I am sitting on a chair in the hospital. My Mom is lying to my right asleep and my grandma is lying to my left asleep. All My Children is on the tv, my grandma's favorite show. She has been watching it everyday for almost 40 years. It has been several years since I have watched All My Children, so most of the the characters who were children six years ago are now shriveled up and old. In this episode, a character named Reese has been blinded in some sort of accident. She has gauze over her eyes. She also seems to be going through a sexual identity crisis and her parents keep telling her to do what Simon says and Simon says she is straight. Another character is in the hospital after apparently being poisoned. It appears Pine Valley has seen a lot of changes since I last tuned in, but it's the same old drama.
The machine behind my head is making a lot of noise. I don't know what it is, I guess it keeps track of my grandma's pulse and something else. I timed it and it makes a honky noise every 15 seconds. In-between the mechanical honky noises, are the snores of my mom and grandma. Breathing, the signs of life are music to my ears.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Random Thoughts at SeaTac Airport Wednesday
Why is it that we only rush home when something bad has happened? Why don’t we rush home when something fantastic has happened? Just a phone call will suffice and we’ll recollect that joyous phone call the day we are summoned home, because something bad has happened.
I saw a button on the floor of the airport bathroom. I thought about picking it up, but it was resting slightly on the other side of my stall and I didn’t think my neighbor would appreciate my reach. Still, something about that button, perhaps the way it peeped on me through its four eyes, made me want to snatch it. My grandma loves buttons. After a fresh dirt pile was swept, my cousins and I were instructed to sort out the nickels and lost buttons. Buttons. Why buttons? Are we, as citizens of the United States, in short supply of buttons? No; I doubt that this is the case. Perhaps it is because every button is different, I think. Have you ever seen two lost buttons that are the same? I suppose this is completely possible. Buttons are not quite like snowflakes and in this mass produce society, some buttons are the same, but not the ones found in button jars.
I don’t like dinner rolls and ham. They remind of the refreshments after the funeral service. The ham is always fatty and cold and the dinner role has always been brushed with too much flour, so it sticks to the roof of your mouth. If you skip the ham in favor of butter, the flour rubs off onto your fingers and eventually ends up on the tip of your nose. If you choose to scrape butter on the top on the roll, it feels and similar to nails on a chalkboard.
I saw a button on the floor of the airport bathroom. I thought about picking it up, but it was resting slightly on the other side of my stall and I didn’t think my neighbor would appreciate my reach. Still, something about that button, perhaps the way it peeped on me through its four eyes, made me want to snatch it. My grandma loves buttons. After a fresh dirt pile was swept, my cousins and I were instructed to sort out the nickels and lost buttons. Buttons. Why buttons? Are we, as citizens of the United States, in short supply of buttons? No; I doubt that this is the case. Perhaps it is because every button is different, I think. Have you ever seen two lost buttons that are the same? I suppose this is completely possible. Buttons are not quite like snowflakes and in this mass produce society, some buttons are the same, but not the ones found in button jars.
I don’t like dinner rolls and ham. They remind of the refreshments after the funeral service. The ham is always fatty and cold and the dinner role has always been brushed with too much flour, so it sticks to the roof of your mouth. If you skip the ham in favor of butter, the flour rubs off onto your fingers and eventually ends up on the tip of your nose. If you choose to scrape butter on the top on the roll, it feels and similar to nails on a chalkboard.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Talking To Thyself
I talk to myself all day long - I walk and talk, walk and talk. Some people call this insanity, loneliness, even schizophrenia. I don't really care what you call it. I call it my life, so deal with it. Today I've been giving myself a talk on time and space and what is this? My good friend and I were chatting on gmail chat. She said that today, for the second time is a short time, she has gotten a splinter in her finger after scratching her head. I hypothesized that her head may be turning to wood and consequently her body into a tree. Xylem is taking substances up and Phloem is taking substances down. My friend replied with glee stating that she hopes she is becoming a large decaying, moss covered stump like the one she recently laid on. However, my friend wrote, it would take centuries for this morph to happen. How does she know this? I informed her that time does not really exist and time and morphology are understood only as humans have created them. Time, like heaven and hell, was created by man in an effort to simplistically understand the universe. Thus, it is possible for one to turn into a decaying stump. Why not? This is just as possible as it is that one who believes in Jesus Christ, a fictional character from an ancient fictional book, is upon death going to float to some magical kingdom in the sky. Thus, everything is possible and equally impossible. The world is completely fabricated in our minds.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
When Two Worlds Converge
I wrote most of this while resting by a tree in 9 feet of snow - snowshoeing
I smell a little bit like tobacco - that cigarette I shouldn't have smoked last night. I put it out on the palm of my hand half finished and stowed it away in my pocket, but the scent remains - stale smoke and bottled beer - remnants of last night's party that I was at, but not present, quietly drifting into subtle contemplation. Who is hooping beside me? - a man with a drunken grin, grinding his hips and making obnoxious comments to his supposed wife. Who is hooping in front of me? - a young woman sloppily sobbing, because she is unable to hoop. I stand up and try to help her, explaining the simple trick to hoop dreams. I am quickly admonished by the drunken men on the truck bed, "Hey dude - who do you think you are? - Trying to show us up and take our women?" I tell them my name upon request and they apologize for the gender mix-up. I sit down, tired and anxious for sleep. I didn't want to be here, but the chance to trek through virgin snow, alone on my snowshoes the next day was far too temping to pass. In the end it was a good decision. I had to sleep in a vanagon with a woman peeing into a yogurt container and her eight year-old son who eventually spilled the contents of the yogurt container all over the van's floor, but the twisting trails of mountain solitude swept away all traces urine and in the end it all returned to the waters.
Don't happen around the world. Let the world happen around you.
C. McCan'tless
I smell a little bit like tobacco - that cigarette I shouldn't have smoked last night. I put it out on the palm of my hand half finished and stowed it away in my pocket, but the scent remains - stale smoke and bottled beer - remnants of last night's party that I was at, but not present, quietly drifting into subtle contemplation. Who is hooping beside me? - a man with a drunken grin, grinding his hips and making obnoxious comments to his supposed wife. Who is hooping in front of me? - a young woman sloppily sobbing, because she is unable to hoop. I stand up and try to help her, explaining the simple trick to hoop dreams. I am quickly admonished by the drunken men on the truck bed, "Hey dude - who do you think you are? - Trying to show us up and take our women?" I tell them my name upon request and they apologize for the gender mix-up. I sit down, tired and anxious for sleep. I didn't want to be here, but the chance to trek through virgin snow, alone on my snowshoes the next day was far too temping to pass. In the end it was a good decision. I had to sleep in a vanagon with a woman peeing into a yogurt container and her eight year-old son who eventually spilled the contents of the yogurt container all over the van's floor, but the twisting trails of mountain solitude swept away all traces urine and in the end it all returned to the waters.
Don't happen around the world. Let the world happen around you.
C. McCan'tless
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Across the Pass
This is how it goes - one minute you're on top and the next minute you're tumbling down, your butt a bruise, your head smashing ground. Unfortunately, there is no beginning or end to this story. It just keeps going, never knowing when to stop and grasp a limb for life.
I just had a thought about old people. For me, the idea of old people arrives early every morning and does not leave until the wee hours of night. Maybe this is a problem, though. It is not a Harold and Maude like problem, but more of a thought-consumption problem. With my mind so worried about the important old people in my life perishing, I leave little room to worry about the important young people in my life diminishing.
I hit my head hard last night on a frozen mountain and my first thought was - I could die. I'm 23 and I could die so damn easily. Perhaps at the same time, my friend and my mom's best friend's daughter was smashing her head against a steering wheel on an icy road in Michigan - an accident that has has left her unconscious and on a ventilator. Perhaps at that same time last night, my older brother was drinking himself to death, again. As I tried to go to sleep last night to the sound of drunken teammates stumbling back-and-forth across the living room, I could only think of the old people. They are those who have made it through the relentless pulse of this punishing life. I myself am tired. I am tired. I honestly believe that I do everything that I can in this life. Sometimes I mess-up, but I am human. I moved 3000 miles away and I still cannot sleep, because of drunken stumbling. I still awake to the stale smell of beer and phone calls from my mother. In the youthful chambers in my mind, I wish I could be upstairs, drinking and laughing and just being a "normal person." I suppose this is the life I have been given, so all I can do is continue to push forward until I can no longer stand. I might go to Belize or Nicaragua, but it's never going to stop and I guess that's okay for now.
I just had a thought about old people. For me, the idea of old people arrives early every morning and does not leave until the wee hours of night. Maybe this is a problem, though. It is not a Harold and Maude like problem, but more of a thought-consumption problem. With my mind so worried about the important old people in my life perishing, I leave little room to worry about the important young people in my life diminishing.
I hit my head hard last night on a frozen mountain and my first thought was - I could die. I'm 23 and I could die so damn easily. Perhaps at the same time, my friend and my mom's best friend's daughter was smashing her head against a steering wheel on an icy road in Michigan - an accident that has has left her unconscious and on a ventilator. Perhaps at that same time last night, my older brother was drinking himself to death, again. As I tried to go to sleep last night to the sound of drunken teammates stumbling back-and-forth across the living room, I could only think of the old people. They are those who have made it through the relentless pulse of this punishing life. I myself am tired. I am tired. I honestly believe that I do everything that I can in this life. Sometimes I mess-up, but I am human. I moved 3000 miles away and I still cannot sleep, because of drunken stumbling. I still awake to the stale smell of beer and phone calls from my mother. In the youthful chambers in my mind, I wish I could be upstairs, drinking and laughing and just being a "normal person." I suppose this is the life I have been given, so all I can do is continue to push forward until I can no longer stand. I might go to Belize or Nicaragua, but it's never going to stop and I guess that's okay for now.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Recession Depression
It's all over my iGoogle headlines - Detroit is facing a recovery deadline after seeing the worst sales for January in 26 years. My home state is crumbling and I am in a coffee shop 3,000miles away in a town that is also crumbling. Perhaps it is true that the entire country is in a recession, but I seem to enjoy living in the eyes of the storms. Everyday I hear the children quite bluntly blurt, "We ain't got no money my Dad's in jail and my Mom's on crack ."
This is the world we are living in. A world in which we can only call ourselves bad asses for so long, before we just fall apart and starve or get the shit kicked out of us for uncontrollable circumstances. Sometimes it seems to me that everyone is against everyone. Sure it is a dog eats dog world, but what happens when there is only one dog left and all of the other pups are bleeding and howling in the streets. Am I exaggerating the current state? Sure I am...and that's all I have to say on that topic.
This is the world we are living in. A world in which we can only call ourselves bad asses for so long, before we just fall apart and starve or get the shit kicked out of us for uncontrollable circumstances. Sometimes it seems to me that everyone is against everyone. Sure it is a dog eats dog world, but what happens when there is only one dog left and all of the other pups are bleeding and howling in the streets. Am I exaggerating the current state? Sure I am...and that's all I have to say on that topic.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Biking down Skate Creek
After packing up my belonging shortly post graduation from university, I moved to the rustic, dangerous, and rural mountain community of Packwood. In the spirit of Alexander Supertramp, I thought of myself, just five short months ago, as a bit of a super tramp, myself. Now, as I sit comfortably in my bed, my space heater on high and a head of cabbage to my right, I feel as though I may have exaggerated things in my head. Perhaps this is not roughing it as I previously thought...or is it?
Biking down Skate Creek Road is always quite a cathartic experience and sometimes an educational somersault. On my return to town, I noticed the case of a compact disc left absent and lonely on the roadside. Breaks. Turn around. Pick it up. That was my mistake - picking it up. Someone once told me that upon picking up a piece of litter, it becomes your property and thus your responsibility. I looked at the CD case and wanted so desperately to drop it. A Tribute to Toby Keith. Who would tribute the Boot in Your Ass guy? Probably the evil doers themselves as a thank you to Toby for making Americans look like even bigger douche bags. I opened up the case and found it empty, meaning the CD is still out there, probably in a large truck with a Confederate flag sticker and window decal that says something like, "Get a Lift. Fat Chicks Can't Jump." The dude who drives a rig as described is just the type of classy fellow who would buy a Toby Keith tribute album and those men are a dime a dozen in these parts. I peddled to the post office and threw the case in the trash can. Maybe I am not a super tramp, but I am a super person.
-C McCan'tless
Biking down Skate Creek Road is always quite a cathartic experience and sometimes an educational somersault. On my return to town, I noticed the case of a compact disc left absent and lonely on the roadside. Breaks. Turn around. Pick it up. That was my mistake - picking it up. Someone once told me that upon picking up a piece of litter, it becomes your property and thus your responsibility. I looked at the CD case and wanted so desperately to drop it. A Tribute to Toby Keith. Who would tribute the Boot in Your Ass guy? Probably the evil doers themselves as a thank you to Toby for making Americans look like even bigger douche bags. I opened up the case and found it empty, meaning the CD is still out there, probably in a large truck with a Confederate flag sticker and window decal that says something like, "Get a Lift. Fat Chicks Can't Jump." The dude who drives a rig as described is just the type of classy fellow who would buy a Toby Keith tribute album and those men are a dime a dozen in these parts. I peddled to the post office and threw the case in the trash can. Maybe I am not a super tramp, but I am a super person.
-C McCan'tless
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