Ester, In An Alcove

Ester, darling.  What's wrong with me.  I only find comfort in the old souls now, old ladies with ice cream cones and sheepdogs in alcoves.  Old mystics, old dearies.  The breeze plays with her grays.  The sun breeds her smile.  She's a flowering conversation she is, a natural good and I'm anxious less when I talk to her.  What is that?  Even with the coffee, Ester y Califa; the goddess and the sheepdog, sweet darlings.  We talk about the early heat and conquistadors and the way everything changes.

It's only fun because i told myself I just wanted to talk to pretty girls again, pretty women with good hearts and by God, they come to me.  Ester by all accounts is a beautiful lovely old lady.  She's no doubt warmed my heart.  I can still feel it past the cortado jitters.  She tells me she's seventy-seven before she leaves.  Her son's got twenty years on me, but it's only natural.  I just had to talk to her.  How could I not?  It's the simplest thing.  Then everything falls into place, and I'll buy a book today: On Booze by F. Scott



"How do you get over someone?"

"You listen to a song that makes you cry until it doesn't make you cry anymore."

Quote of the Day: Legends of the Fall

“Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends.”

 ~ Jim Harrison

Writing Bicycles: A Novel

A bike is a bike is a bicycle.  But it's more than just that, you know, just one word.  One word is a name.  That doesn't define a thing or a man or a woman, at least not entirely.  Definition takes...

Well for one, it takes more words.  It takes thought and insight into what isn't on the surface.  When I say bicycle, you see an image of a bicycle.  Hard stop.

It's the bike you're most familiar with.

But when I say freedom, it's not one image you see, it's not a bicycle, it's not a bike.  It's intangible for a second.  You have to think about it to really see anything besides the letters in the word.  Freedom.  An idea, a feeling like freedom, makes the mind race faster than any bicycle can.

After that intangible second, that strain for focus, the floodgates open.  It's a deluge usually.  Probably eagles, America, et cetera.  But don't stop.  Stayed focused.  There's so much more.  Let your mind off the leash in that meadow of thought.  Meander.

This probably makes zero sense to you, I know, but it's crystal clear.  Trust me.
That's why I'm writing a bicycle.




*****




PART I: Scattante R330

When I finally got accepted to a UC after two years of slaving away at Santa Monica Community College, my uncle bought me a bicycle.  I told him I was going to Santa Cruz and that the campus was atop a mountain.  He's a bit of a bicycle enthusiast to say the least (when he retired from his government job in DC, he rode his bike across the country to the little plot he called home in the Tri Cities area of Washington state), so he found me a nice light racing bike that could take hills well.  It had twenty-seven speeds and a ultra-light carbon-fiber frame.  She was all black with red and white racing stripes, and she was so lovely, she was the nicest bicycle I've ever owned.




PART II: Schwinn World Sport

3/1/2012
I like running.  Well no, I shouldn't say that.  I don't actually run even.  I don't get it, personally.  It hurts, it makes me sore afterwards.  I don't like the shock to the knees, and I've always got more pressing things at hand.  Like all life's little stresses.  And they're not always so little.  Yes to be sure, I must admit that I hate running.  What I love is running away.

Not in the Forrest Gump way, but to the same virtue maybe.  Sometimes in a car, sometimes on a plane, but today it's on a bike, which I prefer sometimes because I can feel the world fly by through my hair, feel the distance grow behind me on my face, and feel everything faster and alive.  Today running away is galloping off to work, but it feels grand all the same.  And I only turn back to check traffic.

Bajo Fondo

Give me a second.  I'm trying to find the right words.  I want to articulate this properly and right now all my thoughts are spitting out, like an old-timey stock market ticker at a constant vomit.  Take a deep breath, one at a time now.

Today is the day I realized I don't want to win her back.  There's a sickness of the mind in her.  I've known it for quite some time now, but for some reason it hadn't matter until today.  I feel like I'm skirting a storm right now.

It feels better and better each day.  It's a full wind building in the sails, and I need to write down all the things that would be too brutal to say to her face; all the things on the tip of my tongue on the ticker tape.  Maybe brutal is the wrong word.

She always had an incredibly intricate way of projecting her feelings onto me.  Intricate, no... I'm having trouble with words today, see I told you.  She was always quite blunt about it.  She would tell me how I feel.  She would tell me what I thought and for a long time, before I realized, it was fucking confusing; fucking mind-fucking.

I didn't think I felt that way, but did i?  I didn't feel like those were my thoughts, but were they?  Was I really that oblivious?  More gullibility, but that fades, and all that's left is a fear of upsetting her.  What upsets her?  A difference of opinion, spirited disagreement, a counterpoint; that's why I tried not to give them.  Sometimes I would give one, and that's all it would take for the spiral to start, just a simple defense of myself, so I swallowed them instead most times.  It was always easier to agree with her.  Mind you, this is back when I still wanted to marry her.

It's self-destructive.  It's a defense mechanism.  It's as plain as day to me now, I just don't know how to tell her.  When I think about it logically, it's a simple question.  What's more logical?  That she's more in tuned with my thoughts and feelings than I am, or that she can't cope with her own negativity, her own fears and weaknesses so she pretends they're someone else's.  I wish I could tell her to replace "you" with "I" sometimes, to be open to that perspective and look inward to root out the problem instead of personifying it in someone else.

It sucks because she projected the good too.  And that's why I loved her so much.  Her smile warmed like the sun, and her drive was infectious, and to make her happy was the absolute best feeling in the entire world.  I wish it wasn't always so fleeting.

For both our sakes.

Sebo

Last night was a night like any other Friday night.  I worked the night shift at the hotel.  I took off an hour early to meet Max and Miss India, but that fell through, so I biked back to Townhouse and danced by myself until a beautiful girl took me by the hand and started to spin under it, and we danced a real dance holding each other close in a tango embrace and always spinning, spinning, spinning.  She was a good dancer.  She was older than I, and had a French accent that I just barely picked up on when she told me she had a boyfriend.  I kissed her hand with a smile and told her to find friends.  She dropped her drink on the way.

Later, I had to save her from a guy much drunker than I, and I took her outside and bummed us a cigarette to share.  Like brand new best friends, we talked small and bummed more cigarettes.  She's from Toronto and she's a UN consultant, and she told me I was dangerous because of my looks and the way that I danced.  "I'm not going home with you," she kept saying, half to me, half to herself.

And I said, "Ok," until her friends came out, and I smiled and told them to get her home safe.  They were good people, two girls and a guy.  Beautiful people walking down Windward.

Why is it that I'm always attracting beautiful girls with boyfriends now.  It was St. Patty's Day all over again.  Just names, no phone numbers.  Beautiful strangers. I feel like fucking James Bond, but I'm miserable because I'm still in love with her, the breath of fresh air, that Claire.

I could've gone home then, but I went back inside and ran smack into Elle and Sebo and they invited me over for some hand-rolled cigarettes and hot lemon water among other delights (a girl accosted me on the way), and we stayed up until 4:00 talking about traveling and the joys of life.  Like free burritos and sock sponsors.  He's a skater.  Beautiful.

Box City

There should be a word for what's happening to my life right now,
something like an upward spiral.
I'm afraid to say.

Whatever this is,
this isn't downward,
I know that.

I'm rocketing away now,
traded the ponies in
and got me an old-fashioned missile to the moon.

I'm not there yet,
still blasting through the void.
I hope
I get there soon.



"You are ridiculous."

"You already said that; new word."

"What?"

"I don't know... something like, incorrigible."
"Yeah, that's nice."

"You're incorrigible."

"Why thank you, darling."

JUUS BOKS

I think it's German.  That's funny, just earlier this week I was at Sacha's, on a whim as always.  She was actually home and she was of course having people over.  I can say without a doubt that she's the friend that's always had the best ability to put my mind at ease.  Now that I think about it, I've been running away to Sacha for more than a decade now.

Huh.
Crazy.

Anyways when she's here, she's always been there for me, ha!  Like Mother Willow.

I was talking to Black Steve and Tessa out on the porch with a cigarette.  I'd bummed one.  Tessa said she used to bum them, but she'd given in, and started buying packs, so she released one to me gladly.  We were talking about European sexuality.  The French are romantic.  German girls are wild.

Tessa asked, "How so?"

I said, "They'll match you. They'll dare you with an open mind and unafraid, come-fuck-me eyes."

"I can understand that."

March as been the worst month of my life.