Friday, June 12, 2015

hang glider

Ever since I was like 9 years old I've had this idea in the back of my head that I want to fly. That's part of the reason why I'm so obsessed with clouds. I wanna be up in 'em. The big, fat cumulous ones. You know, the giant White Mountains that just inexplicably float. Up there, defying gravity, and giving the finger to common sense. Way up there in the sky.

Think about how you could go adventuring around and through and betwixt and between and behind and under and over a ginormous flock of those things, exploring all up in them like I used to do in that old barn when I was a kid, burrowing a network of tunnels through stacks of hay bales.

Like I said, back when I was about 9 years old - you know, that age whenever you think anything is possible - I worked up this plan with a friend of mine to make hot air balloons out of trash bags. We were gonna fly with those things, and I just knew it. We both dreamed about that for weeks, fully intending to make it real, and meaning it. I don't think it's possible to be more serious about something than a 9 year old with a head full of dreams. However, what with being 9 years old and all, and that being what it is and meaning what it means, we eventually moved on to other interests and impossible ideas, and... surprise. We never did build those balloons.

I don't harbor any illusions about realistically ever being able to do that. I'm not talking about building hot air balloons out of Hefty bags; that's obviously just a beautiful dream. Ridiculous, but beautiful. No, I'm taking about exploring all up in those cloud mountains. I'm an adult now, with an adults understanding of the realistic differences between childhood dreams and cold, hard reality. No... no trash bag hot air balloons. I am gonna build a hang glider, though.

Bamboo, duct tape, 4 millimeter plastic sheeting, bolts, wing nuts, washers, a couple of sketched out diagrams and plans I found online, and a Big Fat F You to anybody who says 'you're crazy, you're stupid, you can't teach yourself how to do that, you'll kill yourself, only a complete moron, or maybe just a suicidal idiot would build a hang glider out of bamboo and duct tape and uh... unusually thick plastic bags and then actually try to fly it without any lessons'.

Well, I ain't any of those things, but that's what I'm gonna do. Man, I just can't frikin' wait. It's gonna be awesome. And don't worry, some guy who said he'd done all of this before posted all of the know-how on the internet, so I've got all the info I need. I can just make the rest up as I go along as I need to, just like everybody else who ever figured out anything kick-ass. Like James Clerk Maxwell.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

St. Ides heaven

Everything is exactly right

When I walk around here

Drunk every night

With an open container

From 7-Eleven

It is st.ides heaven

Been out haunting the neighborhood

And everybody

Can see I'm no good

When I'm walking out

Between parked cars

With my head full of stars

I think I know what brings me down

'Cause I want those things

That are never allowed

If you see me smiling

Do you think it's a frown

That's upside down

'Cause everyone is a fucking pro

And they've all got answers

To troubles we've known

And they all have a say

In what we should or shouldn't do

But I don't have a clue

High on amphetamines

The moon is a lightbulb breaking

It'll go around with anyone

But it won't come down for anyone

Yeah that's me

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Little deaths

I do a lot of walking. Tons. Mostly at night.  It ain't anything except just a statement of what is.  It's what I do, so here I am saying it because there ain't much else to say about myself, and I like talking about myself.

Walking.  THOUSANDS of MILES a YEAR.  I do it because my only alternative is to sleep, and there's a limit to how much of that you can do, unfortunately.  You can't sleep sixteen hours a day and work the other eight, every day, for the rest of your life. You Just cant.  I know because I've tried.  No, not even with drugs.  It just flat out ain't a tenable situation, ever, unless you put yourself in a coma.  Then you can't work, and it becomes a completely different situation which is moot anyway. 

Here, see.  I'm talking about actually recognizing and accepting your inevitable choice to participate in this tragically unsatisfying, hellishly depressing, agonizingly unavoidable role in this... thing... this, this slow sludge that comprises the other half of awareness, as a functioning, living zombie. Aware and horrified.  Relief from it isn't even a concept that exists, so forget that you ever even heard that there was such a thing that never was.  Don't argue with me. 

Eventually, almost every day, I'll realize that each horrifying slice of the experience is pretty much just mine alone.  Unique to me, you know.  And I'll wonder how I ever agreed to take ownership of all this... shit.  So there's this thing I do, that I didn't know that I did... which is going out, out, out, dumb and unaware, and then going back in like a baby and grabbing on to whatever happens to be around that feels untainted, or different, or even just a brand new kind of bad.  I heard about the doing of that kind of thing somewhere, so I know about it.  I relate to it in a big way. Whatever that means... that is, the meaning of what I just laid out there describes in a vague, parallel way the sum feeling of my ignorant hopes, if they were added up over all of these years of wandering around, and then averaged out to the essence of some kind of total. 

Once you begin to notice the absence of all the unnoticed miles, then I think you'll understand what 'going in like a baby' means to me.  If you've taken hundreds of thousands of aimless footsteps in the dark, then you'll understand that eventually you want it to become less of something to do with just empty, heavy, unsupported swaths of time... that's what I want, anyway.  I dunno why I'm talking like I think I know what you want.  I guess I'm just lonely.

God, it's such a hopeless and diminishing thing to feel, the relentless press of every day on top of the other one.  It's so much and it hurts so longly and I feel so old.  I just wish that there could be such a thing as pain, again, but for the first time. Isn't that strange.

I really don't remember when I started to hope and wish that all of these everyday beginnings, of all of these waking ups and these long walks and little deaths would somehow add up to a beginning that I'd never met before, to a middle I'd never known, and a real ending that was more than just a last page that moved out of the way when it was turned, to reveal a brand new beginning to the same, endless exhaustion.