I Like Ironing

I like Ironing. I don't care what anybody says. There's a mild masterbatory thrill in creating order from chaos. Making the wretched, disorderly wrinkles bowing down before the white hot justice of the iron.

This is the way October Ends

Not with a bang but a hangover.

The trees are shedding at double pace. Nature is going from the beauty of kaleidoscope leaves to their skeletal foundational structures. Winter won't be far behind.

It was forty-three degrees our yestereday. I had flashbacks to last winter. No wonder I was so miserable, I had two thin jackets and a long sleeve shirt to protect me. Not this year. I'm ready.

But I never much cared for this part of fall.

And time is going too fast sometimes. It seems like yesterday that I took my friend to the hospital for head wounds. New Year's Eve, I remember. She fell in a bathroom and hit her head. Her face turned purple. The same four phrases. Apologies for...something. She was actually embaressed by her head trama. The weeping at the door. Her swearing she'd never forgive my partner and I. And that was almost a year ago.

I have to work in an hour, but between now and then I'm going to enjoy the end of fall.

My Book Shelf

So I went to the bars, and it was fun. Two women "played" my buddy and I for a shot. We all knew what was going on, hence the quotation marks, I just couldn't think of a better word. I had fun, I went to the streets. Refreshingly out of the ivory tower.

And I didn't blame them. I applauded. This mass of people enjoy the world because this is their world. I told one of the girls to enjoy her shot because we were going to die. A very poor way to get laid, but I'm too honest for my own good and I like giving strangers the benefit of a doubt. I've never denied my inability to talk to women.

But I'm here, just thinking and I see my books and my movies. The two hundred and something books, the majority of which I've read. And I think: I've read hundreds of books. No wonder I can't get along with anybody.

This book shelf is the numbers that add up to me. If someone Had a year and read most of these books they'd know me. They could see through everything I say. They could be me.

And it made me love the people who have read thousands of books. They know more than I do. I'm only a fifth of the way there.

I see why I don't fit in. By my own beautiful choice.

It's Beautiful!

It's beautiful. Everything. Ever. Regardless of anything. It is all wonderful. Every half-wit advisor and Professor Ford. Every what if and should have is beautiful. To be alive is to know beauty. Every second. Every iota. Everything.

Every moment you'll never forget and every moment you wish you could. Every woman you ever longed for, every girl you blew it with. This is life and life is beautiful. The two are synonyms and this is my message.

To exist in this day and this age. Every 2001 and each movie in a five dollar bin. We did it! We live! We are alive. We ARE.

To be, is, am, are, I am, you are, they are. He is. she is.

Listen listen listen. Think of every sylabol. Every typo. This is beauty. Yaweh means I AM. And I am! I love love love love all of you. I only want the best. I only want you TO BE.

I'm Not Ready Yet.

Sleep will come and tomorrw will bring dehydration. My stomach hurts from the beer and even more from the cigarettes. I over did that again. My poor body shouldn't be this reliable.

There's a subtle alliance in these people. I don't know how strong it it. It's there though. I haven't determined if we genunely like each other or if circumstance forced us together. My gut tells me the former, but then again, my gut aches from abuse.

Will I make it to class? The evidence seems contrary, but who cares. I feel, free. Or at least freer (if such things can be quantified),

I hope the small town bar invasion is successful, or at least amusing. If we do it right we'll be sprinting for our vehicle to make a get away. If we do it wrong we won't have anything to mock at the Union steps.

These musings make me feel closer to something. Like I'm actually a writer and not a guy who likes to write. Growing old will be hard. But when my grandchildren ask me what college was like, I won't have to say I studied until I met your grandma.

And maybe that's the meaning of life.

I Sold My Meditation Books for Drinking Money...

Happy fall break. Who wants to get R.I.P.'ed?

Ah, yes. Cliches

It rained all weekend. And it did all the things it always does. All weekend.

Things were wiped out. The Huskers as we knew them, mainly. The tradition is dead. Bill Callahan is gone. Worst lost since 1958. Well, this is what traditions do. Wiped out in the rain.
Two of my friends felt this affect. They broke up. I won't go very deep into it, but it was washed away in a two-thirty phone call.

And it cleansed. It took the garbage off the street, it washed the blood off my hands and dirt off the graves.

It confused. It turned things around. Leaping over a cemetary fence, the taste of Guiness heavy in my mouth. Blips and sketches before I took a deep breath and walked to coffee.

And it moved on. As quickly as it came. The forecast calls for clear skies. This weekend burns away. The early-hours phone calls and cuts and caffiene won't be remembered long.

Insane by Proxy

I'm one of three people I know who has drunkenly discussed Kafka in a graveyard.

Less Sleep means More Writing...

I have these terrifying lucid dreams.

I fall asleep and wake up every thirty minutes, or dream I'm waking up every thirty minutes. Leaving my fragile psyche with the impression that I'm awake for three, four or six hours after I pass out.

One or two isn't so bad. But it's all I've had since school started. Some kind of existential crisis or a reaction to the unholy amount of chemicals I need to make it through class are my most likely culprits in this whole thing.

I'm reminded of a mild neurosis I devloped as a cab driver. There was a week or three in there when I feared sleep. It became a sibling to dying and I didn't want my last memories before death filled with disappointment in the sacks of human shit I hauled around.

Once you work fifteen hours but still can't sleep Travis Bickle becomes your patron saint.

On The Road Between Hometowns...(redux)

The tree's twilight sillohette and the swerving of my car in the wind make me wonder. As I drive by franchise restaurants, localized national bars. I never liked this town. Even when it was the only town I knew.

It's Tuesday and I see Beatrice's bus filled with geared up football players. Are they returning or departing. This early in the week it's a freshman game. Bleachers filled of parents, a girlfriend or two. Somewhere on that bus is a kid looking out a window who wants to be at home finding meaning in Johnny Got His Gun.

Swerving around eight miles of contruction. Not as tedious as it sounds. Correcting for wind resistance. Correcting for correction every time a semi speeds past.

The Ranch Bowl will be a Wal Mart. If it wasn't so cliche it'd be a great symbol. I haven't even seen this particular plot of land since last November. I broke-in to walk around. I don't have any personal attachment. I've never saw a whole concert there. But I'm a writer, allegedly, feeling or finding or forcing emotion in abandoned buildings comes as naturally to me as chain smoking, gulping coffee or making inapporiate comments.

Now it's a mesa. Dirt piled high and leveled off. Again, I wasn't there, man, I just...

Saddle Creek's explosion never meant much to me. Like the town. Just a 'faint' echo. A train whistle at three in the morning. I knew it was there.

So here I am. At this junction in history. Blessed with these debits and cursed by these gifts. 'Triumphing' in language because money never made sense.

Around Greenwood I wonder why? Have you ever met anyone from Greenwood? I haven't and I drank there

ONCE.

Why even bother? I understand the North Plattes and Ashlands. They serve a purpose. Shallow and hallow. Greenwood. A vesitigio. A ruin. Pompeii without the infamy. Just a town to expire. Tired townsfolk. A bar, gas station (closed at ten) and Amish furniture store. Is that all there is?

As the sun turns silloettes to shuddering wraiths,

I wonder.

The end is Near...

So this is October? Funny. It doesn't seem like it. It doesn't seem like anything.

I'm reminded of two personal anniversaries, of sorts, from this time. I reminded of leaves falling, the wind from the north makes it's first appearence. There's a metaphor for all this. It's too damn tacky, even for me, so I'm not going to bother.

I've always loved this month. The transition month, The leaves aren't dead but you know they will be. The grass isn't brown, but it's getting there. The semester isn't over, but you know how it'll end.

There's just a peek at permanence. The seconds before a rock plunges into a river. It can't be changed. The course is inevitable. But what if? What if the laws of nature decided to go on sabbatical. For just one second? What if?

I've always liked my options open. Not much for settling down. In four months I've committed to and backed out of as many plans. This leaves something to be desired, yet nothing because then I'd have to chose.

The faint smell of wood and decay in the air. The leaves' crunch underfoot. The occasional warm day where you almost swear it's summer, before you remember.

I could live in this aesthetic.

I'll graduate. That's inevitable. I've busted ass and all-nightered and crammed and loved and hated and wept and danced and drank for four years. This is my due: A piece of paper and a thousand roads. Thoughtful and reckless like a chess game or a firefighter. This story can end anyway.

But now I'm just...I don't know. Teachers are like girls: they make scoring too easy sometimes. It doesn't matter. There's beauty in this state, particularly in this city and this campus. Living in an epiphany isn't as romantic as Keats led me to believe.

It's better.

Sacrifice

What does it mean to be a hero? I mean a true hero? The dedication, the perserverance, the drive to protect the weak.

This weekend I saw the purest act of all of the above.

If a party is ruined by one person, the standard operating proceedure is to jettison said person. But what if a party isn't ruined by a person, but a deamon? A hellspawn from the deepest layers of Dante? Gnashing and wailing of teeth by all parties involved as this shrill monster terrorized the innocent guests.

Galahad, armed only with Empyrian ale and unfettered altruism, saw the monster for what she was. Knew the deamon for what she was. And he knew the only course of action that would save his charges. He took her to the wilderness and thrust his lance into her, spilling some of himself in the fight. A true mother fucker.

Some of his life force was left behind. The encounter marred his soul. Coming back from battle, Galahad sighed. Victorious yet beaten. A success which saved the many but killed the one. The peasents rejoiced. The dragon woman, the serpantine wench was banished from the kingdom.

But would the people ever know why?

They might not understand what it took for him to do it. They might be too blind. The tempo of time never changes though. Life goes by in a saphire flash and the deed will be forgotten. But for one night, one man sacrificed his mind, his very body, possibly his life for a party of serfs who are indebted to him for his courage.