The Imperfect Moment

Not the best time to write this but the only time I am currently allowed. A little drowsy. Woke up ahead of my way-too-early alarm because I had a work problem to call the opening manager about. Bleh, as in comic book Odie eating something bad---bleh. Anywho, more strange times. Who'd thunk it?

My parents, after thirty-one years, are getting a divorce. Before you lament my situation please reflect upon the changing nature of the universe. Change is the one constant. Objective reality is every possibility of the moment as space playing itself out. To choose a path is an illusion that is as real as we want it to be. Both of my parents have been unhappy with their life for sometime. If this is the catalyst for them to get out there actively seeking what will make them happy then so be it. The way it has gone down is not exactly pretty but a far sight from other debacles.

Life stuff seems a bit trivial right now. Little stories:

Marley, me little nephew, thinks "Uncle Jason is so silly."

Mara, a friend of Mars, thinks, "I'm fun to be around." She was sincere when she said it.

A customer at my work said I was so peaceable I should be a priest. Cough.

How to take compliments?

Been hangin' with Meilani from Olywa. Used to have coffee chats with her outside of Vita but I was eminently distracted by my own moroseness (earlier) or Rebecca (later) during that period, or writing of course. Meilani kicks ass! A poet to the core. Intentional. We swap girl-problem stories, she gives me publishing tips (she works letterpress & makes zines), & we drink my free bottles of wine into the early morning. Hell of a lot of fun.

The art of making anything well these days seems to be a lost art. Who cares about how they make a piece of clothing, a cup of coffee, a dish, a meal, a sentence, a kiss, a step, a childhood these days? A: Not enough of us.

I am in a room with five laptops. Count em' one, two, three, four, five. Monstrous little lapdwellers pulsing over people's crotches, humming with a dull whir of distraction & isolation. No thanks.

Gonna leave for Albina soon where the art of the drink is still alive in constant pursuit.

Biggest personal story besides the divorce: I sent off my first chapbook manuscript. The Underneath, twenty-eight pages of wandering hermit poems where the exterior is sought out as a reflection of the interior & connection with the land is seen as a primary means of healing the relationship with the self. Whatever that means. Hmmm... Well, I suppose I should do an actual round of magazine/press submissions instead of my usual scattershot methods. The turning point can be a small accumulation of unconcsious knowledge summoned from latency by a nice day with sun lilting through the trees. I believe that.

Joseph & Mars are settled in the SE with Takashi. Matt's not mad at me, he called. He's coming to Portland soon. Yoshimi, my God-kitty, was so cute when I got to pet her. Mars & I had a good talk, we needed one. Nature & I spent some quality time too. I've been feeling pretty damn sociable. Who knows, maybe I've followed through on enough of my intentions to get out of the latest rut phase.

Picked up the New York Times Magazine yesterday at the caf only to see the words No ordinary singer-songwriter in the upper left corner. Curiousity sparked, my fingers flipped pages & voila Katell Keineg. The article was about the Breton-Welsh mistress of voice who transcends time & place. The article recounted her relative anonymity after many predictions of fame swirled about her early career. Like Jack Gilbert or Lori Carson (who recently journaled about how she hated the music & was considering not touring and/or recording anymore) she has that innate sense of life being important & worth refining with a little privacy---& that voice! An artist after my own heart.

Saw the Flaming Lips in Bend a few weeks back. Woo! Still have a strand of ribbon that shot over us, orange. Damn good show. There were skunky smells, & photo shots up Wayne's nose, & naked girls writhing in cosmic light on screen, & --------great music. Who knew Bend was so cool? Washington has nary a town in the Cascade half as cool. Leavenworth & Winthrop included.

Music I'm listening to: Richard Ashcroft Keys to the World, Richard Ashcroft Alone with Everybody, Richard Ashcroft Human Conditions, Flaming Lips The WAND, Flaming Lips At War with the Mystics, Kinnie Starr Tidy, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan Ballad of the Broken Seas, Soup Dragons Lovegod (surprising allowance of self to return to 'Shoegazer' roots, never liked that summation & the supposed slackerhood wallfloweriness that it implied), My Bloody Valentine Loveless (when I bought it again for the third time the guy behind the counter said, "You know this is the greatest album ever made?"), & more.

Books I've read: Real Work by Gary Snyder, A Poet's Work by Sam Hamill, Fragments of Wisdom by Heraclitus, Tao-te-Ching by Lao-Tzu, & Children of Dune by Frank Herbert all rereads. This has been a time of newness in regestation, cultivating those plants that have proved hearty.

An Inconvenient Truth made me cry. Those visions of floods keep piercing me. If it's not the Tsunamis ravaging Asia it's Katrina, if it's not Katrina it's God letting Noah slip away on the ark only to say afterwards "Sorry, sorry. My bad, here's a rainbow. I'll never do it again." Or its the Enuma Elish or Gilgamesh or Global "I don't exist" Warming. How 'bout those unprecedented 100+ degree days in mid-June?

Daniel's getting married. Weird! I don't have the funds to ante up 400 large for a trip to Austin. That sucks but reality is I'll be there in spirit. Love finds so many of us in a great form.

Should stop hogging the computes even if nobody is waiting. People like me tend to be too polite or passive aggressive depending on how you look at it. Too bad my walking shoes are so hard on my feet, otherwise I'd be leaping out the door to greet the day again. C'est la vie for now.

Love you all. You especially Miss Amy Ann. I imagine you're going to get around to reading this. Hopefully, I'll have gotten around to calling you by the time your eyes peruse these strange letter combinations. Love you all. Another poem here soon.