Over & Under & Between Two Cities

out & in somewhere they lost

it

Brandy was a mean mother

especially this one

tonight.

This morning, this goddamn cold morning, 

spreading peanut butter onto toast

reaching into the fridge for the jelly

and a chill to my bones

made me sad

but i smiled anyway, because that's what you do in those situations.

and somehow, we've outgrown the bed

sheets

this time.

but you try to make things bigger and better

for worse

or worse for the better?

who knows anymore?

not this fucking guy ------->

go, somewhere alone or stay home

but do it alone

and you'll learn what its like to eat grass

with the puppies

and swallow your pride under and inside

and i'll swallow mine too,

because that's what you do in these situations.

The shake in the hips, the lip curl

the twist of the neck and eyeballs wide open waiting to inhale the world.

Who me?

Nah, i'm not looking at you. Okay i am, but what's the problem?

You're a pretty lady

and i'm looking at you

Looking and looking, but not starring at you

not thinking of you naked, but just admiring you

what's the matter?

smile now

because that's what you're suppose to do in these situations.

i wonder over and under about you and whats going on in your head?

why's it like that?

i'm spent dear,

i've had about enough of you

as i'm sure you've had enough of me

ears full

time to sleep

in separate beds

in separate houses

in separate cities 5 miles apart

and a continous droning will fill your ears

as the house is lonely

but i am not

because i've got me

and that's enough 

to keep a smile somewhere inside.

Amadeus & Amelia

      I sat down at the desk and began to think about writing a story. But that didn't seem to be hitting to well in the old gulliver. It had been awhile since something good, and I knew from previous experience, these things were best when not forced. I debated with myself. I now refer to myself as "we". So we went over story ideas, things of that nature, nothing. We debated having a drink (how cliche). We decided not to. We generally just felt unmotivated to write, or even do anything really, we wanted to just crawl into bed and pull the blankets up and say fuck it. I guess we were motivated enough to do that at the very least. The hamster began gnawing at the plastic of her cage, so into her large plastic ball she went to roam the room. The ball rolled and rolled back and forth across the room, making a loud plunk noise as it hit the closet door and banging into the guitars resting on the floor. She is a very pretty hamster, golden with beady little black eyes, and she acts like a bitch sometimes, all high and mighty, but that's why i like her. She's a classy bitch. Her name is Amelia. That bitch.

Did i mention she's a bitch sometimes?

Probably.

Before her I had a black and white long haired teddy bear hamster. His name was Amadeus. I find it amusing to give pets names after great people, as if they end up becoming that name and taking on that personality (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Amelia Earhart). Here is the story of Amadeus.

I had been kinda lonely at the time, this was about fall of 2010 or so. Something about the holidays just depresses the shit out of me. It's not the holidays in particular, but more so the space in between. Those days when it gets dark early and theres really nothing to do but either go sit in a bar or sit at home with the TV. But i guess that's all just my own thinking, there's probably plenty of things to do, but none of those seem to interest me. So there.

Anyway, so i was thinking about getting a pet. A dog seemed like too much work and probably wouldn't fit well with living in an apartment. Plus my roommate already had a dog, so yeah, no dog. I dated a girl once who had a nice looking bird, I don't really know birds too well, but this ones name was Mojito and he was green with some yellow in there. He lived in a giant cage in her living room. It was kinda cool to see him come out of his cage and sit on her hand. She would put her hand up to her face and gently rub her cheek against Mojito's beak. She'd use her other hand to pet him and occasionally pull back her hair behind her ear. I always just wanted to reach over and kiss her neck since it was exposed at this time, but i held back because i knew it was her and Mojito's quality time, i didn't need to get all up in there. It was really quite a loving thing to see. It made me feel warm inside. The bird seemed to enjoy himself as well, so good for him.

But i also wouldn't be able to care for a bird, and he'd be cooped up inside my room. Finally one day my roommate came home and said, "hey man, they're giving away free hamsters at petco, go check one out."

I had owned a hamster when I was younger, and  he died on  me pretty early on in. His name was Speedy. If you don't know, hamsters have a very short life. 2-3 years max. So you have to be able to cope with their deaths and realize it's just something that happens. In the time they are alive, you do what you can to make them happy, and they're better with you than they are living in a pet shop with some asshole kid tapping on the glass trying to get their attention in the middle of the day when the hamster should be sleeping.

Amadeus was in the corner of the cage, trying to spider-man his way up the glass and out of the cage. I watched him for a couple of minutes, he was relentless in his pursuit for freedom, i took this as a sign from the hamster gods that we were meant to be, so home he came. The conversation in the car went like this.
"Hey little dude, we're going to my house now. I'm gonna take good care of you, don't freak out, everything will be okay...."

on and on like this until we got him home and he got settled in his tiny little plastic cage. The next day he upgraded to a 10 gallon fish tank. Then I decided to make him the ultimate cage. I teamed up with my dad and we took a large 22 gallon clear lexan food grade box (which i "borrowed" from work) and cut out the center of the lid, replacing it with screen and some support rods. I drilled holes in the sides of the box for ventilation and took some of my dads pvc pipes to make him some cool digs. This was a hamster den if I've ever seen it. He seemed to enjoy himself.

We grew very close, Kay and i would split the cleaning duties. I didn't handle him much, but she would come home every night and scoop him up and spend time with him. I don't think he liked me touching him (it's probably because my hands got sweaty and hers didn't) and that didn't bother me. I knew that my job was to give him the things he needed and provide him with :
a. shelter
b. Food and water
c. a decent and peaceful living enviorment

In the morning before i left for work, Amadeus would wait for me to feed him. I gave him dried cranberries as a treat. Rubbing them between my forefinger and thumb tended to make the cranberries plump and warm, just how he liked them.

I noticed that he would sneeze occasionally, and figured it might just be the dust from the wood shavings we used for his bedding. I tended to put too much in his cage because he liked to burrow down in it. Eventually it led to his death.

It was this past summer that Amadeus died, i believe the heat had something to do with it. The heat combined with the dusty wood shavings did him in. He was sneezing so much, it got really bad, and it hurt me, it pained my heart each time to hear him suffer. Finally one day Kay turned to me in bed and said, "He's really sick, we should do something". So i got up and did some research on google, found some holistic stuff that would help him out, and we drove down to whole foods to buy his medicine. The medicine seemed to help Amadeus, but he was still lethargic, and the next day Kay called me over to his cage, and there he was, laying on his side gasping for air. I picked him up and sat in this swivel chair i kept by his cage, holding him in a towel in my lap. It hurt me so much inside, my eyes welled up with tears. He was trying so hard to live. There was a bit of alcohol concentrated in his medicine, and Kay suggested the idea that if he was going to die, we should get him lit. I thought it proper, so the three of us got lit together,  Amadeus with a dropper in his face, Kay and I with the bottle. He fought and fought, there in my lap, and Kay began to cry, we both kinda cried, and i thought about the time I brought Amadeus home, and the conversation him and i had in the car.

Finally, sometime after midnight, he rolled onto his back, and i swear we had a moment together. There he was, this black and white, long haired, classy fucking hamster who didn't like to be touched by me, and would you believe it? He reached his little hand out, and grasped my finger. Starring at each other through clouded eyes, his clouded by sickness, mines clouded by tears, i could almost feel him inside of my mind. We became one that day. It was like the episode of Star Trek when Capt. Picard and Spock mind meld. He held my hand for awhile like that, and finally died like that. I put him up to my cheek and remembered him dearly.

I had bought some handkerchiefs to wear with some of my suits and pulled out one of three white ones. I have a thing for handkerchiefs, first using my dads, which somehow always smelled like him, and when my grandfather died, my mom went back to El Salvador for the funeral, and brought home my grandfathers handkerchief,  in a zip lock bag, preserving him through that for me.

Amadeus was wrapped in a stiff white handkerchief, and placed in a cigar box. I was starting a new job the next day, and Kay and i placed the cigar box in the cage, and tried to get some sleep. Kay swore all night that she could hear him running in his wheel. I believe she was more emotionally attached to him than I, although for Amadeus and I it was a different kind of love. My love for Amadeus was a fatherly one, but at the same time I also respected him and understood that i couldn't coddle him all the time. He's his own animal, as are we, as am i.

I've grown to understand and appreciate death. I understand that people leave, and we have to cope with that in whatever way we need to. I believe in this time i began to understand that Kay had a problem letting people go. That manifested later. But that's another story for another night.

All this for a fucking hamster you say?
Yes dear reader, i loved him as you love your father or mother, or as you love your favorite little piece of peace on this earth.

The next day, after work, i went to Kay's fathers house and we buried him in the backyard. We played "Rock me Amadeus" by Falco and "Dead Flowers" by Townes Van Zant (which is played at the end of "The Big Lebowski", which associates Amadeus with Donny, and hell, come on, we all love Donny.)

Kay bought what i believe to be Jasmine to plant atop his grave. It was a very beautiful service, we all said some words, Kay burnt some sage (hippy dippy shit i don't really agree with, but we're all different people right?) and down into the ground the poor bastard Amadeus went. Along with all the other people i've put in the ground my whole life.

We all deal with grief in different ways, and as i was starting a new job, i threw myself completely into it, which i believe helped to make me better at it. Kay dealt with it in a different way, how, i'm not sure, she just dealt with it.

The next week we went out and took a look at some different hamsters, Amelia stood out the most, and she looked the healthiest, so home she came.

People come and go, and the going part is the hardest, this is true, but one cannot only think about the going. There's so much in between that accounts for so much more. There's substance, there's something in there, you just have to work it out. Your emotions are like a dough, you need to knead them until you can form them, and then bake them into something tasty, to share with others, and not only be caught up so far into it, that you spend all your time starring at the dough on the table and not doing any actual work. It takes strength, and the salt from your tears only make it be balanced. It's not too fucking sweet.


Here is Amadeus, trying to crawl out. That cheeky little bastard.

   
   

There's, something out there,

some

thing.

Some Say You Ain't the Same

There's the person you were
and the person you are
and if you're worth anything
they're about the same.
Anything that matters at all will be there
when you come back.
That's freedom isn't it?
The ability to walk away, or the ability to move freely
between worlds as you choose?
"But you must think of the other people!"
"Aha! But what kinda life is that? Living for other people?"
I wonder, why, its so hard to see.
When you stop drinking so much,
smoking so much,
being mad for so long,
wanting to die for so much.
You grow up to want to live.
It's selfish to be self destructive.
It's a greater impact on the world,
if you can raise some free thinking babies
that can cause a stir
and give someone hot pants.
but this kinda shit doesn't make great writing.
It doesn't.
come on.
you want to hear about the hot nights
the rum sweats, sticky shirt to your back and chest
you want to hear about wanting to die and wanting to
destroy
you want to hear anarchy and destruction.
but that shit doesn't last.
It's not about becoming complacent
it's about being aware
of what needs to be done
on your own part.
and so what if it doesn't make for a great story?
i can always do like i did
and say,
"if you don't like it, then why'd you come here and read to the end?"
fucker.

E&F

there are some things you gotta be okay with.
there are a lot of things that you don't have to be okay with
and you can change those
those willing to be changed.
its not easy to be okay when you've believed their own lie
or vice versa.
move somewhere quiet
no traffic car fumes gasoline alley horns construction hipsters or
cops
maybe park rangers
but no cops.
is that what happens over time?
you become whittled down
into this nub of a human
a stub of compromises and validation?
or maybe your beliefs aren't in line with the world around you
your morals may be different
and you fit nowhere
because you don't like the way it fits.
the man is a creature of habits
consistency
ride the wave to the shores of a soft sandy beach
and lay down
face first
as the warm sand sticks to your face
and you want to be swallowed by it entirely.
some people never even get a chance to stand up on the board.
or paddled out.
some are still waiting for their wave.
and some,
i feel
like me
are just trying to keep from falling in the water
and be ripped to shreds
by the shark humans.

Either Way

Doesn't matter what you meant.
or how well you handled the situation
in your
head.
The fact of the matter is that even if you're right.
you're not.
because you're right isn't the same as their right.
and we overlook that.

I Want, to be, a Jedi (vandals)

      The house had a bald tree in the front yard. It was May, that strange time between seasons where it can rain 4 days straight, be hot in the day and windy goosebumps in the evening. It was that mid-time then, when the last crust of the sun was shooting rays faintly over the hills and the moms were rounding up their kids at the park. Helping them get sand out of their shoes and climb the tall deep stairs up to street parking level. The park sat at a slope, and at the top of the slope was this wide road, where cars roared down back and forth parallel to main street Figueroa. The houses across the road had witness several people get run down by these cars. The people in these houses had put up signs every few feet or so. These big poster board jobs with dripping spray paint tapped to telephone polls reading, "Slow the fuck down!". Laughing to myself, i thought of curse words being seen every few feet by small children, and then realized, it was always this kind of neighborhood, and that's why i liked it here.

       Oh, that's right, the bald tree. It was a small house. A decent house. Everyone always describes their house as being a modest home. That's bullshit, you don't have a modest  home. People can be modest. But homes? nah, save me the time. You know why a home can't be modest? - Every home is a modest home in relation to the block it's on. Ever seen a mansion next to a 800 square foot shack? Nope. So in relation to the other houses which are built to fit it's block, which is why it's called a neighborhood, they aren't even the least bit modest. They're decent. Decent is like eating a nicely put together sandwich. You don't hate it, and you aren't in love with it, you wouldn't shoot someone for a bite of that sandwich, and you're pretty sure the guy next to you has the same ingredients you're having, that leaves it to decent. 

       I can't tell you the color off bat, lets say it's that nice earth tone. They had a modest lawn. (heh). With the roots from bald tree creeping up and mounding the earth in some spots. The porch was a wrap around, with this long 6 seat cushion couch that you eventually soaked into when you sat down. You felt yourself being sucked into this giant void of pillows as you starred ahead at the bamboo privacy screen covered with black plastic. The trick was to try and make out designs and faces in the black plastic. At times i saw a totem pole with different faces. Some Aztec like, made me think of Montezuma. As you went further and further around the porch, less sunlight became visible, and it went from being mid-time to a warm night, despite the breeze. The drastic lighting change and warm corner nuzzled like atmosphere of the porch to front door end made you feel like you were walking into a cave. I removed my boots at the door and stepped through the blanket that was hanging between the screen door and it. 

      It was cool inside (like a cave) but warm and damp. The air was heavier in here, more viscous, I could feel it in my lungs, it was like breathing in butter. Rich. Yeah, that's the word i'm looking for, it was rich in there. I stood with my hands in my pockets for awhile just standing there breathing, soaking in atmosphere. Basking like a lizard in Death Valley. Or like Han Solo before they freeze him in carbonite. You remember that scene right? The air was thick in there too, the lights coming up through the grates reminded you of sun blasting through venetian blinds. Slits of light, heavy on the air. Enough about the air.

       I sat on the couch and laid my head back. It had been a hell of a day. Lots of things seen that made me feel not normal. Like putting on a new pair of jeans. It was foreign to me. The ceiling was covered in Star Wars memorabilia. I'm talking statues, plastic action figures, comic books in original plastic sleeves, Tie Fighters and Millennium Falcon strung on fishing wire in mid battle scene with the Death Star looming behind it all. 

"Holy Shit!", I thought to myself. or so I thought. I had actually said it out loud. I then had to flood into conversation about how all this looked. Just the shear amount of items strung, taped, and rigged up made my eyes wide. We talked then, about the movies, and the characters, our favorites and the ones we would fight hand to hand if they really ever existed. We talked about Darths and Jedi's, we wookie called, and made light saber sounds. All of us grown men. And not ashamed in the least bit. We were nerding out.

      I got up and lit a cigarette, stood by the door, hands in pocket again. Head tilted up chewing it over in my mind. I thought about Jedi's. I thought about Obi Wan. And in life there really isn't ever one Obi Wan. Our lives are flooded with several Obi Wans. We're all Jedi's, learning from different Jedi's and no Jedi Master seems to be apparent or visible. The voice in our head is made up of advice passed on from different friends and family members. Maybe something you hear in a song, or on the television. Life has it's influence on us, and we can pick and choose what we think is right, what we think is our Jedi way, and the line between light and dark is very thin, the more we press towards the dark side, the harder it is to come back over. Some people can ride that thin line and never topple over to one side or the other, some spend their lives trying to make it over, only to realize they want to come back, only to then realize that the way back is twice as hard as the way over was, so they just say fuck it and move further in towards madness. 

      I want to be a Jedi. And I want to help other Jedi's when they need it. The force is making the right moves. Be it whichever way balances out your selfless needs. At this time, I felt that I was in a room with other Jedi's who were willing to hear me out and help me if need be. I wanted to return those good vibes, but did not know how at the time. All I could do was wait, and enjoy our time together. So I did.