A Lover, a Fighter, Have All Died Inside Her

Maybe it's Explosions in the Sky's Your Hand in Mine playing in the background that's got me all feely and sentimental. I am preparing for my interview- reading up on PETA and sifting through Google results on "how to ace a phone interview". The notion of departing this place, one of many places I will have left behind, is exciting, but currently this imposing sense of sadness overwhelms me. I look around at this house and these things... I look at her and imagine being apart. I take her for granted now- it's what we all do when we've gotten used to what we enjoy in daily life- but I don't pretend, should we part ways, it will be easy for me.

My beautiful, enchanting little felines will accompany me wherever I go of course, which comforts me some. In this fresh light I can see the beauty I couldn't see before. I can see things, new colors and shapes, previously unfamiliar. I can tell when it's going to rain. The street pegs me as a hardass, swaggering pileup of occasional enthusiasm and never ending controversy. It's a hard shell, sure, but really I'm a fucking oyster. Love and hate cohabitate this tough little heart of mine; I pretend I don't miss it all- home, the band, hope, the church, Status, you, you, you, and of course: You.

But I do.

And I mourn for you. I lose sleep over you, and any sleep I do manage is haunted by you showing up my dreams.

Haunt me forever.

Oh, this guilt. Damn this guilt. Every dollar I owe, every believer manipulated, every trust betrayed (redundant, I know), every harsh word vomited into the atmosphere, forever polluting these pristine waters. I miss those waters. Warm and clear and abundant with life and possibilities, dangerous and ripe for exploration. Whatever.

I miss those first days with you on the coast. Cloudy skies and high winds and as quickly as she had disappeared, Happiness arrived unexpectedly to spend some much needed quality time there with us. These days I can hardly remember what she looks like. If memory were a friend of mine...

My heart will ache for you. For all of this. Always. And... it's good, I'm concluding.

Turns out I'm human after all.

Adversary

It's storming out. Alive with the wrath of God: thunder shaking the house like His own footsteps on the front porch.

I sat down on my lovely baby grand, and out came an old song. It never got recorded, and I have resolved to remedy that.

I watched the raven circle anxiously above my head
Turned back to see my city as salt formed on my fingertips
Saw the ocean trade its mystery for the luster of a moonlit wing
I heard your voice on the wind...

I gave oxygen to a world that was never meant to breathe
My blindness felt its way through a place that dies with every feeling
Gave her the antidote to a poison that would let her sleep
How cries the enemy? Out cries the enemy...
I watched the mountain trade for fame its majesty with ashes
Its darkness burns in my chest

Here, I've insulted a man on the brink of suicide
Gave indecision to the faithful-hearted, do or die
Handed her the letter just before she felt the lightning strike
How cries the enemy? Now cries the enemy!

And I don't plan to let you walk away unharmed...

Hallelujah...

Just as love comes with hurt
And just as war comes with lives lost
The same as you are gone now
It's the only thing worth living and dying for

The only thing worth living and dying for

The Less Fascinating, Maybe...

Today I passed a dead alligator on I-4.

Today a motorcycle passed me in the same lane on I-4 (I ride a motorcycle); Turns out it was a cop; I was exceeding the speed limit by 20MPH. Apparently he didn't care. Or had somewhere to go.

Yesterday a girl named Lori Painter sent me an email. She received my resumé. She works for PETA. The interview is Tues. @ 2PM.

As far as the latter goes, it's the proverbial fork in the road. If I'm offered the position, it may mean my relocation- I've been thinking about moving to Chicago, but PETA would most likely have me in DC or Virginia. If they offer- I'm going. But it would mean starting all over again in a new place with no friends... something I've done several times in my life, including but not limited to my moves to NYC and Orlando.

My heart has never been in Orlando. I haven't fallen in love with it. I love the warmth, the unique wildlife and my experiences with it (i.e., sharks, dolphins, turtles, tortoises, eels, fish, boar, armadillo, alligators, crocodiles, snakes, poisonous spiders, owls and other birds, lizards, deer, and whatever else I'm forgetting). I love the storms... some other things.

I'm sure in retrospect I'll miss all kinds of things, even people I didn't realize I had any real fondness for, but mostly it's been a disappointment. There are no basements here, and it's a good analogy for life in Orlando- everything is primarily on the surface, anything deeper and you're flooded, making it difficult to grow roots or establish anything further embedded than one or two feet. Most of my friendships here have tapered off since I left the church. Kate (one individual whose influence and intellect I will miss) is reading a book defending the exclusivity of the faith based community, and it makes sense, but even with her impassioned telling of the author's philosophy, it couldn't have sounded more sour to a guy who, once so entrenched, now resides on the outermost fringe territories of its reach. Still, one can't be certain who excommunicated who.

I miss Oregon terribly. I hope one day to end up there again, drinking Sumatra at Cafe Delirium, reminiscing with long lost friends and unabashed liberals, protected from the miserable and oppressive weather just outside. But.. I'm not ready to go back to Portland yet, so on to the next adventure, I suppose.

Thinking about it now, it makes me smile.

Plastic Orlando: Kidnapping, Murder, and Other Dinner Table Topics

She saw on a branch a bird with his head hung low. He was brilliant once, she thought, but now his colors were dull and drab as if dusted with ash. Under the tree with the bird on the branch was a little heart, bloodless, but beating along steadily nonetheless, unaware it had been devoid of its purpose. This must belong to you, she insisted, but his interest in such things as living and breathing waned. Still she persisted, while he rued over memories and dark thoughts, unhappy to be here, dying like this.

In his little bird brain are home movies and in them is a fountain where she dances and bathes. In itself her beauty was an atmosphere and the climate it created he imagined was not unlike what the birds of Eden enjoyed. He (secretly) listens to her sing. He watches himself collect sticks with her. He remembers what they built right here in this tree, where later his heart would fall out of him for a little girl to find. She would offer it back to him. He would refuse.

His interest in such things as living and breathing waned, and besides- the space had been filled, and that old heart would simply have to find another place to live. The sad old bird waited for his body to notice the absence of its most vital organ, but it didn't.

Meanwhile, she waited.