caveat exile

She lives near the top floor of the tall high-rise, in an apartment her friend once described derisively as "post-pubescent and pre-informed", words she now has tattooed in Victorian script above her left shoulder blade. The homeless man who watches her come and go from the post of his eternal vigil beside the mail drop box thinks of her as Asian, though she is half Puerto Rican and half American mixto. Her window high above the street is always open, symbolizing the endless opportunity funded for her by her wealthy parents, with whom she never speaks. "I am an artist," she lies, when people ask her what she does. Sometimes she throws pieces of bread out through the open window at the unsuspecting world below, but this wouldn't impress anyone as much as a fantasy of art might. Her only art is standing naked with her eyes closed and her arms upraised in front of the blast of harsh, angry guitar raging from her expensive music system, art her neighbors all hate because they only get to hear it, not see it. The music rouses something less dead in her soul, something almost alive, almost vital. It gives her the scraps of resolve she needs to throw on something revealing and head out past the homeless man to abuse herself around town, to let others have a go at her, to crawl home to the elevator that loves her. For her life is an apartment in an empty world, where she's not an artist, not even Asian. Death is like bread falling naked to the ravenous masses below, guitar music fading away far above.

Once I was the most conservative of conservatives, convinced of black and white and good and evil and heaven and hell. The journey out of that was not short nor was it easy, but it was a journey I had to take, even though it meant, in the end, losing even my religion, and I was more religious than you can possibly imagine. I left huge chunks of my personal identity, real parts of who I was, behind me, and it has taken a long time for me to become, if even I have yet, a whole person again.

People come out of religion and conservatism for many reasons. For me it was not about a desire for personal freedom, though I treasure the freedom I now feel. For me, the ideas and ideals and tenets of the identity into which I grew from childhood - an identity that was shaped by a situation and environment that, like all children, I did not choose - were always and increasingly at odds with what I have come to recognize as my own natural, organic idea, ideal and tenet: I believe that people, all of them, are valuable and good.

Though some of you might also believe this, I know that many of you do not. That's okay with me. I think people are allowed to be wrong. It doesn't lessen their value or their goodness, just their quality of life.

From first hearing him speak and reading his words several years ago, I saw in Barack Obama a kindred spirit. I believe he and I share that same faith, a faith in all of you, in all of us. I hope more and more people can come to believe.

He's not perfect in the traditional sense of the word, I've seen this myself. Nevertheless, I love him. And I love that people like us, fools though we may be, can win such victories in this world.

Hello, friends. How are you today? I'm great. I can't stop smiling.

Later. Love.

Sometimes, if you let all of your tiny, whiny thoughts simmer for too long, they boil into a simpering whimper of mediocre dysfunction. The full weight of their significance hardly tips a scale of juxtaposed nothingness, a bit of dust and air. When you're a small enough person with sufficiently finite concerns, however, the steam of their steeping and the incense of their burning can clear passages through which you now remember you used to breathe. It doesn't take much to turn the tiny tide. A touch. A laugh. The smell of evening in the morning. Walking sleepy, smiling through the strewing of what she wore yesterday.

And now there is the business of today. Perspective recommends laughing through the smaller duties of your life. In the end it comes to little enough to hold in your hand and blow, like pappi from a dandelion's clock, into the gently fumbling hands of fate.

Hello, friends. How are you today?

Love.

I just wanted to tell you guys about an exciting thing going on in my life. Why? Well, I guess so you could notice me and maybe leave me a congratulatory comment. I don't ask much out of life.

Here's the thing, though. Whatever it is that I tell you? It's not going to be true. I'm just going to make it up and pretend that it's true. It's going to be a lie, a lie I tell just so I have something to post. I want to tell you that up front so that if you ever find out it wasn't really true you won't get mad at me. Pretend, though, that it's true. Pretend it's really happening. Ready?

Yeah, so, I'm having a big art show at a local gallery. I'll be showing a few paintings, you know, no big deal. A few major art critics will be there, but there's no pressure because they all already are fans of my work. So, you know, it will be fun. It will be a good time. We might have drinks while we stand around. There will be snacks, fancy ones. I'd invite you, but it's such a popular affair that we've already filled the place. Sorry. I might save you a snack. I'll wrap it in a napkin and bring it home. Maybe a tiny shrimp and cheese quiche. Just stop by in the next day or two. It will be in the fridge.

Hello, friends.

Love.

Francie (Robyn's best friend) on top. Holly (my niece) in red. Robyn (my daughter) in purple. This picture is from Susan's (my wife's) graduation party on Saturday.

More here, if you're interested.

Hello, friends.

Love.

Night walks in, every evening, like it owns the place. There is different smoke in the air tonight, spicy and warm. Music taps everyone lightly in the chest. Everyone is looking past everyone else. Metal and glass chatter from behind the bar, bantering wetly about nothing in particular. Lights scattered about only color the darkness, adding glow to faces and shoulders. It's the kind of place where you will not find anything real. Even the line between dancing and standing is blurred in the dim. You might lose something, or you might make it out alive and whole, but there is nothing to gain. Contrast is not the point. Collective soul. Join. Breathe. Pulse. The sun cannot see you here.

I have an opinion about the mistakes Obama makes. I could be wrong, but I'm not. Here it is:

Obama, it seems to me, wants to believe everyone is essentially good. He cannot, therefore, just dismiss people who believe in things in which he does not believe. For many people it's very easy to just dismiss others as bad people, stupid people, "gun freaks", "religious wackos", etc... Obama, however, doesn't like to do that. He asks himself, "How can a good person believe that? What explains it?" Then, he comes up with an explanation. Then... and here's the mistake... he forgets himself and vocalizes that explanation in public. This is a mistake for a public figure for a couple of reasons. First of all, most people like the simple answers I listed above. Also, the people being explained are offended at an outsider's attempt to justify their existence. So, people raise a stink. Liberals accuse him of not hating conservatives enough. Conservatives accuse him of being elitist. Me? I like him, but I think this is a mistake that he makes.

Hello, friends.

Love.

At first it was considered by most to be a sort of honor, the notion of being the center of everything. At first it seemed to mean that we were important. Over the centuries, however, the perception changed. Most people began to think of it as a sort of cruel joke.

I'm talking, of course, about the revelations of space travel.

At first space travel was a fiction for humanity.

Then technology progressed and space travel became a feeble reality, and it stayed this way for almost a hundred years, puttering around in Earth's orbit or to the moon or to the nearest planets.

Then, after a few depressing failures to send humans to neighboring planets, space travel was abandoned. People decided it was too expensive and yielded no material benefit.

Almost a hundred years after that, however, revolutionary advances in energy production technology made far-reaching space travel truly feasible. Then it became a mighty movement. Ships were built and people were trained and hopes were high and humanity exploded out in every direction.

Then, as the ships pushed farther and farther away, it didn't take long for the shock of all ages to set in. People argued about it for a bit, but it was too obvious to refute.

After that space travel became a cynical distraction, a trifling reminder of the empty mystery of our position in the universe.

Earth, the most important place. But why?

"Like ancient Hollywood movie sets," was how people described what they found. "Real from one perspective, but fake from any other." Everything faced Earth. Everything happened toward Earth. Once you left the perspective of Earth far enough, it was undeniable. All of these things that seemed interesting and alive and three dimensional from far away just became, when you got closer to them, a farce, an act played out for the benefit of one spectator.

Earth.

At first the religions seized on it as some sort of vindication. It did smack of higher intelligence, of an obvious order to things, of architecture. But where was the architect? Over the ensuing centuries of silence, the arbitrary senselessness of it all became the unspoken bother and anxiety of all of humanity. People began to feel a sort of cosmic paranoia, as though we were being watched by persons who refused to show their faces. "Maybe something happened to them," some conjectured. Cults grew up to mourn the accidental death of the gods. "Their plans were so carefully laid, and now nothing will ever come of them." They said. "We thank you for your intentions," they prayed.

Slowly, cynicism turned to the determined optimism of a new kind of human rebellion. People began migrating to "Out of Focus" stations scattered around the universe. Most of these were situated behind large objects, where Earth wasn't even visible. First generation humans in these settlements always had the same complaint: they all missed the sky. "From here the sky is so empty," they would say, staring up into someone else's sky, having no sky of their own. Later generations, of course, were not bothered by this. Instead an odd, irrational creed arose among them. "Here," they would say, "there is no architect but us. Here there is no Earth. Here there is no sky."

Did you model for this Starbucks poster?



Just curious.

Hello.

When you say, "I prefer to buy fresh fish from the butcher counter," I promise to understand and appreciate what you're trying to say about yourself and not to point out that the fish at the butcher counter is not really fresh but has been frozen and probably even slightly processed.

I'd like to think that you understand, my little girls, if my response seems hard or cruel. My first instinct is to protect you, but I look farther ahead than you do. I'm trying to protect you for a long time. I'm trying to protect you even in the days to come, when I am not around. A scorpion on the cabin floor is a creepy, creepy thing, however tiny it might be. I can come over there and stomp it for you, it's true. Sometimes in life, however, there are scorpions on the floor. You may be smaller than me, but you are much, much bigger than that little scorpion. Look again. You have to stomp it yourself, because there are a lot of creepy crawlies in the world. You, my little girls, need to know that you are strong. Some of the creeps may be bigger than that little scorpion. Some may even be bigger than you. You, however, are not helpless. You are strong. You can always turn to me, but I won't always be there. There's a scorpion on the floor. What are you going to do?

I pulled this theory out of my ass, and I'd love to hear it refuted. You know stereotypical Halloween witches? Black dress. Black-pointy hat with wide brim. Broom. Pointy shoes. Long nose. Wart. I'm just talking about the style. That has become, at least in American culture, the stereotypical picture of a witch.

So here's my theory. Please, prove me wrong: That image comes from the movie, "The Wizard of Oz." Although there were some similarities in earlier images of witches, the exact witch image that we see at Halloween today comes from "The Wizard of Oz" and did not exist before that movie.

What say ye?

(NOTE: Every time I mention witches in a post I always get some political response from someone who wants to talk about the oppression of witches in society by men or something like that. Although I'm sure that is a real issue, I'm not trying to start a discussion about misrepresentation of witches by society or anything like that. I'm just asking a question about our visual, stylistic image of witches. Thanks.)

Humanity is like a small dog tied to a park bench, waiting for her owner to come back and take her home. Humanity waits there for thousands of years. Then someone says, "Hey, we're not tied to this bench."

"What?"

"We're not tied to this bench."

"We're not?"

"No."

And then there is a long pause.

"So," someone finally asks, "does that mean no one's coming?"

when i write haiku
always one extra syllable
in the second line

There is a joy in becoming. I know this by primal faith, unquestioned and pure, undisturbed by echoes of arguments long waged, never won. There are smiles scattered through the days of my life, past and future, sparked by seeing in myself a person I never was, a new man. I am not incapable of such joy. I feel it often, like that surprising blessing of cool running like a subtle current through the baking heat of an August afternoon. Nevertheless, I am rarely, these days, intoxicated with the joy of being. It dances like shadows in and out of view, so I do not despair, but it is a hint, a peripheral vision, a fleeting flicker. Then there is this heavy sobriety, as obvious and present as a spike driven through my chest, the howling wind of the gale that blows in my speeding sails, almost ripping them from their masts. I know soberly what I am not, what I used to be. The bloody remains of my violent molting lie before me, as undeniable as the ground beneath my feet or the sun in my eyes. I know where I have been and I know where I cannot go, but I don't know where I'm going. I know who I was and I know who I am not, but I don't know who I am. It seems only right, after so many departures, that I should, at length, arrive. I know, soberly and quietly, that I can go on. I know this by primal faith, unquestioned and pure. There is joy in becoming. There must be joy.