Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
16. Regenerate your system through diet and exercise. Save the cookies!
Says the Fortune Cookie writer.
I haven't been eating much or exercising at all lately. Riding a roller coaster, currently feeling low. Like it or not, I'm tied to the sun. But tonight I take the advice, go outside and walk a trail through a bouldered woodland for half an hour. Every five minutes I stop to do some push ups. There are no people about. I hear only birds and distant cars. I see a single deer track on the trail and the light filtering down through the leaves. It smells good here. This is far superior to being tortured by Katy Perry in a crowded gym.
I haven't been eating much or exercising at all lately. Riding a roller coaster, currently feeling low. Like it or not, I'm tied to the sun. But tonight I take the advice, go outside and walk a trail through a bouldered woodland for half an hour. Every five minutes I stop to do some push ups. There are no people about. I hear only birds and distant cars. I see a single deer track on the trail and the light filtering down through the leaves. It smells good here. This is far superior to being tortured by Katy Perry in a crowded gym.
Friday, June 19, 2015
Monday, June 15, 2015
15. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
No shit, Sherlock
I see that fortune cookie writers run dry and fall back on cliches too
How about something punchy like Hey, Sunshine! Your world is on fire
You make me wonder, Universe,
if I can write myself out of this rut,
if I can right myself
Wake with mild nausea and annoyance at 11:39 PM
to go and meet a man in the ER
reportedly suicidal without a plan
for a moment, in your delirium,
you think they want you to help him make one
Return to bed at 3 AM
having assisted with an anti-suicide plan
something the insurance company will pay for
you opened the gate
Calculate in your head what the trip will net you:
a few dollars to throw in the hole
She's been quiet today, and you feel the distance lying here
trying to interpret it across the miles through the darkness
There's a chill in the air with the slider open
and you fall asleep wrapped in an unwashed sheet
preparing to be alone, feeling your own pulse,
setting your alarm for three hours out
......
There's no shortage of these young men
in the middle of the night
lying in ER beds
hopeless, helpless, homeless,
not much to say
opioid addicted, mid to late 20s.
thinking of ending it
Catch a whiff of their desert
feel the pull of their vacuum
spiraling down through
the late Spring of their lives
This time we have presses down
with all this not knowing
what to do with ourselves,
frighteningly short
and impossibly long
I see that fortune cookie writers run dry and fall back on cliches too
How about something punchy like Hey, Sunshine! Your world is on fire
You make me wonder, Universe,
if I can write myself out of this rut,
if I can right myself
Wake with mild nausea and annoyance at 11:39 PM
to go and meet a man in the ER
reportedly suicidal without a plan
for a moment, in your delirium,
you think they want you to help him make one
Return to bed at 3 AM
having assisted with an anti-suicide plan
something the insurance company will pay for
you opened the gate
Calculate in your head what the trip will net you:
a few dollars to throw in the hole
She's been quiet today, and you feel the distance lying here
trying to interpret it across the miles through the darkness
There's a chill in the air with the slider open
and you fall asleep wrapped in an unwashed sheet
preparing to be alone, feeling your own pulse,
setting your alarm for three hours out
......
There's no shortage of these young men
in the middle of the night
lying in ER beds
hopeless, helpless, homeless,
not much to say
opioid addicted, mid to late 20s.
thinking of ending it
Catch a whiff of their desert
feel the pull of their vacuum
spiraling down through
the late Spring of their lives
This time we have presses down
with all this not knowing
what to do with ourselves,
frighteningly short
and impossibly long
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
14. A goal is a dream with a deadline.
I. At first glance, I read the fortune as "a goal is a dream in decline". I assure you that mis-read is no reflection of my state of mind. Not at all related to my inner landscape, my worldview, my soul's visage.
You don't really look assured. You're not buying it? No, huh? Okay, fine.
Well, we are who we are and we pack it and unpack it and drag it and hump it from one stop to the next. Sore feet. Aching shoulders, hips, low back, kness. Some of us are in light and some in darkness but most are too busy or terrorized or confused or distracted or oblivious to know or to care much either way.
I'm this kind of guy, kind of hairpin, kind of fellow: the jealous type. That's what she said. I try to explain. but no matter how I slice it, I got it. I'm infected.
Sprayed paint. Tainted saint. I'm a green-striped Pepe Le Pew. Sacre bleu!
Make it seem silly rather than what it is - the annihilation of all that is good.
What were you thinking earlier? Oh right, that you are split between two basic archetypes - shrine builder and besmircher. Build your temple to the object of worship then smear its ornate, sacred walls with feces. Conflicted boy. What is the nature of your conflict, boy? Nature boy.
There was a boy, a very strange enchanted boy, and he wandered very far, very far, over land and sea,
and then one day, a magic day he came my way, and we spoke of many things, fools and kings, and this he said to me, "the greatest thing, you'll ever learn, is just to love, and be loved in return".
Those lines are from memory, but I might be scrambled and or condensed. My memory is a stew, a sludge, a screw. Have you ever listened to Nat "King" Cole? Now that's a voice, right? Takes someone else's heart's song and sells it like he owns it. Do you know there was a time when I imagined he was my Dad? You should check him out or whatever.
She told me not to be afraid to fall. But what else is there to be afraid of? What the songwriter is getting at, getting back to the Nat song, is that you've got to get out of the way, dummy. Let love do it's work.
A bumbling bumble bee careens between flowers.
A lover lost, keening away hours
in the mist on wet stones.
Do what Love says not what you say.
Let it play. Let it stay. It's okay.
You bring madness.
Bring something better for your host.
II. What if you didn't allow yourself to color and shade everything? What if you just let it all be? That's a nice dream. Begin now.
You don't really look assured. You're not buying it? No, huh? Okay, fine.
Well, we are who we are and we pack it and unpack it and drag it and hump it from one stop to the next. Sore feet. Aching shoulders, hips, low back, kness. Some of us are in light and some in darkness but most are too busy or terrorized or confused or distracted or oblivious to know or to care much either way.
I'm this kind of guy, kind of hairpin, kind of fellow: the jealous type. That's what she said. I try to explain. but no matter how I slice it, I got it. I'm infected.
Sprayed paint. Tainted saint. I'm a green-striped Pepe Le Pew. Sacre bleu!
Make it seem silly rather than what it is - the annihilation of all that is good.
What were you thinking earlier? Oh right, that you are split between two basic archetypes - shrine builder and besmircher. Build your temple to the object of worship then smear its ornate, sacred walls with feces. Conflicted boy. What is the nature of your conflict, boy? Nature boy.
There was a boy, a very strange enchanted boy, and he wandered very far, very far, over land and sea,
and then one day, a magic day he came my way, and we spoke of many things, fools and kings, and this he said to me, "the greatest thing, you'll ever learn, is just to love, and be loved in return".
Those lines are from memory, but I might be scrambled and or condensed. My memory is a stew, a sludge, a screw. Have you ever listened to Nat "King" Cole? Now that's a voice, right? Takes someone else's heart's song and sells it like he owns it. Do you know there was a time when I imagined he was my Dad? You should check him out or whatever.
She told me not to be afraid to fall. But what else is there to be afraid of? What the songwriter is getting at, getting back to the Nat song, is that you've got to get out of the way, dummy. Let love do it's work.
A bumbling bumble bee careens between flowers.
A lover lost, keening away hours
in the mist on wet stones.
Do what Love says not what you say.
Let it play. Let it stay. It's okay.
You bring madness.
Bring something better for your host.
II. What if you didn't allow yourself to color and shade everything? What if you just let it all be? That's a nice dream. Begin now.
Saturday, June 6, 2015
13. All the news you receive will be positive and uplifting.
I'll assume then that no news is good news and imagine myself uplifted.
The air is cooling, and it's dark now. The superstition regarding the outside light seems ridiculous tonight so it's off. She's had her fill of me for the week.
Squinting at the screen, listening to the toilet run eternally- a bad seal - probably responsible for parching California. A friend told me today that I deserve good things. Deserve is not a word I use. Superstition.
In other news, my daughter is a young woman now, She's having a good year. She looks confident in her skin and beautiful. I'm grateful, and anxious, and thankful, with my fingers crossed.
Medicated, what would seem real?
I try to stay asleep to hold onto a particularly good dream keeping at bay the realization that I can't. Try to minimize force and struggle in order to slow my waking. It's already over, but there's a moment there of willful dreaming.
The air is cooling, and it's dark now. The superstition regarding the outside light seems ridiculous tonight so it's off. She's had her fill of me for the week.
Squinting at the screen, listening to the toilet run eternally- a bad seal - probably responsible for parching California. A friend told me today that I deserve good things. Deserve is not a word I use. Superstition.
In other news, my daughter is a young woman now, She's having a good year. She looks confident in her skin and beautiful. I'm grateful, and anxious, and thankful, with my fingers crossed.
Medicated, what would seem real?
I try to stay asleep to hold onto a particularly good dream keeping at bay the realization that I can't. Try to minimize force and struggle in order to slow my waking. It's already over, but there's a moment there of willful dreaming.
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