Do you have a tattoo, Brad?

Sometimes, when scrolling through page after page of interesting pictures of very strange persons wearing black ink and piercings, and generally looking looking rather amazing, I wonder to myself whether I would be a more interesting person with a tattoo.

I suppose it's not much different from looking at a fashion magazine and the rock hard abs and telling yourself that you really need to get to the gym, but don't we all really do it whenever we look at whatever it is we think is worth looking at? Don't we all just compare ourselves again and again to that pristine photograph and wonder how we could become more like this person that is obviously so desirable an interesting.

I mean, I don't have the abs, and I have never been able to keep my mind made up long enough for it to make sense that I might engrave something on my flesh, but I can't help but wonder. Is it some engrained desire to flaunt our peacock feathers and impress? Probably.

But then I thought for a moment. I thought about the rainbow of skinny jeans that I have in my closet, as well as the suspenders, bow ties, blazers, button downs and converse that form the diverse pallet from which I paint my expressive wardrobe. I thought about my writing and the project I have worked on, acting, dancing, learning languages and music. I though about the cold calculated side that can make the hard choices; the side that, in conversation, can be so level, logical and fiercely unforgiving that I rarely loose and argument.

I thought about the unfettered and unfiltered ridiculous me, that puts boxes on my head at least once a week and can say the thing erupts a room in laughter as easily as grinding it to a perfect awkward halt.

I thought about me;the good and the bad, the whole dichotomous me, and how much I liked that person. That person is  already more than interesting enough for me.

Big changes.

So we are listing the house tomorrow. I have felt this overwhelming drive to finish all of the small details of weeding and cleaning, painting etc, that seem to accompany such an act, and so until yesterday, it really had not yet settled with me. It's big. Scary almost. I know that the math it right, that selling the house is the most reasonable course of action, and yet there is this large hold still over me. Like the sum of the land and bricks own me, and I feel almost as if I am betraying my duty.

Of course selling a house you have owned for 8 years is not the same as leaving a family homestead, or abandoning some local of long time historical significance, but I feel like I understand a little better those physiological and psychological forces that tie us to the dwelling we call home. There is almost a moral obligation, whether socially ingrained or innate I am not sure, but the source of the hold seems the same. There is a desire, to work to make a space better than you found it, to improve, and to see those improvements remain. Letting go means releasing all of those hours of work to another, and trusting them to be a good steward of the space.

Therein lies another problem. Trust. Do we trust the average person to be a good steward, to care for land, or even just the laminate floors. For me at least, not really, and I think it is the same for Amanda. It seems that the economic model we feature today, does not correlate with these learned and inherited behaviors of a simpler, slower time. The truth is that everybody has two or three jobs. I think humans are meant to be busy, don't get me wrong. We are happiest when fulfilled and busy with work. This may be more so true of Western civilization, where agrarian living has been our dominant survival strategy for hundreds of thousands f years. Work hard, eat well.

But now we have jobs jobs, not just the all day pursuit of improving the family / or community space. Now we have suburban housing tracks and 9 to five jobs, and have to maintain monolithic dwellings on the side. There is little time to play an instrument, or paint, or write a story, or to just daydream about the world. It is hard to make a living as an artist, or as a creative enterprise, so you have to get creative with how you make your plan, and for us the secret is needing less, to become less dependant on a corporatist capital scheme that churns through people, find a way to not need those things long enough to forge a new path, forge a new opportunity.

Although this all makes logical sense, some evolutionary trait, forgotten by the morning traffic jam, came bubbling up when my hands went into the dirt the first time. Obligation to leave the earth better than I found it. In the end, I think I can do that better by walking away from one house, but what tomorrow brings, nobody knows.

Nachos and david bowie

Son of a bitch. We may not be able to sell the house. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit. The house! What a gigantic symbol of debt and enslavement. I am a corporate slave, shackled by monetary policy and the decency not to walk away from my loan. Well not really, I worry my good decisions will lean to the hounds of high finance tackling my while others walk away. Shit fuckers. I want to feel free from financial oppression. I want to believe that this is unfair and that these consequences are somehow aimed at me, and not the mere workings of a machine gone horribly wrong. I want to get out. How can there be some much to be unhappy about, and on the other side of a paper wall, much to be happy about as well. The future is beautiful, it is the long ugly now between this side of the shore and the other. How many hate their job? How many hate the state of the economic forces that bind us? The plight of the middle class is that we struggle to merely remain, and somehow this seems less valid than those who have given up, or those who are so wealthy, or so poor, as not to care or give a damn. These things I wonder, but sometimes the day is just too hard to remain sane, and I walk away.

Thoughts while reading Atlas Shrugged.

It seems to me that there are very few people who are driven by their own passions. That in wonder, look around them at an awesome world and derive inspiration to make it better. The rest are satisfied to float or repine the efforts of others without working toward anything real or of value. Satiated by a place to sleep and a full belly. Discontented by those who dream with purpose and make these things manifest.
For the few who strive, money is not motivation, but for the larger herd, it is the only thing that moves them. Without passion, they are slaves to a class that is differentiated more for thinking than for wealth and power, by following the carrot into an imperfect system. Decisiveness and drive. But there we are.

Harry Belafonte

So the progress continues. Unless I can materialize ten pages of brilliance by Sunday, I likely will not meet my original deadline, but there was a big setback, and a vacation, so a few weeks over should still be better than the prior trajectory of finishing it never. As a bonus, while in San Diego I discovered a dusty album of carribean inspired tunes to help with all things that are made better by talk of cocounut water and rum. (that is a large list). Today I strive to finish entering the pages I wrote at LIB and to polish 19. Wish mw luck Mr. Belafonte.

Anxious

So today, I feel myself pulled in many directions. I frankly don't want to be where I am, but am stuck for the next few hours. The good news is that I think that I will get Jen to drive tonight and resign myself to getting some work done in the the backseat. (writing that is) I am also feeling a bit conflicted about the direction I want to write. Yesterday I sat down to finish the last of chapter 19, for light peppered night, and the only thing I came up with was the start of an outline and character description for the next novel. I am excited for this second novel, as I feel like it may be a lot funnier, but also a big subject and social commentary. I still have to finish number one though.

It somewhat scares me, to think that these characters will simply have no future after I stop writing it, and I can see that influencing this intense procrastination that prevents me from finishing it. Life Mr. Green put it in The Fault Is in Our Stars, when asked what happened to the tulip man and the mother after the end of the book, his answer was an emphatic "NOTHING." They cease to exist.

I have a certain stewardship of these people I have written, the universe that I created, and that was a large part in the reasoning behind my rescinding an entire chapter. In 18, I did something that the entire book was driven toward, and once done, found that it was horrible, and just too tragic. So I took it back. Although I like the new chapter, I am concerned that I may not be able to make to book memorable without the crash boom bang!

We shall see, but I think the next chapter shall have music.

should have been published, not saved 5/14

So I had to do it.

I have been making a hard push to finish my novel, The Light Peppered Night (working title). A recent trip away from the density of life and work in Phoenix allowed me a chance to complete all but the last four chapters, the first of which is now half done as well. 


The further along I go, the more I deeply care about these characters, and their struggles. I hope that is a good sign. The end is in sight for my first work, and I find myself missing them already, knowing that their journey will end on the last page. 


This has been a difficult book for me. I set out to tackle some large subjects. The topics are not light; death and grief, identity and self, science vs mysticism. Perhaps with all works of creativity, our characters teach us much about ourselves in the process. I am proud of what I have accomplished so far, and I think in the end it will stand on its own. That is, at least, the hope. 


I have come to a difficult point. There is one path, one culmination of probabilities as Edward would say, and the future for my characters has solidified and been all but set in stone (if not in paper). I say the following because I need to say it for myself, and perhaps cryptically enough that should any wayfarer stumble upon this tiny and insignificant un-followed blog, it shall not destroy the beauty which I attempted to create. 








There was only this way for it to end, never another. And to you and you alone, I am sorry. Forgive me.