Fuck Me Running

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The tearful dishwasher is ready to go home now.





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He's not paying attention in class.




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Confined Space

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I turned myself into a graffiti stencil.



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Erie Boxcar

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This week we've been doing practical exercises. The school goes out and gets people off the street, pays them twenty bucks, then has them go into an office and either steal some jewelry or not. Then we get them and run polygraph exams on them.


It actually works.



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I've got one more week of this, then I'm homeward bound. This has been a really interesting experience, one I'm glad I won't ever have to repeat. But I'm a curious guy, and it was pretty cool to spend eight weeks intensively learning something new and deeply odd.



An eight week ground-fighting class would be more fun, though.



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Solitude has been the deepest part of the experience for me. Something I've not experienced much of in my life. It took me the first six weeks to get used to it, and now I really like it. It's luxurious.

I'm soaking it up for a few more days, but I'll cast it off eagerly for the chance to get back to my family. I can't paddle my little craft alone forever. I crave the warmth and love my wife showers me with, all the tender mercies.

And the simple happiness of being with the damn dogs.


And the less simple joy of being around my daughter.



I'm a human creature. It's good when we all rub up against each other, bang into each other, press and vex and tug and kiss and claw.


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I'm beginning to believe that everything is going to work out just fine.






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It really is.


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The Milkman's Dream

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He often awoke to find himself standing in the weeds and dirt outside the fence, staring up into the sky...




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The sad music of his loneliness drew all sorts of creatures out of the dark night. They crouched in a loose circle in the shadows to watch him weep...




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Shotgun Shack

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This morning I had to break into one of the guys' apartments to get him up and running. He's got a little pain pill and alcohol problem. We were kinda afraid he might have been dead, so I jimmied the slider and got in there. The apartment was a shambles, he was passed out on the sofa bed.


He's in a bad way.




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I miss my family like a tooth that's been pulled. I worry at the sore spot day and night. I try to enjoy the silence and peace, but it gets old.



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This world is one of beauty. And horror.




I love it for both.





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I really do.






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Who's Minding The Helm?

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This image comes from a recent NYT article on the role of the unconscious mind in our decision making process.

They said the current material-scientific model is basically that the unconcious mind decides what to do, and the conscious mind then quickly makes up a story about why it decided to do it.


The conscious mind and free will reduced to a silly monkey on the back of a tiger, with a fake steering wheel, making up a story about where it is headed and why it's going there.


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I find the image almost too compelling.



I want to get it done as a full-color back piece.




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My ship of state is floundering on the rocks of late. I have been sick, am still sick, and I find that it is stripping me down to my basic feelings...


I want my mommy.


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Our lovely and challenging daughter is back home and since I'm away for another three weeks, I'm not home for the hard work of re-joining the unjoinable members of our little tribe. That kid of ours is really ours and she is like a furious toddler in the body of a twenty year old woman (no, that can not be the body of a fifteen year old girl!). She's freedom bound and hell bent for leather and she brooks no fools; but she still needs somebody to remind her to change her panties and take a shower every day, and don't eat dirt, and don't hit, use your words....


My poor saint of a wife must deal with it all alone.



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I love them both so much it causes an exquisite pain in my heart day and night.




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Being locked out of my life for the past five weeks has been so strange. It's been an odd object lesson in how imaginary even the most solid aspects of your life are. Everything really truly is little more than a dream, a wisp of scent and a fleeting feeling of tangible solidity.

I mean, I know this. Shit.



But to know it....

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Being sick has also stripped away my inclination to create and ability to enjoy anything in the world of art, poetry, literature, etc.

All I really enjoy now is a nap and my binky and a cup of hot tea and silence and more silence.


I'm like a whiny little monk in my apartment. Still and silent and contemplative on only the most subtle level.


I'll soon be indistinguishable from the furniture.






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Still, my poor heart overflows with gratitude and love for this absurd and magical merry-go-round ride.



I love every single thing.







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The Crossing

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Batten down the hatches.





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Life does what it will. Pema Chodron would call what I'm feeling "groundlessness" and would, I'm sure, urge me to just let myself be in the feeling and not to fight it. And I'm not, I'm not fighting it.





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It just sucks ass, is all.


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Fear. How it rises up and swamps our little boats of paper. How it rushes and rolls over us. How we roll ragdoll limp downstream, our mouths full of bitter water, our tears empty in the vast waterlogged world.



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Ah, yes.


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I am determined to love this world and all of its particulars. Especially the people in it. And myself. And my family.



We'll man the oars until the ship goes down.




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LoveLove

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Blissbliss...


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Queen of The Blue House

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Sweet little dog, this one.



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Going to see her and her caretaker this weekend.



Yay.



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