read them both. The contemorary letter--blog, less the 39 cents, but still demanding anticipation and waiting. Some bloggers seem to wait days, even weeks before pinching a post. Myself waited a couple of years.

Today was the day, though. Avoiding the design and vocabulary of a retreat center nestled in the Konza Prairie of Kansas, frustrated with streaky and inconsistant gradient washes in watercolor, and avoiding the 8 degree weather that cuts through my wool coat as if it were gamma radiation.
(hmm, did the knee-jerk reaction of Ctrl-S and recieved a pleasant suprise--yeah for user friendly, idiot designs).

So, as i finish my white faux porcelin tea cup of sake, i bid thee welcome to thine musings.