There is a rift under my workshop desk which I call the Trader. I do not know if it has shape and form, as I have never actually seen it. I am only aware of its existence through its effect on small solid objects that are accidentally dropped near it. Often, when I drop an jewelry piece under my desk, it disappears -- hours of searching will not reveal its whereabouts -- fallen through the rift into to some Other Place.

This is not the most inexplicable behavior of the rift, as it could easily be argued that I am just terrible at finding lost items. There is a stranger behavior that I attribute to the rift which I think happens too often to be coincidence. When Trader accepts a new 'offering', it then redeposits a long lost piece dropped under the desk in exchange, often placing it in the most obvious, front and center, easy to find location. The rediscovered item is usually a years-ago dropped jewelry item that I searched for in vain before accepting it was probably gone forever.

I have crawled under the large bench many times in search of unfinished pieces of jewelry or tools. The rift has never accepted me as an offering, at least not that I have noticed. Maybe it takes time to recharge, having too recently gobbled up a half-finished ring or other trinket? If the Trader is large enough for a person to fit into or through, I think I would like to visit the Land of Lost Items. If I was accepted, I wonder what it would replace me with? And with what might I be redeemed?

Phrase of the day:

In movie The Shakiest Gun in the West, Barbara Rhoades calls Don Knotts a 'tender-footed ninny'.

sometimes a song can pull you back,
not all the way,
but somewhere in between,
hanging over the middle of nothing,
trying to piece together what the real bridge was
from there to here

there were so many stories from my walk tonight
that I wanted to tell you about

about the sparse clouds last attempts at thwarting summer
and Orion's eternal dance with the moon

about lights from a late night baseball game
turning  neighborhood trees into tinseled magic
and glowing infrared beasts

about the damp, freshly mown grass
and the dog's gleeful appreciation

about quiet backstreets
with folks huddled around televisions
trying to make sense of the world
or trying to escape it

about strange and exotic lights
turning back rooms into eerie alien worlds
half-viewed signs and symbols
holding uncountable fantasies

...but most of the stories
the good ones
the ones that made me laugh or cry
fell out of well worn pockets
as I strolled through the chilly spring night

The teacher cut the glowing cord, smiled and said, "You can be anyone or anything you want... except yourself."

So I floated around for awhile, touching and absorbing into spaces around me. Becoming different things, even nothing for a bit.

Tweebly and Titmouse came to a stop in front of Titmouse's apartment, Tweebly flexed his muscular tube body more than was necessary as he was setting down Titmouse's bag of groceries.

"So are you still seeing Dustbunny?" he asked.

"It's not really like that," she said, grabbing her groceries, turning and running up the stairs. "Um, thanks for carrying my stuff."

"Maybe I'll see you next week at the gym?"

Titmouse mumbled something as she was closing the door.

Titmouse worked desperately to flatten her tuft, as a smooth head was all the fashion. Regardless of how hard her wings and and feet smoothed down her stubborn head feathers, they refused to lie obediently -- they sprang back to their original shape as soon as she moved her wing.

"This will never work," she said, looking into the mirror. She covered her beak with her wings and began to cry softly.

When she looked back into the mirror, Dustbunny was standing behind her.

Dustbunny scooped up a large glob of feather goop from the dresser. Working slowly from behind, he built up Titmouse's head feathers into the tallest crest she had ever seen.

it was a day of hanging out and old buildings
of trench coats and damp red bricks
of friends being happier than circumstances would dictate
of spiral staircases
of exploring the colorful gaps in reality
and the frayed edges or preconception

of redefining spaces
matter
power
talent
and those cast aside as worthless.

"My stomach hurts, and I've lost my bag of seeds," Titmouse blurted out, then realized that Dustbunny was about to speak, "I'm sorry, what did you want to tell me?"

Dustbunny held Titmouse's head between his palm and his cheek, "Nevermind," he said.

There will always be creatures scurrying into the shadows when i let archie out to pee at night.

Ogres lurking behind the half opened door and peeking around bushes. Big-thighed demons jumping rooftop to rooftop. Impossibly strong, soul-less creatures.

Counting time. Waiting for the perfect opportunity.

Perched atop the tall cedar, Peter the squirrel spent the better part of the evening coming to terms with his own smallness. He envisioned himself feeding at the mouth of life's cornucopia with less understanding than a suckling child.

Peter the squirrel and the the tall cedar he was sitting atop were black shadows against the dark blue evening sky. Peter's twitching tail was the only element suggesting the scene was not a perfectly executed paper cut-out.

...all of a sudden, halfway up the tree, the squirrel remembered how to dance. He remembered that all things dance in their own way.  Lifting and spinning his perfect body midair, all the lost and forgotten nuts and berries and love poured back into his tired soul.

Scurrying up the rest of the tree took much less time than he thought it would.

When i first saw it, or at least sensed it's presence, it's cold blackness is what struck me, possessing the kind of dark nothingness that is able to pull the warmth from your core -- existing as both thought and a towering monolith that does not reflect light -- always absorbing, never giving.

It made a constant droning sound, just out of human perception. The sound of doom. Insect-like. Mechanical. 

Reaching out, palm against it's surface, there was no perceptible feeling -- my hand just stopped moving forward -- no sensory input to suggest that my hand had reached it's destination.

It was difficult to imagine that this thing was within me, that it is actually a part of who I am.

Note to self: Each day's work, viewed within the whole, is a single step in an elaborate dance. The step need not be any more productive or complex than what occurs naturally. Both complexity and precision follow a smooth whole that advances, ebbs and flows, at it's own pace.

What is perfection?
Is the forest perfect? It's floor infected with decay, half-lives and restarts?
Or is it just a hastily drawn sketch of some perfect ideal?

The numbers were fuzzy, soft-edged, the pricing of multiple items was calculated by Juan in a quasi liquid street math. He had learned to simultaneously add, subtract, sell, watch for thieves, and chat up potential customers -- all while maintaining the appropriate level of humility that made the tourists comfortable. The totals were accurate enough to work, but not so accurate as to distract from his real task of peddling goods.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




...therefore the brilliance, if present at all, lies in the concepts, not in the works themselves. Concepts are low on market value, so continues the comical scene: throngs gathered and bowing before multi-million-dollared blank canvasses, praying to the god of art, lest they be one of the heretically uninformed.

But here lies the problem: most if not all standard treatments for melancholia and madness rely on generating at least some level of apathy or lethargy, or both.

This is not the result I am looking for. I am not interested in painting a more 'rosy' picture of reality. It is of more importance to me to be able to chronicle realities true nature. If I can work, if I am working, I am happy enough. If I cannot work, the most intense chemical bliss is a living hell. Inertia is the only thing I wish for from any treatment. Western medicine's desire to isolate, contain and eliminate tends to run contrary to this goal, at least in my case.

Through years of self-treatment, I have come to realize that the only way to have a reasonably successful life is make an ally of the illness itself. To do this, I have had to re-define the nature of this enemy-turned-ally, to think in terms of 'phenomena' rather than 'symptoms'. To lean into the illness, find it's bottom rather than waging war with the better part of my psyche.

time

There is a compression of time that exists within breath and torn rags and destruction and naps. A soft cinnamon smelling filter of warmth and life mingled with aging perspective.