How hard this is to describe how I feel.
You’re not listening.
It's my past, and you weren’t there.
There’s this part of my body—it’s on the inside and I don’t know the name of it—that hurts in a way you’ll never know, even if I sit down and describe it to you.
You don’t have emotions, you tell me. Luckily, you have enough for both of us.
But I’ve cried, hurt, been hurt; felt depressed, stressed, tense, relaxed, in tact, focused, lost, in love, angry, and in sorrow. I’ve tried, lost love, lost loved ones. I’ve felt weak, worthless, and confident.
I’ve felt I shouldn’t have done something, gone ahead and did it anyway and have felt guilty. Like I knew I would.
I’ve lied and yelled and have been mean to people. I’ve held back actions and held my tongue.
Sorry I’ve not shared these things with you, these feelings you didn’t think existed in me. But you haven’t known me long enough to see me struggle, win, fall down, cheer loud, stay up all night, stare out the window, curse myself, talk to my dog in the park, gaze at the glory of a vibrant flower, bask in the sun, be amazed by a book, ponder creation, woe over people in my life I no longer talk to; call my grandma in the middle of the day for no reason whatsoever other than I know it will make us both feel good in a way that I could sit here and describe to you, but, still you’d never really know.
It’s because most of the above is depressing that, instead of audibly expressing the mentioned, I ask you: about your future plans, about your day, how your hurt leg is feeling, how your apartment search is going.
Just because there're some things you can’t see doesn’t mean they’re not there.
Adam's friends, the Bens and their girlfriends
Adam has a friend named Ben. Actually, Adam has two friends. Both named Ben. Adam has more friends (I think) but doesn’t have a girlfriend. The Bens live together. Each Ben has a girlfriend. Their names are not the same, nor are they Bens, therefore their names aren't important in the telling of this short tale. Both Bens like to smoke hookahs. The Bens have a hookah at their house. The Bens' girlfriends live together and smoke hookahs, too. The Bens' girlfriends have a hookah where they live. So, whether the Bens are at the Bens’ house or the Bens are at the Bens’ girlfriends’, there’s a hookah to be smoked. Sometimes, the Bens smoke the hookah at their house, and sometimes the girlfriends of the Bens smoke the hookah at their house (sometimes simultaneously). Sometimes all together they, the Bens and their girlfriends, smoke a hookah. Tonight (or maybe it was last night) Adam went to the girlfriends of the Bens and smoked a hookah with the Bens and their girlfriends.
Your couch surfer has a Cocker Spaniel?
When the hiccups stopped, or maybe it was before, I went to sleep.
It was winter, around the time I was using my cold hands to compress my aching backside, when Rob just sort of showed up. I had met him, sure, but I cannot say that I know him. Rob, that is. I still don’t know who did/does. One day he was just sort of there. And one night he had hiccups. Coming home from the bar – I was asleep in bed, at home after a week of work -- Rob turned on the lights, the music and his hypnotic hiccups.
Shut the fuck up, I yelled from the bedroom, hoping to scare the air out of him.
Does it bother you? he asked.
Well, I’m just concerned, I lied.
Yeah, I don’t know what it is. I haven’t been drunk since I’ve been here – hiccup.
Fuck! What can I get you? Can I get you anything? I feign sympathy.
I don’t know, nothing.
Well, I want to get you something. What I want is for him to have a job, a place of his own to live. I want my living room back, my couch. I want him gone, and his dog, did I mention the Cocker Spaniel? But prospects aren't good.
Does it bother you? Rob asked, when I asked him the very next morning why his Razor phone was beeping every couple of minutes.
Doesn’t it bother you? I want to know. He seems able to either black beeps out of his mind or else it’s that the beeping, which I can hear from my bedroom with the door closed, isn’t bothersome but hypnotic like the hiccups. It beeps again before Rob, a guy I’m uncertain why is still sleeping on my couch, informs me that it’s just because the battery is low and needs to be re-charged. Oh, that is why his Razor phone is beeping every couple of minutes.
Well, can you make it stop? I request, not a heavy request I don’t think, considering I haven’t asked Rob for anything in exchange for this free place to stay, now for exactly three weeks.
This couple that I’m friends with, Jake and Lilly, have listened to me complain about my unwanted houseguest for the last 30 minutes. They begin to tell me of a California law they've read about that scares the bleep out of me. In California, it is more than difficult to ask someone who’s been staying with you for more than two weeks to leave. It requires courts and thus fees. I hope Oregon doesn’t have such laws. I hope Rob finds a job, a place to live, maybe a muzzle for his Cocker Spaniel. But for now, I would just be fine wishing that Rob would plug his charger into his Razor phone and into the outlet that is on the wall next to my couch that he has made his.
It was winter, around the time I was using my cold hands to compress my aching backside, when Rob just sort of showed up. I had met him, sure, but I cannot say that I know him. Rob, that is. I still don’t know who did/does. One day he was just sort of there. And one night he had hiccups. Coming home from the bar – I was asleep in bed, at home after a week of work -- Rob turned on the lights, the music and his hypnotic hiccups.
Shut the fuck up, I yelled from the bedroom, hoping to scare the air out of him.
Does it bother you? he asked.
Well, I’m just concerned, I lied.
Yeah, I don’t know what it is. I haven’t been drunk since I’ve been here – hiccup.
Fuck! What can I get you? Can I get you anything? I feign sympathy.
I don’t know, nothing.
Well, I want to get you something. What I want is for him to have a job, a place of his own to live. I want my living room back, my couch. I want him gone, and his dog, did I mention the Cocker Spaniel? But prospects aren't good.
Does it bother you? Rob asked, when I asked him the very next morning why his Razor phone was beeping every couple of minutes.
Doesn’t it bother you? I want to know. He seems able to either black beeps out of his mind or else it’s that the beeping, which I can hear from my bedroom with the door closed, isn’t bothersome but hypnotic like the hiccups. It beeps again before Rob, a guy I’m uncertain why is still sleeping on my couch, informs me that it’s just because the battery is low and needs to be re-charged. Oh, that is why his Razor phone is beeping every couple of minutes.
Well, can you make it stop? I request, not a heavy request I don’t think, considering I haven’t asked Rob for anything in exchange for this free place to stay, now for exactly three weeks.
This couple that I’m friends with, Jake and Lilly, have listened to me complain about my unwanted houseguest for the last 30 minutes. They begin to tell me of a California law they've read about that scares the bleep out of me. In California, it is more than difficult to ask someone who’s been staying with you for more than two weeks to leave. It requires courts and thus fees. I hope Oregon doesn’t have such laws. I hope Rob finds a job, a place to live, maybe a muzzle for his Cocker Spaniel. But for now, I would just be fine wishing that Rob would plug his charger into his Razor phone and into the outlet that is on the wall next to my couch that he has made his.
I write from Albuquerque with tired eyes
The other night I was reading this book. It wasn’t anything special. I can’t even tell you who wrote it. It was a book inside a book is what it was. Maybe you’ve read one like it. There’s a major plot, a major character, and then there are subplots, or other characters. But the main character is telling a story. I guess it’s what you would call post modern. It’s not a story about this character but a story about the character telling another story. Like I said it’s not anything special. There are books like it nowadays. And, like I said, I can’t even remember the name of the author. Alessan Something, or Something Alessan…don’t know. Not important. What happened, though, after I turned off my reading light, when my eyes were too heavy to grasp the meaning of the next paragraph, I began saying sentences in my head. My mind continued reading after the book was closed. After the light was out, after my eyes were closed, sentences formed from god-knows where. The novel commenced. The paragraph next started to make sense. I was back in the book, or writing my own.
I was startled by this so much that I woke up from the sleep I was trying to seek. I was tired before I started reading but started reading because I wasn’t tired enough to fall asleep on my own. I’m awake after my mind began to work on its own, creating literature without me in front of a keyboard. I was being flooded with so much inspiration, so close to sleep, but at the same point, I thought, if I woke up and turned on the reading light it would wash away all I had thought of. That thought opened my eyes. Simultaneously, my computer, my Dell Inspiron 2500 started to hum. Did I forget to turn it off, and now, after an hour so of idle time was it turning itself into sleep mode-- hibernation? I didn’t know. I waited awake in the dark listening.
There’s a tiny fan in the Dell Inspiron 2500. It spins, oh does it spin. Little green lights blink as the computer thinks. I’m trying to think about the sentences, the paragraph, the part of the story that I thought up after I turned off the light, after I put the book down. What happened happened just then, but I can’t recall what I was just thinking about, what my mind was thinking about on its own, without me in front of my keyboard, as mentioned, to type it down.
And now, now my laptop’s open (Keyboard right there!), my Dell Inspiron 2500 is up to something, but what? What is different than what I wanted to happen. I want to connect my computer to my conscious, my subconscious. I want those thoughts that I just lost recorded, on a word document saved so to be on the screen when I wake up. I want the Dell Inspiron 2500 to go into my sleep mode as I go into sleep mode, and instead of our minds being both on idle, I want vindication that these intense thoughts that I have while not fully awake mean something. I want us to sleep together. For a story, a memory, I want my dream to be there when I wake up. There for me to shape, make poetic.
Before going to sleep for the night the Dell Inspiron 2500 makes quite a racket. The fan, mentioned already, hums. The laptop LCD screen lights up to say to who’s not looking hibernation is occurring. That it’s about to go black. And that’s it. Out cold. Silence. And sleep. But not for me. I’m awake wondering if the next time I sit in front of the Inspiron 2500 there will be inspiration instead of mind chasing thoughts that are hidden in the crevasses of my cranium, memory me lifting and digging, searching for anything that seems.
I was startled by this so much that I woke up from the sleep I was trying to seek. I was tired before I started reading but started reading because I wasn’t tired enough to fall asleep on my own. I’m awake after my mind began to work on its own, creating literature without me in front of a keyboard. I was being flooded with so much inspiration, so close to sleep, but at the same point, I thought, if I woke up and turned on the reading light it would wash away all I had thought of. That thought opened my eyes. Simultaneously, my computer, my Dell Inspiron 2500 started to hum. Did I forget to turn it off, and now, after an hour so of idle time was it turning itself into sleep mode-- hibernation? I didn’t know. I waited awake in the dark listening.
There’s a tiny fan in the Dell Inspiron 2500. It spins, oh does it spin. Little green lights blink as the computer thinks. I’m trying to think about the sentences, the paragraph, the part of the story that I thought up after I turned off the light, after I put the book down. What happened happened just then, but I can’t recall what I was just thinking about, what my mind was thinking about on its own, without me in front of my keyboard, as mentioned, to type it down.
And now, now my laptop’s open (Keyboard right there!), my Dell Inspiron 2500 is up to something, but what? What is different than what I wanted to happen. I want to connect my computer to my conscious, my subconscious. I want those thoughts that I just lost recorded, on a word document saved so to be on the screen when I wake up. I want the Dell Inspiron 2500 to go into my sleep mode as I go into sleep mode, and instead of our minds being both on idle, I want vindication that these intense thoughts that I have while not fully awake mean something. I want us to sleep together. For a story, a memory, I want my dream to be there when I wake up. There for me to shape, make poetic.
Before going to sleep for the night the Dell Inspiron 2500 makes quite a racket. The fan, mentioned already, hums. The laptop LCD screen lights up to say to who’s not looking hibernation is occurring. That it’s about to go black. And that’s it. Out cold. Silence. And sleep. But not for me. I’m awake wondering if the next time I sit in front of the Inspiron 2500 there will be inspiration instead of mind chasing thoughts that are hidden in the crevasses of my cranium, memory me lifting and digging, searching for anything that seems.
My distraction are lonely people
Today's adventures have me encounter two homeless men. Not uncommon in Portland to meet up with people on the streets who call it their home, I just happen to stop and talk to two of them today.
The first I'll call Red Beard. I guess his beard was blondish. Kind of like mine when I grow it out, but mine comes in darker. He had a green hood covering his head as most hood's do, but it was an undergarmet to his coat. His pants were slightly stained and his Nike's looked in pretty good shape. He was pushing a bike. I knew he was a street person because we were in Powell Park, the park voted mostly likely to have an empty bottle of gin in the grass. It was morning, before ten I think but don't know for sure because I had left my timepiece (cell phone) at home, but I think it was because I had to walk my dog and get some school work done early in the day. I had snoozed for about an hour longer than I should have, and needed to complete the part of a group project that I had put off far too long (until the last possible hour). I think I work better under pressure, but at the same time have a hard time determining what I can fit into to that time continum that can get done and can get done well, which is so much fucking better. Bill Gates is in my head reminding me of the one thing he learned at Harvard, "Don't procrastinate." I'm not listening. But I'm trying to listen to this bum. I know he's a bum, despite his clothing -- being sort of clean and all -- because, as mentioned, it's before ten and he's got a brown bag, which wraps around a forty oounce bottle of what I imagine being a malt beverage. He extends his arm my direction and asks me if I'd like a pull, which I refuse and then consider myself rude for doing. Is it rude to refuse an offer in the park, a place a man might call his home? I don't know. But it's early, and I have school work to do. Still, I'm not rude in that I don't leave him there -- at least not right then. I stand and listen to his diatribe. I hear what's bringing him down.
Red Beard, Green Hoodie tells me that he doesn't steal. He collects bottles and that at least that's honest. He's not stealing, which he's witnessed, which he's seen has gotten people into trouble. He says that he's not drinking as much as he was, which I believe to be true because he's up so early, but at the same time I find hard to believe because it is early and he does have a 40 in his hand, which I've mentioned but still feel the need to remind myself. I tell him I think he looks okay because homeless people need especially need the encouragment, and though I can't do much for this man -- I'm walking my dog in the park with empty pockets -- I think that I can afford a few minutes and an ear -- all he wants to do this morning is talk to someone. He goes off about how he's started projects, given them to others only to see them drop the ball, fail. He picks the projects back up, for some reason or another, sets it all back up, and, again for another vague reason, leaves them to it -- whatever it may be.
Red Beard, Green Hoodie says there are some people that don't drink and don't smoke dope. He doesn't understand them. He says that if it wasn't for a beer now and then, if it wasn't for smoking some herb now and then, his feet wouldn't be on the ground. He says these people who don't do these things feet aren't on the ground, and I try to picture these people -- they must be doing something, they must be at work at this hour making a living, working to pay bills. Red Beard, Green Hoodie says he just wants to have a beer. Collect some bottles and cans and watch the world go by. He makes gestures with his mouth and I'm wondering how many teeth he's got in there, not many, I suppose. I continue to listen but find it hard. He's not making much sense. He asks me if I have my pipe on me and I tell him I do not. Then, he tells me a story how the other day he was going through some trash and came across a bag of soil. He says in the bag of soil there was a stem, connected to the stem some leaves. I trust him that he knows the leaves were from a plant that he could smoke, and he assures me that after drying this plant out for the last few days that all he needs to do is find a pipe and he can smoke it, that he can get high and watch the world go by. In the meantime, he feels his pockets and when he gets to his breast pockets he smiles. I knew I had some tobacco, he says, and pulls out the yellow package of Top tobacco. He begins to roll. I want to tell him of my friend that rolls spliffs, a combination of tobacco and marijuana, but I hold my tongue.
I watch him light up the cigarette that he's just rolled. I listen a little more, again because this is all I can give. He asks me if I have any bottles or can, corrects himself, I mean not on you, he says, but still he wonders if I can point him in any direction. I think to yesterday, when I deposited all the bottles and cans from a party we had. How there were some that the machine didn't take, how he could have those and still get money for them, but I don't say anything. I save my breath and shake my head no. By now I want to leave and my dog too. She jumps on this man and gets mud on his pants that seem sort of clean, but he doesn't seem to mind the paw print she's left. He gets joy out of this and says the obvious, what a happy dog you have. I tell him good luck, take care, and goodbye, and I leave the way I came, with him in the park, by the bleechers of a field not played.
Later in the day, after spending money on coffee and eggs, after spending money on a color copy and then on more coffee and a cookie, I'm approached by a man on the sidewalk. Can I get a quarter is all he asked. I'm prepared this time, not to talk but with a quarter in my pocket. I fish for change, the remainder of a bill I broke. I pull out two and begin to hand it to him. He's making an excuse for why he's begging, how he's not from here, how he needs help. I help him, giving him 50 cents. I know it's for booze, that he doesn't deserve this. That I have more than I need. That I don't deserve it either. He's grateful, though, for what I give him. I give him more, a piece of trite advice. I tell him to take care of himself. He should spend the money on food. I know he won't but I don't want to get into it. I want to catch my bus, fill my own stomach. Make myself feel better. Take better care.
There's a voicemail in my inbox that I ignore. I don't know what to say, so I say nothing. I'm sore in the stomach, I ache in the head. I'm tired and at the end of the quarter. I hate excuses and don't know why I'm noticing these things. I don't want to. I want to be grateful. I'm not homeless. I'm not asking for cans or quarters. But I'm still not giving what I can.
The first I'll call Red Beard. I guess his beard was blondish. Kind of like mine when I grow it out, but mine comes in darker. He had a green hood covering his head as most hood's do, but it was an undergarmet to his coat. His pants were slightly stained and his Nike's looked in pretty good shape. He was pushing a bike. I knew he was a street person because we were in Powell Park, the park voted mostly likely to have an empty bottle of gin in the grass. It was morning, before ten I think but don't know for sure because I had left my timepiece (cell phone) at home, but I think it was because I had to walk my dog and get some school work done early in the day. I had snoozed for about an hour longer than I should have, and needed to complete the part of a group project that I had put off far too long (until the last possible hour). I think I work better under pressure, but at the same time have a hard time determining what I can fit into to that time continum that can get done and can get done well, which is so much fucking better. Bill Gates is in my head reminding me of the one thing he learned at Harvard, "Don't procrastinate." I'm not listening. But I'm trying to listen to this bum. I know he's a bum, despite his clothing -- being sort of clean and all -- because, as mentioned, it's before ten and he's got a brown bag, which wraps around a forty oounce bottle of what I imagine being a malt beverage. He extends his arm my direction and asks me if I'd like a pull, which I refuse and then consider myself rude for doing. Is it rude to refuse an offer in the park, a place a man might call his home? I don't know. But it's early, and I have school work to do. Still, I'm not rude in that I don't leave him there -- at least not right then. I stand and listen to his diatribe. I hear what's bringing him down.
Red Beard, Green Hoodie tells me that he doesn't steal. He collects bottles and that at least that's honest. He's not stealing, which he's witnessed, which he's seen has gotten people into trouble. He says that he's not drinking as much as he was, which I believe to be true because he's up so early, but at the same time I find hard to believe because it is early and he does have a 40 in his hand, which I've mentioned but still feel the need to remind myself. I tell him I think he looks okay because homeless people need especially need the encouragment, and though I can't do much for this man -- I'm walking my dog in the park with empty pockets -- I think that I can afford a few minutes and an ear -- all he wants to do this morning is talk to someone. He goes off about how he's started projects, given them to others only to see them drop the ball, fail. He picks the projects back up, for some reason or another, sets it all back up, and, again for another vague reason, leaves them to it -- whatever it may be.
Red Beard, Green Hoodie says there are some people that don't drink and don't smoke dope. He doesn't understand them. He says that if it wasn't for a beer now and then, if it wasn't for smoking some herb now and then, his feet wouldn't be on the ground. He says these people who don't do these things feet aren't on the ground, and I try to picture these people -- they must be doing something, they must be at work at this hour making a living, working to pay bills. Red Beard, Green Hoodie says he just wants to have a beer. Collect some bottles and cans and watch the world go by. He makes gestures with his mouth and I'm wondering how many teeth he's got in there, not many, I suppose. I continue to listen but find it hard. He's not making much sense. He asks me if I have my pipe on me and I tell him I do not. Then, he tells me a story how the other day he was going through some trash and came across a bag of soil. He says in the bag of soil there was a stem, connected to the stem some leaves. I trust him that he knows the leaves were from a plant that he could smoke, and he assures me that after drying this plant out for the last few days that all he needs to do is find a pipe and he can smoke it, that he can get high and watch the world go by. In the meantime, he feels his pockets and when he gets to his breast pockets he smiles. I knew I had some tobacco, he says, and pulls out the yellow package of Top tobacco. He begins to roll. I want to tell him of my friend that rolls spliffs, a combination of tobacco and marijuana, but I hold my tongue.
I watch him light up the cigarette that he's just rolled. I listen a little more, again because this is all I can give. He asks me if I have any bottles or can, corrects himself, I mean not on you, he says, but still he wonders if I can point him in any direction. I think to yesterday, when I deposited all the bottles and cans from a party we had. How there were some that the machine didn't take, how he could have those and still get money for them, but I don't say anything. I save my breath and shake my head no. By now I want to leave and my dog too. She jumps on this man and gets mud on his pants that seem sort of clean, but he doesn't seem to mind the paw print she's left. He gets joy out of this and says the obvious, what a happy dog you have. I tell him good luck, take care, and goodbye, and I leave the way I came, with him in the park, by the bleechers of a field not played.
Later in the day, after spending money on coffee and eggs, after spending money on a color copy and then on more coffee and a cookie, I'm approached by a man on the sidewalk. Can I get a quarter is all he asked. I'm prepared this time, not to talk but with a quarter in my pocket. I fish for change, the remainder of a bill I broke. I pull out two and begin to hand it to him. He's making an excuse for why he's begging, how he's not from here, how he needs help. I help him, giving him 50 cents. I know it's for booze, that he doesn't deserve this. That I have more than I need. That I don't deserve it either. He's grateful, though, for what I give him. I give him more, a piece of trite advice. I tell him to take care of himself. He should spend the money on food. I know he won't but I don't want to get into it. I want to catch my bus, fill my own stomach. Make myself feel better. Take better care.
There's a voicemail in my inbox that I ignore. I don't know what to say, so I say nothing. I'm sore in the stomach, I ache in the head. I'm tired and at the end of the quarter. I hate excuses and don't know why I'm noticing these things. I don't want to. I want to be grateful. I'm not homeless. I'm not asking for cans or quarters. But I'm still not giving what I can.
Life's a trip, Son
The plan was to view the movie Bobby. Bobby? Bobby? What's that about, I ignorantly asked. Emilio Estevez was the answer. No, not about him. By him. His masterpiece. His painting on the wall. Oh, Robert F. Kennedy. I get it now. I have a book, not by him (he wrote three) but about him. One of his many son's put together a book of quotes: from speeches, from readings, from people that knew him, from his famous daybook. It's called "Make Gentle the Life of the World." It is his vision, and I recently had it sent to me by my mother and from my New Mexico library. I like it because it's inscribed by someone I used to know: Tim Evans, a newsbroadcaster that I worked with in a political office. His inscription, which he wrote the day he quit to go back to TV, says: "I hope this may offer you some wisdom & inspiration in you journeys, Tim." Thanks, Tim.
I go the the bookshelf (my Oregon library) and pull the book Tim gave me and I show it to the friend I'm going to see the movie Bobby with and I find something I thought was lost (At first I thought the book was lost, it's thin and hidden.) As you may recall my birthday was earlier this month (see Birthday Boy Celebrates His 27). You didn't thank me for the card, my mom said a week after the anniversary of me born by her. No, I didn't get it, I said to her. And I found out it was a special card, and that inside the card was a hundred-dollar credit/gift card you can get nowadays. What you've never had you've never lost, I think with saddness. A message came back the next day (or the day after) that the credit/gift card hadn't been used, was stopped, and would be reissued in the coming days, weeks or months -- I still don't have the new one.
And as it turns out a new one wasn't necessary. The reason was it wasn't used was because back behind my Robert F. Kennedy book was that card of mine, unopened, never seen. And how it got there -- I'll let you draw your own conclusions -- isn't important, but that it was is.
"Hope you enjoy the ride and you never forget the way home." Thanks, Mom.
I go the the bookshelf (my Oregon library) and pull the book Tim gave me and I show it to the friend I'm going to see the movie Bobby with and I find something I thought was lost (At first I thought the book was lost, it's thin and hidden.) As you may recall my birthday was earlier this month (see Birthday Boy Celebrates His 27). You didn't thank me for the card, my mom said a week after the anniversary of me born by her. No, I didn't get it, I said to her. And I found out it was a special card, and that inside the card was a hundred-dollar credit/gift card you can get nowadays. What you've never had you've never lost, I think with saddness. A message came back the next day (or the day after) that the credit/gift card hadn't been used, was stopped, and would be reissued in the coming days, weeks or months -- I still don't have the new one.
And as it turns out a new one wasn't necessary. The reason was it wasn't used was because back behind my Robert F. Kennedy book was that card of mine, unopened, never seen. And how it got there -- I'll let you draw your own conclusions -- isn't important, but that it was is.
"Hope you enjoy the ride and you never forget the way home." Thanks, Mom.
Fort Clatsop
When the call came into the dispatcher the second time, Astoria area firemen responded to the burning Fort Clatsop replica. They didn't make it, and the building burned.
Shame, too. Before it burned to the ground in a controversial fire, the historic site was a field-trip favorite.
The fire, ruled an accident after investigation, destroyed the community's symbol of two explorers, sent by their country to find the Pacific Ocean.
Meri Lewis and Bill Clark's met the Pacific by the Columbia River near present day Astoria in the county of Clatsop. Oregon, U.S.A.
This is our part of history. Or, our part to a part of part of some history. Partial ammounts of that part.
While Captain Clark blazed trail to the coast, he assigned his men to build a structure that he sketched on a notepad. That log cabin, put on pad with pencil, is where Corps Discovery spent an especially cold winter in 1805 without whiskey and without tobacco.
Recognized as a place of significance, but with little evidence of Lewis and Clark's orriginal fort plans, the Community of Clatsop County (CCC) constructed a replica in 1955.
Built and abandoned by our heros, the community rebuilt a replica of the Fort, and, for a short while, it became the center of our historical attention.
Shame, too. Before it burned to the ground in a controversial fire, the historic site was a field-trip favorite.
The fire, ruled an accident after investigation, destroyed the community's symbol of two explorers, sent by their country to find the Pacific Ocean.
Meri Lewis and Bill Clark's met the Pacific by the Columbia River near present day Astoria in the county of Clatsop. Oregon, U.S.A.
This is our part of history. Or, our part to a part of part of some history. Partial ammounts of that part.
While Captain Clark blazed trail to the coast, he assigned his men to build a structure that he sketched on a notepad. That log cabin, put on pad with pencil, is where Corps Discovery spent an especially cold winter in 1805 without whiskey and without tobacco.
Recognized as a place of significance, but with little evidence of Lewis and Clark's orriginal fort plans, the Community of Clatsop County (CCC) constructed a replica in 1955.
Built and abandoned by our heros, the community rebuilt a replica of the Fort, and, for a short while, it became the center of our historical attention.
The disk is obsolete
A disk was dropped off at my door this evening. My housemate, who was playing X-box, answered when the doorbell rang. He was closest. Heidi was barking in the garage. I was in my room, on my computer like I am now. I stood, though, and peeked out the bedroom door and down the hall so I could see the doorway and who was there. I squint and the scene happens all at once and before I was in it. I'm behind the screen.
Short brown hair and glasses appear on a petite girl standing in the doorway, blocked by the housemate who answered the door.
"Can you give this to Carson?" she asks.
And my roommate says, "Yeah. But don'cha want to say anything to him?" She doesn't and leaves. I think that she saw me.
The door is closed. The girl is gone. Handed over to me a yellow disk, a 1.44 MB floppy that no one uses anymore but me, and I sort have stopped. It has my intials on it, marked by myself. On the plastic and not a label. This is a formatted disk that I gave to the girl now walking down my driveway and out of my life.
"You got diskt," I swear my housemate said.
I put the obsolete yellow square into my A drive thinking two things that end up both being wrong: she could have put a virus on the disk; and, she saved a document that told me why she was dropping this off, now, a year after I gave it to her. Why she doesn't want to speak to me.
Turns out that there is nothing more on that disk than a collection of short stories I wrote, saved and had given a girl I once knew.
Short brown hair and glasses appear on a petite girl standing in the doorway, blocked by the housemate who answered the door.
"Can you give this to Carson?" she asks.
And my roommate says, "Yeah. But don'cha want to say anything to him?" She doesn't and leaves. I think that she saw me.
The door is closed. The girl is gone. Handed over to me a yellow disk, a 1.44 MB floppy that no one uses anymore but me, and I sort have stopped. It has my intials on it, marked by myself. On the plastic and not a label. This is a formatted disk that I gave to the girl now walking down my driveway and out of my life.
"You got diskt," I swear my housemate said.
I put the obsolete yellow square into my A drive thinking two things that end up both being wrong: she could have put a virus on the disk; and, she saved a document that told me why she was dropping this off, now, a year after I gave it to her. Why she doesn't want to speak to me.
Turns out that there is nothing more on that disk than a collection of short stories I wrote, saved and had given a girl I once knew.
On the bus ths morning
I recieve a call from my mom. She's home sick from work and wondering when I can come home. She just has a cold, she said. Allergies from bushes she'd been cutting back yesterday, Sunday, a day we normally speak but didn't. Her illness isn't the reason she wants to know when I'm coming home.
I'm finishing my second quarter at Portland State in three weeks. I'll be off for one month before I'm scheduled to return for the next. I've said I'd go home. I want to, and for as much of it as I can. I want to get out of Portland for an extended period of time for the first time since I moved here two years ago. For the past year plus I've been without a car. And unable to travel with my dog, Heidi. I can't think of a month without her. I want to bring Heidi to New Mexico but don't think to check the animal policiy on southwest.com, a website for cheap fares my mother suggested. I'm going home I tell the one next to me. I see a great deal and click, yes, purchase. Now I'm committed. Later I look where to find out about dogs on planes. Southwest.com informs me that other than service dogs, personal pets are not permitted. Heidi doesn't benifit from my transportation bargin. I look for other options, (A friend suggests a website for owners of pets who need them moved by people going a direction, a form of hitchhicking. Coordination and forty dollars, he says but he forgot the name of the website.) but don't find an answer. I need to be in a meeting and leave the computer.
After dinner with friends, I catch the No. 4 bus to the nearest main road, then walk through the cold, wet, dark side streets to my house. When I get inside my roommates meet me with whattups and nods. Heidi races to the door. She sits and wags and looks up to me for attention. I grab her by the scruff, rub her neck, say yeah yeah hello hi Heidi. I put my bag down and go to my room. My alone place. I sit on my bed and Heidi jumps to look me in the face. Yes, I tell Heidi. I'm going to work it out. I'll make this work. I can't imagine her not in my life. We've been through a lot.
I'm finishing my second quarter at Portland State in three weeks. I'll be off for one month before I'm scheduled to return for the next. I've said I'd go home. I want to, and for as much of it as I can. I want to get out of Portland for an extended period of time for the first time since I moved here two years ago. For the past year plus I've been without a car. And unable to travel with my dog, Heidi. I can't think of a month without her. I want to bring Heidi to New Mexico but don't think to check the animal policiy on southwest.com, a website for cheap fares my mother suggested. I'm going home I tell the one next to me. I see a great deal and click, yes, purchase. Now I'm committed. Later I look where to find out about dogs on planes. Southwest.com informs me that other than service dogs, personal pets are not permitted. Heidi doesn't benifit from my transportation bargin. I look for other options, (A friend suggests a website for owners of pets who need them moved by people going a direction, a form of hitchhicking. Coordination and forty dollars, he says but he forgot the name of the website.) but don't find an answer. I need to be in a meeting and leave the computer.
After dinner with friends, I catch the No. 4 bus to the nearest main road, then walk through the cold, wet, dark side streets to my house. When I get inside my roommates meet me with whattups and nods. Heidi races to the door. She sits and wags and looks up to me for attention. I grab her by the scruff, rub her neck, say yeah yeah hello hi Heidi. I put my bag down and go to my room. My alone place. I sit on my bed and Heidi jumps to look me in the face. Yes, I tell Heidi. I'm going to work it out. I'll make this work. I can't imagine her not in my life. We've been through a lot.
Birthday Boy Celebrates His 27
For those who have yet to wish the birthday boy a happy 27th, don't. It's too late. And he won't accept. He thinks you've forgotten him. He's unsure you care. He'll probably forget yours--if he hasn't already---when your day comes.
Birthday's are just days. Today's one. We're living it. It's somebody's birthday today, and we're not wishing them well. We have hundreds of people in our lives. And 365 days in a year. How can you stamp a date on someone? How can that image be burned in your head? To be remembered when the time comes is asking a lot.
For now we celebrate with the ones around us. We get called by the close, the family, those who have been with us for birthdays past. We take their calls early-they get it out of the way. We say they're sweet to call. Not for remembering, but for fitting us in. And we try to do during the day, what we enjoy doing on a normal day: eating breakfast, reading a book, going to the park with your dog, eating another meal, drinking beers with friends.
We regret to inform people that we want to hear from but don't that today is a special day, but only for the one who was born on this day, a few years back.
Before it's too late, Happy Birthday...to me
Birthday's are just days. Today's one. We're living it. It's somebody's birthday today, and we're not wishing them well. We have hundreds of people in our lives. And 365 days in a year. How can you stamp a date on someone? How can that image be burned in your head? To be remembered when the time comes is asking a lot.
For now we celebrate with the ones around us. We get called by the close, the family, those who have been with us for birthdays past. We take their calls early-they get it out of the way. We say they're sweet to call. Not for remembering, but for fitting us in. And we try to do during the day, what we enjoy doing on a normal day: eating breakfast, reading a book, going to the park with your dog, eating another meal, drinking beers with friends.
We regret to inform people that we want to hear from but don't that today is a special day, but only for the one who was born on this day, a few years back.
Before it's too late, Happy Birthday...to me
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