A Few Things from My Journals

I have been keeping a journal for some time now, a small and convenient pocket size as well as a few other larger ones, all with the basic mission of improving myself as a writer.  It has been a somewhat irrational fantasy on my part for most of my life that someday I could, while not becoming fabulously wealthy, at least make a living or supplement another job by pursuing some creative endeavor, be it writing, acting, cartooning, etc.  While this has always been a notion, I did very little writing, but much "research", or at least that's what I called drinking heavily, living excessively, and just generally being what by most accounts was an aimless loser.  If you look at it realistically, I sit here now an unaccomplished man with no home, no family of his own and no body of work upon which to look back on and assess.  More than anything else, I've worked in retail for the most part and if I were hard pressed would label myself that way.  I'm a stock boy.  Certainly not a writer.  If life is the great teacher I've always heard it to be, than the greatest lesson I've learned from this cruel schoolmaster is humility.

But it is never too late to be what you always wanted.

I don't date my journal entries for the most part, and find that it makes the journal flow nicely, like one big rambling narrative.  I've picked these pieces at random and provided headings for this presentation of them.  

To enjoy the first one might require a refresher course in the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh.  Gilgamesh was a mighty king like unto the gods.  His story comes to use via ancient tablets from Mesopotamia.  At the death of his friend Enkidu, Gilgamesh seeks immortality but fails in the end.  It was assigned reading when I was in community college, but I was too busy and too smart to be bothered with it.  I read it some time late and enjoyed it very much.     

Thoughts on Gilgamesh

And so Gilgamesh dies.  Heralded and immortalized, but dead nonetheless.  Thwarted at attempts towards immortality, lost and lonely with the death of his friend Enkidu, our hero discovers the only immortality available to man are the tablets, the stories he leaves behind.  A strange amalgam of words and deeds.  How many copies of this epic are in print?  How many thousands of years ago did he die?  Did he really live at all?  The preliminary text mentions a king that, on official record, ruled for more than a hundred years.  Each subsequent king ruled for a more credible span of time, but what was considered "ripe old age" for ancient desert peoples?  Where did my mother go when she died?  Inspired by the loss of a loved one to undertake a quest for, if not immortality, at least a better understanding of mortality.  Yes, Gilgamesh, the dream is marvelous and the end of life is sorrow.  

Children at Play

Pretty little blonde girl with big round rosy cheeks and pig-tails.  Little blonde-haired brother with that typical wide-eyed confused attention that kids of his age greet all that comes their way.  Yes, we were all that small once.  Someone loved us, or at least thought enough of us or of human life to provide for our basic comforts and see us through to where we are now.  Me?  I had love-a-plenty.  I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, this life.  Just as it is and as it may become.  Changes, come as you may.  I'm still here.

Notes on my first visit to New York

Too busy hiking the Big Apple to write anything down as it happened, but here's what I saw today:  The lions, named Prudence and Fortitude, guarding the entrance of the New York Public Library.  The 9-11 memorial.  Security was very tight.  Waterfalls cascading down once and down again into nothingness.  The stillness, the glassy water as it approached the edge, then the sound of fury of it as it poured into nowhere.  The view from the Empire State building.  The courthouse, upon the steps of which we made "Law & Order" gavel banging jokes.  Trinity Church.  Wall Street, where I saw the great big brass bull with his great big brass balls.  The beautiful golden Prometheus at Rockefeller Center.  The Stonewall, where gay rights were born, was as a dignified a little building as red neon and drag show flyers can allow a building to be.  The Stock exchange, and two poor working stiffs buffing the floor on the set of the Today show.  

Working Life

The new girl was young, thin, pretty, and cross-eyed.  It was hard to notice right away because her eyes were a pale almost silvery blue and the iris didn't stand out very well against the white.  I'd see her in passing and smile and maybe every other passing she would smile as well.  It wasn't long before the younger men and a few of the more optimistic older men descended on her and through flirtatious chit-chat ruined whatever mystery her newness lent her and she became just another cashier.  Nothing special.  Work was a process in which one went about little chores in exchange for money.  Loyalty was loosely defined as the lack of intention to find another job.  Wages and spirits were low, and everyone did what they could do to distract themselves from the doing of their work.  The greatest compliment you could pay to the task at hand was that it made the time go by.  Work was not joyful.  Shifts seemed to drag by and days off flew by too quickly. The meantime was a surrender to the present.  A complete surrender and the understanding that what you were really trading for money was time, and that was silly because how much time do you have, really?  The new girl had a boyfriend who worked at another place across town.  Her mystery gone, her affections unavailable, her crossed eyes became a point of ridicule.  She quit some weeks late and was probably better off.

Brief Encounter

Well, crossed a bridge just now, but it felt a little more like a mine field.  I saw her.  Walking to lunch.  I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't wanted to see her.  She's changed her hair.  It's lighter now.  She seemed like a different person, not the girl I'd known at all.  I said "Don't freak out" and she laughed.  Again with the borderline indifference.  I was just someone she'd known sometime ago.  We exchange "how are you's" and "goods" and that was it.  It was all I could take before I slunked away.  There was another brief passing.  "See ya" she said and I smiled, I'm sure dumbly, but I was going for polite.  What a difference a few weeks can make.  What'll I tell my therapist?

The Friends of Eleanor Rigby

The Beatles sing "Eleanor Rigby" via satellite radio.  Poor Father Mackenzie and his sermons that fall on deaf ears.  Poor old Miss Rigby, gone, forgotten, dead in a more real and lasting way then the rest of the lonely people.  It's hard to be alone.  It's hard on nights when there's nobody there and there's laundry to contend with, but let's face it, if you don't knot your socks, nobody's going to do it for you.  And then the fundamental questions:  Where do we come from?  Where do we all belong?

    

Some Quick Ones...

These belated missives are dedicated to Tom Allen and Son

Most of what I write can be classified on a scale ranging from "intensely personal" to "completely fictional".  The late lamented pop group REM called their farewell greatest hits compilation "Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage", and I guess that about sums it up.  Little kernels of truth or, more precisely, of experience floating in a sea of pure bunk.

Enjoy.  I wouldn't be posting any of this if I didn't want feedback, so do the right thing.  

Law and Order

This particular chain coffee shop is frequented by detectives from the local police department.  Depending on the time of day you can see them filtering in for morning coffee or for lunch.  With few exceptions, all of them are in good shape and genuinely attractive people.  They usually travel in groups of two or three, but there is one older man with silver grey hair and neatly trimmed mustache that always seems to be alone.  He's also the only one I've seen so far that wears a shoulder holster, and I like to think he fancies himself a kind of maverick.  The lone wolf cop we all know from action movies.

  

Today I saw three detectives, two females, a blonde and a brunette, and a male with a shaved head and sunglasses he kept on indoors.  The male wore slacks, a pressed white shirt and a tie so ugly it could only have been a fathers day present.  All three wore fabric holsters clipped on their belts for their respective firearms and had badges hanging from chains around their necks.  

The blonde was the oldest and clearly the leader.  She took point while her fellows followed closely behind.  

"I'm sore from doing these", she said, "Whatever these are" and she began waving her arms in front of her like a bird taking flight.  The other two smiled sympathetically and the male said P90X left him similarly wiped out.  

The brunette spoke the least of the trio.  She wore a tank top beneath an open flannel shirt.  Her badge hung just between her breasts.  

The three ordered salads and coffee.  While eating the male said resentfully that "people have this Hollywood of what a detectives life is like.  That it's all action."  His peers seemed equally resentful of this common misconception, but I noticed none of them spoke further to dispel it.   

Lifeguard on Duty

The lifeguard sat texting with her legs up in a chair, looking very calm and comfortable.  She exuded no security whatsoever, and instead seemed to be sending out vague psychic communications to all of us at the pool.  She was saying "Nobody drown, okay?".

Courtesy Call

I answered the phone.  It was the hospice that had taken care of my mother calling, telling me that we were reaching an anniversary of my mothers passing and as a courtesy to my father and I they were checking in, seeing if there was anything we needed and how we were holding up.  I told her that my father had actually died about a week ago and there was quiet for a few moments.  "Goodness" she said.  This was followed by more silence.  Another "goodness" and she cleared her throat.  She said "Well, if there's anything we can do for you in the wake of your mothers death, or the death of your father, for that matter, please feel free to call."  I thanked her and hung up.  I imagine she took the rest of the day off, or at least a very long lunch.

Your enjoyment of this next one is contingent upon your ability to answer the question "Just who the hell is Tom Mix, anyway?"  Tom Mix was a silent film star and one of cinemas first cowboy heroes.  He rode "Tony, the Wonder horse" and died young.   

Tom Mix in the Valley of Death

Tom Mix had been in the desert for some time.  The sun was relentless.  The desert was dry and though this desolate place had been almost a second home to Tom for so many years he was growing tired of it.  Tom hadn't talked to Tony for days and was fearful his old friend would come to resent the silence.  Though a wonder horse, Tony was, after all, a horse and couldn't return much in the way of conversation.  They exchanged well-meaning smiles as they made their way to the oasis to refill Tom's canteen.  Tom thought of Mabel.  Or was her name Pearl?  He thought of that pure-hearted school marm that waited for him in town.  That wonderful smiling girl who waited patiently for Tom's return and perhaps, dare she even think it, a proposal of marriage after so many years pining faithfully for her wandering hero.  The idol of her heart and mind.  "I think her names Katy" said Tom, but Tony only nodded.  His masters thoughts had been so scattershot lately.  So random.  But the desert does that to a man.  No doubt about it, the desert infects you just as sure as shootin'.  It gets under your skin and into your blood and before you know it, you've got a fever.  The only cure for the fever?  More of what made you ill in the first place.  More desert.  More lonely wandering from mesa to watering hole to emptiness and the maddening jailhouse of ones own troubled mind.  Tom promised Tony all the oats he could eat but Tony had heard this promise before.  Tom felt guilty.  It's bad enough to have this crazy sickness yourself, but to drag somebody out along with you?  Almost unconscionable.  Tony was a wonder horse, and a wonderful friend.  Let's just say he could talk, what would he say?  He'd say "I'm with you, Tom, right down the line."  Tom took his canteen from his saddlebag.  "I think her names Edith" he said.  

Three Dreams

I dreamed I was an investigative journalist and as part of research for an article had myself shrunk down to roughly the size of a Ken doll.  A cat menaced me, and I caught a mouse to use as bait to distract my formidable pursuer.  I had a clever name for the article that I was going to write about the experience in the dream but couldn't remember it when I woke up.  Later on, I though up another title: "Of Mice-Sized Men"

I dreamed that I was on a bus trip and was upset to discover an old girlfriend travelling on the same bus.  I felt agitated and awkward.  As it turns out my old flame was now a perfume sales lady and was hawking her wares to fellow travelers.  The perfumes had weird names like "I'm a Mystery" and "He's SO into you".  I finally became so frustrated that I walked over to her and the woman she was selling her scents to and said "Do you have one called 'I am a Royal Pain in the Ass?'"

I dreamed that my mother and father were puppets.  They behaved as they did in life, but to almost comical extremes.  All of their attributes were amplified and they had become, in the dream, gross caricatures of what they had been in life.  I felt guilty in the dream and when I woke up as well.  I felt that, even if only subconsciously, I was making fun of them.