Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Just When We Thought The Nightmare Was Over....
So, though a long way from being clean and organized again, our apartment had almost recovered from the awesome renovations Sigi did a month ago. That is, until the automatic water-feed on our boiler locked in an on position and filled the entire building-worth of steam pipes with water until the water came gushing out of air-valves on a 2nd and 3rd floor radiator, dripping through the floors and pouring out of the ceilings. Well, that's just the technical mumbo-jumbo. Here are the lovely images:
I like to call these two photos: "the happy plumber" and "I'm smiling, but I'll kill you."
Notice the lovely yellowish tint to this unpotable boiler water....Delicous!
|
I like to call these two photos: "the happy plumber" and "I'm smiling, but I'll kill you."Notice the lovely yellowish tint to this unpotable boiler water....Delicous!
Monday, June 19, 2006
Patricircumlocution
Father, who came before me
who formed me from the letters
of his own nucleic story
and the verbs he connected
from this collection of consonants and vowels,
I am the thought and its expression
wrought from your natural progression
out of him and into me
and out of yours into mine:
the direct objects becoming possessive,
the recipient containing the incipient.
This is the cycle.
This is the wheel created
in the beginning of time
refined with each modernity
and always defined
by its essential unchangeable roundness.
Here I am turning,
I am turning your letters
into verbs of my own.
|
Father, who came before me
who formed me from the letters
of his own nucleic story
and the verbs he connected
from this collection of consonants and vowels,
I am the thought and its expression
wrought from your natural progression
out of him and into me
and out of yours into mine:
the direct objects becoming possessive,
the recipient containing the incipient.
This is the cycle.
This is the wheel created
in the beginning of time
refined with each modernity
and always defined
by its essential unchangeable roundness.
Here I am turning,
I am turning your letters
into verbs of my own.
2 for 1 Drink Specials Father's Day
Working a double behind the bar is an experience I am glad to say I 've had even if I am having it at 26 years old while my bachelor's degree collects dust and my student loan bills pile higher.
It is very unnatural for the body to remain standing for 16 hours in a row without a single moment of weight being lifted off the feet. The best the bartender in such a situation can hope to do is shift weight from one foot to the other and lean back against the bar displacing the pounds.
My feet are pounding right now. The undersoles of my heels feel like someobody beat them with a meat cleaver and then shocked them with a defibrillator. Sounds strange, I know. Until working a double behind the bar, I had never been forced to stand on my feet for 16 hours in a row without a single moment of rest from the weight of my body.
It is a strange and almost unique experience that bartenders go through routinely, some on a fairly frequent basis.
I think of my father, and then I realize it is Father's Day and I didn't get a chance to call him and wish him well because I was working a double behind the bar. I wouldn't be surprised if he was too. For the past dozen years he's been swinging doubles at the bar, sometimes two or three in a row. Three in a row. Imagine spending 48 hours of a 72 hour period standing. There are few professions if any I can think of that would require someone to do such a thing and so only bartenders and maybe the soldiers manning the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier can relate.
My father's feet have changed. Part of it is age, part of it is genetic, but much of it is physical stress. Varicose veins speckle his tender feet with patterns of purple and blue that remind one of overdone face make-up for Star Trek aliens. They appear permanently hobbit swollen. And he comnplains of them falling asleep. Lazy bastards. What- tired after your little 16 hour stint holding the rest of me up?
Without this job I would never have known the physical sensations and mental landscape of this place my father knows so well. I'm glad I can say I've been there for no other reason than to share an experience with such an experienced man who I admire and look up to in so many ways.
So, I guess I just want to say Happy Father's Day, Dad. Dads everywhere. Standing on your own two feet trying to make ends meet. I only hope that everyone is so lucky as to get the opportunity to proudly walk a while in their father's shoes. Even if it's 16 hours of walking in a row...
|
It is very unnatural for the body to remain standing for 16 hours in a row without a single moment of weight being lifted off the feet. The best the bartender in such a situation can hope to do is shift weight from one foot to the other and lean back against the bar displacing the pounds.
My feet are pounding right now. The undersoles of my heels feel like someobody beat them with a meat cleaver and then shocked them with a defibrillator. Sounds strange, I know. Until working a double behind the bar, I had never been forced to stand on my feet for 16 hours in a row without a single moment of rest from the weight of my body.
It is a strange and almost unique experience that bartenders go through routinely, some on a fairly frequent basis.
I think of my father, and then I realize it is Father's Day and I didn't get a chance to call him and wish him well because I was working a double behind the bar. I wouldn't be surprised if he was too. For the past dozen years he's been swinging doubles at the bar, sometimes two or three in a row. Three in a row. Imagine spending 48 hours of a 72 hour period standing. There are few professions if any I can think of that would require someone to do such a thing and so only bartenders and maybe the soldiers manning the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier can relate.
My father's feet have changed. Part of it is age, part of it is genetic, but much of it is physical stress. Varicose veins speckle his tender feet with patterns of purple and blue that remind one of overdone face make-up for Star Trek aliens. They appear permanently hobbit swollen. And he comnplains of them falling asleep. Lazy bastards. What- tired after your little 16 hour stint holding the rest of me up?
Without this job I would never have known the physical sensations and mental landscape of this place my father knows so well. I'm glad I can say I've been there for no other reason than to share an experience with such an experienced man who I admire and look up to in so many ways.
So, I guess I just want to say Happy Father's Day, Dad. Dads everywhere. Standing on your own two feet trying to make ends meet. I only hope that everyone is so lucky as to get the opportunity to proudly walk a while in their father's shoes. Even if it's 16 hours of walking in a row...
Friday, June 09, 2006
back in Jersey
hey all...finally got my laptop hooked up to the wireless network in my house, yay for me! It's going to be an interesting summer--probably my last extended stint at my family home in Jersey. As a result, I've been going thru my room--entirely...like it hasn't been gone thru in 18+ years. I'm finding drawings and homework assignments from first grade! second! I was a darn cute kid back then...I've kept some of it, tried to get rid of most of the non-essentials--still, it feels good to me to think that i'll be looking through these remaining boxes when i'm 30, 50, 80..and hopefully some of it will still be around and I can show my grandkids how Tyler Sharkey gave me a picture of a red sports car for my 3rd grade birthday, even put their little hands in my toddler plaster handprint. I'm sure I've still kept too much of it--i'm a packrat by nature, afraid to throw things away "in case i'll need them".
So i'm excited about the coming year--nervous, but very excited. I've said it before--i really need to step up, to take responsibility for myself like i've never needed to before. I know I can always count on my family for support, but its time now that I shouldnt' need to depend on their support. I was talking to Jess a bit back about how exciting, inspiring it can be to realize that you are responsible for your own life, that you are going to be the one making the most of it, owning it, filling it up as full as you can with good things. I'm going to have to find that sweet spot balance of downtime and fun, fulfilling activities. The whole first, maybe, 17 years of my life was go go go, pack my schedule, committments to everyone and everything, no time for myself or a social life....it seems in the years since then the pendulum has swung entirely in the opposite direction, i've put a lot of value in relaxing time with friends, movies, tv, family..not as driven, not as committed.....i feel like my happiness lies somewhere in between..its time for me to wake up, stand up, take chances, put myself out there..who am i not to be excellent at whatever I do? who am i not to enjoy myself? learn new things? learn so many new things! i want to workout and learn to breakdance, use power tools, find my way around brooklyn, delve deeper into the spirituality i feel humming around me.. and still have time for lazy weekend mornings with my love, time to visit my sisters, my missing limbs.........i seek the balance!
|
So i'm excited about the coming year--nervous, but very excited. I've said it before--i really need to step up, to take responsibility for myself like i've never needed to before. I know I can always count on my family for support, but its time now that I shouldnt' need to depend on their support. I was talking to Jess a bit back about how exciting, inspiring it can be to realize that you are responsible for your own life, that you are going to be the one making the most of it, owning it, filling it up as full as you can with good things. I'm going to have to find that sweet spot balance of downtime and fun, fulfilling activities. The whole first, maybe, 17 years of my life was go go go, pack my schedule, committments to everyone and everything, no time for myself or a social life....it seems in the years since then the pendulum has swung entirely in the opposite direction, i've put a lot of value in relaxing time with friends, movies, tv, family..not as driven, not as committed.....i feel like my happiness lies somewhere in between..its time for me to wake up, stand up, take chances, put myself out there..who am i not to be excellent at whatever I do? who am i not to enjoy myself? learn new things? learn so many new things! i want to workout and learn to breakdance, use power tools, find my way around brooklyn, delve deeper into the spirituality i feel humming around me.. and still have time for lazy weekend mornings with my love, time to visit my sisters, my missing limbs.........i seek the balance!
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Ektomi
I'm having difficulty getting the apartment back together again since being home from Massachusetts. Cait and I did a great job on the bed, the closet, and the backyard. But I look around the place and I'm still stunned at how messy and dusty everything is, even after John cleaned and dusted. I've been working, and back in school, but I'm not as focused on the world yet as I was before the Hanblecheya. I'm just about done with Seven Arrows, I'm singing the ceremony songs during the day, and have been relatively distant from the world; at least I feel that way. I'm coming back though. I've been thinking about the spider. Ektomi. Just before Josh sent me down to the site he said to me, "I've done something. Not sure what it means, and we'll talk about it after this weekend - I've gotten us involved in the Ektomi Dance." I still don't have a good explanation for it, or for why he choose to say it then, but he was as out of It at that point as I was. There are some Ektomi stories need telling.
|
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Photodiary Part 1: Spring is a Happening, Happy Place
My enjoyment of these photos is probably inflated due to taking them with my brand-new firstest real camera. Still, I hope they offer you a glimpse of the beauty (I think) I see during my disparate days here in the NYSee...
Click on pic to make it bigger
|
Click on pic to make it bigger
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Anyone know how to get back to the car...Jess?
Wopi-La to a Friend
Sensitive to the four directions
skin to the wind
hands visor eyes squint
locates sun shadow angle time
Dependable when lost when late when down
leads with an able snout
and canine grin
A long time ago threw his watch
into the sun and watched the sun rise
with diamond precision
Saw it wind through the sky
and imagined unseen tiny wheels
behind the pace of things
Whereto follows suit with an instinct
and just when comes in a split-blink
If spirit tells him bound he bounds
I tail him into lands untold
***********************
Jesse - I started this poem on the bus ride up to Massachussets. I finished it this morning. This is my Wopi-La to you. It is unsuprising to me that you found this way and are walking this path. My earliest impression of you from when we first met was of a person closely in touch with the earth and its living, breathing organism. Thank you again for all the wonderful places you have brought me and continue to bring me in our friendship. To the ends of the earth, buddy, to the ends of the earth.
|
Sensitive to the four directions
skin to the wind
hands visor eyes squint
locates sun shadow angle time
Dependable when lost when late when down
leads with an able snout
and canine grin
A long time ago threw his watch
into the sun and watched the sun rise
with diamond precision
Saw it wind through the sky
and imagined unseen tiny wheels
behind the pace of things
Whereto follows suit with an instinct
and just when comes in a split-blink
If spirit tells him bound he bounds
I tail him into lands untold
***********************
Jesse - I started this poem on the bus ride up to Massachussets. I finished it this morning. This is my Wopi-La to you. It is unsuprising to me that you found this way and are walking this path. My earliest impression of you from when we first met was of a person closely in touch with the earth and its living, breathing organism. Thank you again for all the wonderful places you have brought me and continue to bring me in our friendship. To the ends of the earth, buddy, to the ends of the earth.
Follow-up To Below Post
Here's a great quote from Philip Caputo's Vietnam memoir, A Rumor of War, that puts another perspective on the idea of a Warrior praying for his Enemy:
Eating the rice on that desolate hill, it occured to me that we were becoming more and more like our enemy. We ate what they ate. We could now move throught the jungle as stealthily as they. We endured common miseries. In fact, we had more in common with the Viet Cong than we did with that army of clerks and staff officers in the rear.
|
Eating the rice on that desolate hill, it occured to me that we were becoming more and more like our enemy. We ate what they ate. We could now move throught the jungle as stealthily as they. We endured common miseries. In fact, we had more in common with the Viet Cong than we did with that army of clerks and staff officers in the rear.
Happy (Belated) Memorial Day
This past weekend I heard a veteran make a prayer for the American soldiers of past and present wars. While praying especially for the US Soldiers fighting in Iraq, he made a prayer for the Iraqis too. It takes a whole lot of compassion, understanding and honor from a warrior to make a prayer for his enemy. But this man was made of that type of stuff. It reminded me of my favorite Vietnamn song, Goodnight Saigon by Billy Joel. Toward the end of the song the US Soldier sings his praise of his Viet Cong enemy. Whatever anger we may feel at the architects of this war for the path of destruction it has carved, it is important to take time out and recognize the suffering and the sacrifice of all those who stand inbetween it and their people. The songs of Iraq have yet to be written. They are being sung in the streets everyday. Civilians kidnapped, tortured and murdered. Soldiers and journalists torn to shreds by unseen bombs. Police officers shot dead in broad daylight. Politicians and their families gunned down on their way to work, the store or their place of worship. Scars that will be generations in the healing. I have a broken necklace with beads of red white and blue stripes that for years I've been keeping in a box reserved for objects with special meaning. I bought it from a Vietnam Vet who was selling jewelry from a blanket on the sidewalk. He told me stories of the war as if it had only happened yesterday. The husband of my mother's best friend couldn't celebrate July 4th for years and years because the sound of fireworks sent him to the floor sweating and trembling. A professor at Binghamton University once told my class the story of being an American POW in Dresden and of dragging the corpses of his German captors out of the rubble after the US/Allies firebombed the city to the ground. After a point, is there any right or wrong in a war anymore-- or only a great need for healing?
Goodnight Saigon - Billy Joel
We met as soul mates
On Paris Island
We left as inmates
From an asylum
And we were sharp
Sharp as knives
And we were so gung-ho
To lay down our lives
We came in spastic
As tameless horses
We left in plastic
As numbered corpses
And we learned fast
To travel light
Our arms were heavy
But our bellies were tight
We had no home front
We had no soft soap
They sent us playboy
They gave us Bob Hope
We dug in deep
And shot on sight
We prayed to Jesus Christ
With all of our might
We had no cameras
To shoot the landscape
We passed the hash pipe
And played our Doors tapes
And it was dark
So dark as night
And we held on to each other
Like brother to brother
We promised our mothers we'd write
And we would all go down together
We said we'd all go down together
Yes we would all go down together
Remember Charlie
Remember Baker
They left their childhood
On every acre
And who was wrong
And who was right
It didn't matter in the thick of the fight
We held the day
In the palm of our hand
They hold the night
And the night seemed to last as long
As six weeks
On Paris Island
We held the coastland
They held the highland
And they were sharp
As sharp as knives
They heard the hum of our motors
They counted our rotors
And waited for us to arrive
And we would all go down together
We said we'd all go down together
Yes we would all go down together...
Goodnight Saigon - Billy Joel
We met as soul mates
On Paris Island
We left as inmates
From an asylum
And we were sharp
Sharp as knives
And we were so gung-ho
To lay down our lives
We came in spastic
As tameless horses
We left in plastic
As numbered corpses
And we learned fast
To travel light
Our arms were heavy
But our bellies were tight
We had no home front
We had no soft soap
They sent us playboy
They gave us Bob Hope
We dug in deep
And shot on sight
We prayed to Jesus Christ
With all of our might
We had no cameras
To shoot the landscape
We passed the hash pipe
And played our Doors tapes
And it was dark
So dark as night
And we held on to each other
Like brother to brother
We promised our mothers we'd write
And we would all go down together
We said we'd all go down together
Yes we would all go down together
Remember Charlie
Remember Baker
They left their childhood
On every acre
And who was wrong
And who was right
It didn't matter in the thick of the fight
We held the day
In the palm of our hand
They hold the night
And the night seemed to last as long
As six weeks
On Paris Island
We held the coastland
They held the highland
And they were sharp
As sharp as knives
They heard the hum of our motors
They counted our rotors
And waited for us to arrive
And we would all go down together
We said we'd all go down together
Yes we would all go down together...
