Free Write Vol. 2

Up late again- a couple of chores to take care of and I'm expecting to call a young lady in an hour or so. Made myself some coffee- both to keep me up and because I love the taste. Jamaica Mountain Blue for those that are interested, although I'm mad because I made it too watery after making it perfectly this morning. Watery like the sludge I use to drink at Kroger a little bit before I got off at night. It gets you through midnight, got me to my next job handling packages for 6 hours straight for 9.50 an hour.

At night, I always have my most vivid thoughts. Perhaps it's mostly because I'm tired. You know how right before you go to sleep your brain starts to rearrange your thoughts into something coherent and the images of the day drift aimlessly across your head, slowing your mind down to a soothing slumber- making your eyes slide shut gracefully. I guess that's what it is, my mind is beginning to make that transformation. It's getting everything in order so I can think pragmatic thoughts during working hours, leave the idealism for the section of the day that naturally contains our most outlandish dreams.

But there's something else too, something more than just the biological effects of my brain's preparation to shut down. Something special about this place on the outskirts of Nashville. Something special about being at home that makes me think, makes me want to write. I don't get this feeling while I'm in New York, there are too many sounds and lights. My sense are naturally attracted to them- they feed my head with all kinds of information. If I were to think like I am right now, my mind would be overloaded.

So it has to be the night time quiet that does it for me. A place and time where I can be alone with my thoughts I remember first moving here, the nights were endless, they dragged on for centuries. As time slowed down, my awareness, of myself, of certain sensations began to heighten. And I felt compelled to describe them in some fashion. But not just in my head, they couldn't just stay bottled up, bouncing around like carbon molecules in a shaken up soda can. So I write, try my best to describe what exactly is going on in my head as I stay up late, when my senses are at their most raw.

Like how tranquil the sound of a dishwasher is as it switches cycles, from "pots and pans" to "normal wash." If you're far enough away it sounds like the gentle sloshing of waves of seawater against the side of a boat.
Or how sensual it feels drinking a warm cup of coffee at night. I guess it reminds me of long road trips and late nights that turn into early mornings sitting at the far table (or if I'm lucky, a booth) in my favorite diner with a certain someone, waiting for the best pancakes in town.
And finally, there's the soothing feeling that my body gets as I finish the last dishes in the sink, the water still warm and smooth from the suds. I've always been self-conscious about having soft hands. They conceal the fact that I've actually done "man's" work before, while telling the story of how I've been an inside thinking man all of my life. But right now it doesn't particularly matter. You ever notice how the temperature of your extremities affects your entire body? I guess that's just what I really love. Being warm.

A Blues Kind of Morning

"Well I'm so worried, I don't know where to go."

Slept on the floor last night, but really I didn't fall asleep until early morning. Just me and a blanket and a bright red feather pillow placed carefully on under my back to keep my company. Well, there's the glass table on my left side too- but I think at this point even it's disappointed in me. I mean, I ran out of Windex and had to use.. pff.. all purpose cleaner to wipe it down when I cleaned this past Sunday. The streaks looked like they were left by a monster truck during a drag race. But no bother- there's always next Sunday.
The curtains are wide open, forgot to shut them last night, there were certainly more pressing concerns that occupied my mind. The dreary sky beamed in through the windows- if a sunny sky wakes you up by gently caressing you on the cheek, a dreary sky backhand slaps you across the mouth, telling you to "wake the fuck up, it's time to live with what you did." Oh how it stings so much more when you wake up in the morning and the first thing on your mind are the tunes you cried to sleep to. And cry I did- something I haven't done since I was 13- since I slept on that shag carpeted floor and fleas use to bite me up and down my arm and I cried like a baby because tomorrow I'd have to go to school with the same mustard-stained pants I wore the day before.
I didn't want to go to work, didn't have the energy to get up and fight through the sting in my stomach, a mix of nausea and that sharp pang, that Bernard Hopkins-style punch that hits you in the gut everytime you... remember? See, because you can forget for a little bit, while you're engrossed in data sets and spreadsheets, while you have conversations with your coworkers and you walk to lunch bunched together like ducks in flight formation. It's easy to forget when you allow something else to crowd into your mind. And then- you see something, hear something maybe, and its right back in that boxing ring and your memory has you in a corner and its pounding away at your lower torso and your chest and your face. And your heart.....
But get up I must, get up I got to. Too late to get there on time, but early enough where I can still be productive. Yeah, you got it, you can get through. Take it one day at a time, shoot one minute- your wounds are raw but they'll heal. Take a shower, iron your clothes, pack up your bag, step outside with some kind of authority, walk proud. And it works, you feel like you can, almost, just about.
And then the hit comes as you're putting on your haphazardly ironed shirt- the corner man inside your head is yelling "You put your guard down, son!" Slowly, you crumple back on to the sticky black leather couch, and all you want to do is take off your clothes, sit in your t-shirt and underwear, drink a case of beer and listenin to Howlin' Wolf, drinking until you can moan in the moonlight, in the daylight, and the twilight too.
Step outside my building, a strange mix of a day. 60 and raining, worried about slipping so I step gingerly, deliberately on to the slick concrete. I've never been this deliberate walking before, staring down intently on the ground, counting steps to myself, listening to the lovely sound of worn-in work shoes purposefully hitting the sidewalk. Anything to keep from getting hit again, occupy your mind, let everyone pass you by. At that moment, I'm probably the slowest person in the history of New York. My walk to the train station takes twice as long- every step I dangle on the precipice of self-induced agony. I step lightly to not fall over the edge.
On the train, no more walking- there to collect my thoughts. What to do, what to do? I pull out a book, "The Soul of Baseball," a most comforting book, just the right mix of upliftment and intellectual engagement. The train ride goes smoothly. At Queensboro Plaza I get up so an older Chinese lady can sit down- I wrap my hand around the pole between the two doors. Just standing and reading- it looks like I won this round.
"There's nothing like New York lonely." Just one of the gems that Buck O'Neill spouts in the first few pages of the book. Doesn't he know the truth. There ain't nothing like being lonely here, although it happens quite often. Movies and plays, sporting events, parks. All there for the taking, but even when they're free it comes at a price, the price of silence. But many times I was deliberate about it- a choice I made rather than one forced upon me. One that I am proud of and only a little bit difficult. Yeah, there's nothing like being lonely in New York.
Ain't nothing to do but sip apple cider at my desk and look over data, letting the soothing calm trickle down in to my stomach. My body warms up and between the spreadsheets, all I can think is that maybe I deserve the next hit that comes my way. The pain only lasts for a moment, maybe this time I'll be ready for it.

Free Write Vol. 1

I have a blog post that I've been working on for some two days, but because I've been getting home so late, I'm having a hard time concentrating enough to write it. Thinking of the words I want to use is always so challenging, hopefully if I get maybe an hour or so to myself I can figure it out. But I still want to write, have the feeling to write. So instead I'll just free write, let a stream of consciousness flow from my head to my fingers to the keyboard to the screen and finally to your eyeballs. Who knows, maybe something will stick. At the very least it's the ultimate in navel gazing, almost like a live-blogging of my immediate thoughts, enjoy!

And for the next few weeks I spend my days and parts of my nights in an abandoned factory on the southside of Milwaukee, working and hoping desperately for an Obama win. I'm doing logistics, thought I would be doing recruiting, traveling across the state canvassing. Not that I mind, I stay warm, stay indoors, makes the long days a little easier. Besides I get considerable leeway.
Good to be back in Milwaukee, although as it turns out I'll barely get to see my family. I knew that it would be like that really, but it's an entirely different thing in practice. So close yet so far, even the cousin I'm staying with I don't see. She leaves before I wake up and I come in after she sleeps. Anything for a victory though.

We talked for almost an hour and ten minutes and for my money it was an hour and ten minutes well spent, after a long day all you want to do is hear that voice. Not the exapserated voice you sometimes hear when you messed up only you don't really know how. Not the tired voice you hear because you know that the conversation is going to be short. The sweet one, the content one, that's the one that warms your heart and that's the one that keeps you coming back to the phone hoping that the waves hitting your ears will prompt you to remember that it's all worth it. Because it is, when you smile and you hear her laugh, it really is.
Still trying to figure things out, why is love so hard you know? Well, it wasn't explicitly stated that we were "trying to figure things out," because that would be silly, that would be hurtful that would be? The TRUTH? I don't think it is, because I know my feelings, know what I want eventually. Sort of like you see the light at the end of the tunnel, or maybe the tall building out on the horizon. But there's this, other shit or rather there's a bunch of traps and snares on the unpaved road that you insisted on traveling because you KNOW that the end result is something that you'll be happy with for the rest of your life. So you figure out how to best make it happen because the last thing you want is for the light to grow dim, for the building you see in the horizon to collapse.
So you compromise, you make a compromise because you've both been through this before and you know how badly it can turn out and deep down you fear the worst. The best, you silently hope for- you wonder if your best efforts, the clothes, the plane tickets, the baseball game, the love, especially the love, in the end only the love. You wonder if the best you have to give will come up short- because you're messy, because you're distant, because absence, while making the heart grow fonder, also erodes the spirit, and makes you drift slowly away like a soggy piece of wood in the sea. You wonder if the best you have to give is good enough because there will be other Adonis' that aren't jerks, because that one guy wants to be a doctor too, because you know he's really nice, because deep down you want to save the world and everyone in it and yet you still have no clue what the most effective way to do that is, i.e., you only have the vaguest idea about what you want your life to be about while other people are already on their path to financial security.
And the thing is, it's the thought that's nerve wracking. The thought, of sex sure, the thought of her getting the kind of pleasure which by this time you think is your birthright to bestow upon her from someone else. But it's also the thought that you are slowly being replaced, the conversations you once had reserved for another. You learn in kindergarten to share and you know you might have to. And you're willing to swallow your pride in order to do it, a means to a more perfect ends. You think you are a mature person, and rationally this makes sense, but irrationality makes sense too.
But you also compromise because there's a little devil in you also; isn't there in everybody? You make a compromise because there's a girl eyeing you from the back of the bus or behind the counter at Starbucks or down the hall of your office and up until now you've been good at pushing them off. But what's a little slice of devil's pie? It's tempting, there for the taking. Remember, you've been good, remember, you're 22 in New York, it's only natural. And when those thoughts start to creep in, your inadequacies from the previous paragraph start to vanish and the good things about you come to the forefront as justification for any potential indiscretion. Yeah I'm good-looking, yeah I'm interesting and intelligent, yeah I've got a charming personality, it's not my fault, they're just attracted to me that's all. Besides, it's only sex and I'm able to disconnect the two. And that's the rub; you always think that somehow you're different from her. YOU are able to get your one-timer to understand while SHE will fall hard and mad. YOU will always come back to her SHE will move away with each passing day. Then you put yourself in her shoes. Think about it, somebody else, rubbing my back, kissing my lips, calling my name, having those discussions with me. Which one's really worse? Can you have the first ones with or without the last one? Everything is predicated on that, you think that you can. Most of the time you even think that she can. But nobody wants to make the first move, like two skillful checker players, eventually one of you have to get captured but you just hope that the other one makes the first mistake.
And suddenly you understand, again, that both of you are going through this, together. And you go back once again to the uneasy compromise because once again you don't want to lose her and you'll do anything to make sure that you don't. In the end you go back to being rational because you're both smart and four years is a long time. You have faith in how its all going to turn out, you just wish it was easier.