last year I went to Burning Man with intent, with purpose, with things to burn down and let go of. i needed to end the summer. i needed to start over. this year wasn't as clear but may have been just as necessary.

last year i bought my ticket about 2 weeks before the event, which pushed me into the will call line, which changed everything.

this year i bought my ticket in February, about as early as i could. i knew all along that i wanted to go, from the moment we left last year. i missed it. i wanted to be there, in the midst of it all again. i missed the people and the sunrise, the fire and the freedom. i bought more crap, prepared so much more, tried to get it all straight. but it didn't help make it any better. if anything, i wish i could go back and do it like the first time, lost and naive.

in heading out, in asking myself why it was that i was even going or what i was looking for, the only answer i could come up with is that i was trying to find answers to all of the questions i didn't know how to ask. i was trying to figure out what was wrong. something didn't feel right, hadn't for several weeks. nothing in particular really, just unsettled and anxious. actually, it's not so much that i was trying to figure it out, i just wanted it to go away.

there was a moment about 6 weeks ago when i had the thought that i might be getting sick again. that scared the shit out of me. there are ways to be more careful, to live right, to be okay. sometimes i lose sight of how important that is. i'm sure it was tied up in everything else. my body sent out warning signals. i'm glad i listened.

this year at Burning Man for me was just about feeling free and comfortable and unencumbered. I went out and danced in a tutu all night (it was TuTu Tuesday so by all means i had to). i watched and appreciated the odd couples, the freaks, the hippie couples and their babies, the lonely, the desperate, and the joyous. I ran off with the fairies, flapped my wings, had my body covered in blue glitter, dozed off waiting for the sunrise, braved dust storms, and even sent a letter to my future self (to be delivered in five years or so).

i took polaroids of people and then gave them away. there's something special about a polaroid picture that never fails to make people smile.

i took about 2 rolls of film with my fisheye, though they're not developed yet. i didn't touch my digital camera at all.

i told secrets. i didn't even realize it at the time, but there were things that i brought up that i probably could've/should've kept to myself. i still read PostSecret every week, as a peek inside people's lives to the side they don't really show people. I don't even think i have a secret that i haven't told anyone ever. If i did before, it's probably gone now. i put it out there. i like being able to do that. Not in a reckless way, but in comfort that i can be myself and not care about being judged.

I'm not sure the people I camped with are really right for me, maybe not exactly who i would choose from all of the people out there. I like them, they're my friends, but we aren't of the same mind on so many things. Fake boobs for instance, that's an easy one. I don't see much reason for any of these women to get breast implants, though they're quite popular with all of the women I camped with.

and then along the way I also realized that we don't all need to agree or share complimentary opinions on most things. our differences made us work as a community just as our similarities did. each person has good things about them that balance out the rest, myself included.

---

and then, along the way and towards the end of my week at Burning Man, i saw something stuck on the side of a bus that stayed with me...

Belief is the result of a decision to stop asking questions.

It ate away at me for a few days, and to some extent it still does. It brought to mind the many times in my life that i've lost my beliefs, lost faith, started asking questions. It makes me think of the things that i believe in, that i let go of and accept, without question. It brings to mind all of the questions that stand in the way of me believing in the Us.

I don't know what to do with all of the questions. I don't know how to stop asking them. I don't think i'm really ready to. There was a time when i didn't ask any questions, just accepted and loved and believed. My head's been filled with questions and doubts and logic. I don't have the hopeless abandon that i should with you. i miss that. the questions are a burden.

there's a temple beyond the Man, further out on the playa, where people collect their memories and wishes. the night after the Man is burned, they burn down the temple. It's really a beautiful place, especially at sunrise. there are always people there. the walls fill up with pictures and writings and whatever can be fit in. Last year I imagined myself throwing stuff on that fire, letting it burn away. This year i appreciated all that people left behind, but didn't really feel like there was anything i needed to burn. I'm not letting go of anything. Maybe i should have burned my questions and been left with only belief.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

this weekend, while i was far too intoxicated at a point too early in the evening, i let my friend Jodi shave my head. i haven't had my head shaved since i was in fourth grade. A few weeks ago we had a little get-together at Brian's house which eventually devolved into a head-shave party, where almost every male in attendance got his head shaved nice and close. I abstained. I like my curls and my crazy and just the way it is what it is. Shaved heads almost always look like a certain thing, which doesn't feel like me. Half the time they're for guys that are trying to hide that they're balding. The other half of the time they're macho guys that want to feel like they're in boot camp. I'm neither.

Actually i quite like the feel. I keep forgetting that it's done and then find myself rubbing my own head. Maybe it's for luck.

Jodi was excited about shaving my head, as Brian explained to me. It seems that she doesn't like my usual hairstyle at all, complaining that it makes me look like a little boy. He even told me that she confessed that at one point she was caught off guard and for the first time found me almost attractive, when i was wearing my silly wool golf/cabbie hat backwards, hiding all of my hair. Something about it showing my face more, minimizing the boyish hair. I like wearing that hat but I always think it makes me look like i'm trying to be young. One time when i was wearing it someone mistook me for Skyelar's older brother, so i know it's silly.

Jodi was excited to see what i would look like shaved, and i was drunk, and for whatever reason there were electric shears at this particular BBQ as well, so i sat and let her do it. I'd already decided I'd have it shaved for Burning Man anyways, mostly for comfort and ease in the heat and dirt, but also so i could shed a little more of my usual identity for that week at least.

And this is what I ended up looking like:



Just for good measure, i included the fourth grade version as well. i think my head shape has improved significantly.

Jodi's reason for wanting my head shaved was the part that stuck with me. She said that it made me look like a boy. Then there was an accompanying story that basically illustrated that even when a woman finds all other parts of a man attractive, if they don't look like they can protect them, like a man, then the woman ultimately won't be attracted to him. In Jodi's mind, this is the reason I'm single, why i'm not out getting laid. A woman needs to see me and know that when shit goes down, i'll be there by their side and will protect them at all cost.

And that's where it dug in. At first i defended myself in my head, how far i'd go to stand by and protect my woman. And then i wondered if I'd ever really proven that or followed through. I know I have, and then there are times where i have not.

I don't really think the shaved head makes me look more manly, more protective. If anything, it feels the opposite to me, like i'm a kid again. Kids get their heads shaved because it's cheap and easy for single moms. Men have style and substance and a head of hair that they've come to know and respect. I don't like how conservative and reserved the shaved head is. There's no flow, nothing to grab on to, no wild and determined waves to go whichever way they please. I'll keep it like this for a little while, but ultimately I want life and liberty and a thick mane.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

a little while back, we said some things, back and forth, and then we stopped, and then i wondered. i didn't hear from you much at all for a little while, and started to wonder and worry. then i saw what you had been listening to and it was as much of a message as i needed at the time...

Don't Break My Heart
When Your Mind's Made Up
Last Time We Spoke
Nothing Better than a Journey to You
Have You Seen My Love
There Will be Distance
True Love Waits
I Ain't Done, But I'm Going
Good Woman
I Will Be There When You Die
If You Want Me

They were like smoke signals. I thought a bit about smoke signals: how fleeting they are, how much effort you have to put into sending the signal, and how you're not really sure the person on the other end will even get the message. I bet the process of sending smoke signals is extremely rewarding though, just going to the effort providing some relief. Like writing a letter to your love with a quill and ink. Sometimes you just need to send the message, even if the other person doesn't get it.

But what really caught my mind these last few weeks is the process of trying to be noticed, and when someone actually does notice. I've never been big on calling attention to myself. I minimize, i sit back, i don't capitalize my i's. I know this doesn't always serve me well, but it's the way i've always been. I like what's comfortable, not that which calls attention. So much of our society now seems to be focused on this "look at me!!" attitude; from the huge pictures on t-shirts, to the constant status updates, to the exposed flesh and diamond-studded thongs, to all the little flashy things we surround ourselves with. They aren't really you, they aren't who you want to be, you just hope someone will notice that witty saying on your t-shirt and then come and say hi. I've done it too, and now i'm starting to see how pathetic it is.

And then i remember what it's like to be noticed by someone, not for all the little things we surround ourselves with, but for the deep-down guts that reside inside. For the thoughts we let slip out, for the mannerisms and manners, and the absurd way we see the world. For the special part that a t-shirt will never express. For the beauty that you'd miss if you didn't pay attention. But every once in awhile, a long long while, you find someone that does pay attention. And if you're lucky, you notice that special thing in them as well. I don't really believe in love-at-first-sight, or that there's one true soulmate for each person out there. On the other hand, i know that you can know in just an instant, and i know that finding something true is a rare and beautiful thing, like a four-leaf clover.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

last week, driving back from Berkeley by myself, after 3 in the morning, down some country roads, i saw a shooting star. this happens alot on late night drives. the difference this time was that i didn't make a wish. i couldn't. i wouldn't. i don't really understand it, or want to go deep enough to get at the truth. i thought about it, mind spinning like a roulette wheel for a minute, just hoping to land on something since i didn't have anything right at the front of my thoughts. But i did, i just didn't want it to land there. I couldn't make that wish.

i still lifted my feet when i went over the railroad tracks that night, so all is not lost.

i always wish on stars. every time. it still bothers me that i let that one fade out and didn't have a wish. i don't really want to "be careful what i wish for...." i just want to have my wish, live in hopeless abandon. though i know i can't.

---

i'm exhausted this week, dozing off at the end of the day even as i try to stay awake a little longer. tired, but happy. i rode my new bike down to see a movie, got a burrito afterwards and ate it by 1 Mile while watching kids play in the water. I'd forgotten about the game Sharks & Minnows. I don't even really remember the rules, but i think i liked it as a kid. I'll have to lookup the rules so i can pass it down to my own kids.

---

My rational mind and my romantic inclinations have been having a field day the last few weeks, not so much battling for control as trying to assert their influence. I'm a lover of both sides. I don't really think either should be fully in charge.

...balance....

It all goes back to balance, just like my old friend John used to say. I hate that he's right about that. It makes me think i should have listened to more of the things he tried to tell me. I listened, but i was too young. But his opinions on balance he espoused quite often.

---

1 Comments:

At 7/12/2009 1:48 PM,  Anonymous said...

i was just laying here, all lazy on a breezy sunday afternoon, stopping by all of my usual internet stops (it only takes about four minutes, tops) and rereading this entry.

i noticed something.

"hopeless abandon."

and i thought to myself, "why not hopeFUL abandon??"

- anonymous because i don't know who reads your shit, but i'm pretty sure i don't want them reading mine, whoever they are.

 

Post a Comment

i probably shouldn't have watched Definitely, Maybe. Definitely, maybe should not have watched it. But i'm an easy target. It's about a single dad, newly divorcing, telling his young daughter Maya (for fuck's sake) about how he met her mother, and all the loves of his life along the way.

Seriously, what the hell?

And i was close to tears several times, this much i can admit. The eye moisture was due to interaction with the daughter of course, not his meandering love life.

But let's take a step back to another one that's not for me. I spent an evening with friends, nothing too crazy, and then when i got home my son told me that he heard i'd gone on a date and broke the poor woman's arm.

"I don't think it was a date, but yeah, her arm's in a sling..."

Every time i find myself hanging out with this woman, it ends up being just shy of a date. And i think i'm the one that's just shy, just gunshy, just not feeling it. And yet i go back to it, and try a little more. Maybe i'm looking for a spark that's just not really there. If she wasn't already a friend, someone i respected and cared about, then she'd just be a comet and we'd have some fun and that would be all there would be. But she's not a comet, she's a sun. Just not my sun. And no, i don't even want to go into the explanation of that analogy.

So she gets a hug at the end of the night and then pecks me on the cheek and i feel like a fool. But whatever, you gotta have sparks to make a fire or else you can rub all you want and in the end just be left cold.

I should delete at least half of what's written here.

I shouldn't even be writing this here, but i still can't find my journal and that's that.

I didn't think i was looking for the one, not at all. Let me be clear that when i say "the one" i don't mean to give the impression that i think there's just one, only one, some fated soulmate that is my perfect match out there in the world. I mean it more in the context of the next one, the person that gets me, that makes me care again, that changes my jaded mind. that one. it's possible that there are multiple candidates out there, but it always just feels like one. none of the others matter so much.

awhile back i was with someone for a bit. we had fun, enjoyed each other's company. and then after awhile, i realized that she wasn't that one and never would be. I didn't expect her to be, but i was giving it a chance. The problem was that she started to see me as the one, what she'd been waiting for had finally arrived. That's not a good place to be, so i killed it before it grew anymore. so it goes.

And it was only then that i realized that even if i tell myself that i'm not really looking for the one, i am, always. i think we all are, even if we're busy distracting ourselves with others along the way. There's the harmless fling and then there's the one. It doesn't feel like there's much in-between for me anymore. I don't want to introduce my children to anyone but that one. Not that i ever have, but i could have.

So in this Hollywood clichéd vision of the world, Ryan Reynolds and his boyish good looks (which seem to be good enough for Scarlett Johansson) finds himself tangling up with a few choice women, marrying one for awhile, and then eventually realizing that there was one that he loved more than all others the whole time (about 17 years over the course of the movie). And of course she's the impossibly beautiful redhead, which we should have known all along.

i probably should have written about something else, or nothing, but these were the words swirling around in my head.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

starting this feels like calling Bloody Mary into the mirror the eighth and ninth times. Fuck it, you haunt me already, you might as well appear right behind me in the mirror.

you died that night you called me, dying and sleepy and cursing me in the backseat of your car. you died in my world for the last time. you were hanging onto the edges of my life while i was just trying to move on. and then you vanished and left a deep pit in my gut. and ever since, you just haunt me.

it's the little creaks and whispers in the middle of the night. it's the uneasy feeling i get for no good reason. i'm moving on from this house, happy to be away from the ghosts. the funny thing is, the ghosts i thought i was getting away from are long gone. You ran them off when you lived in these halls and spaces, and now it's just you that haunts here. You're beneath the paint, deepest of hues. You're scrawled in the bedboard of a little girl that wishes you'd just "come back." You smells, your sounds, your leftover graces, all over the place.

And you're still haunting me as well. in the chill that runs up my spine when i start to get close to someone that's not exactly right, not the one. you haunt those interactions. when i try to read Miranda July's fucking amazing short stories. the way you haunt those words, I can barely read them. It's the way i know you'd write, if you finally had the courage to let us read your words. You follow me around some times, pass by the corner of my eye, remind where you've been and who you were. My friends see it on me sometimes, the ones that know me well and dare to ask. If i've had enough to drink i'll even admit it. it's not that you're controlling my life or suffocating me, but shades of you are present. you're still haunting.

and the music, all around me, you'll always be there. even after you're long gone, you'll still haunt the music. there's no need to play oddly-chosen melodies for me at 2 in the morning, i hear you all the time.

i was going to write this in my journal, the old one that i've barely touched. the Lest We Forget journal that my mom bought for me when i was in college. The one with pages that i know i can't tear out. But i can't find it, and after a bit of a search, i decide that you stole it or hid it. That's when i decided you really are a ghost, an apparition that i can use as a scapegoat for whatever odd thing is out of place. it's especially suiting when those are things that i think you would have done if you could just float in unnoticed. the gremlin in the system that we just have to learn to deal with.

and then i realized that i'm probably a ghost in your world as well, haunting you when you just want to be left alone. I'm the one that creaks the stairs when you're just trying to drift off to sleep. the one that seems to have hidden all of the little things that you'd really like to find.

this is not a death i would have chosen for either of us. I'd leave you be and move on to my afterlife if i had control over it.

Aw ain't it just like the rain?
Counting Crows - the Ghost in You

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

my very first blog post was almost 4 years ago, and said simply "and so it goes." There's a story behind that, like everything, but even i didn't really understand the story fully, and i lived it.

Next to where i worked at the time, in beautiful Oroville, California, there was a housing development on a bluff, overlooking a river, that was never meant to be. It was one of those where they tell you how grand it will be, that construction will be starting soon, and then the date for that start keeps moving steadily into the future as the weeds on the barren land grow taller. In the five years that i worked next to that plot of land, the date changed again and again. They weren't even sneaky about it, just haphazardly pasting new numbers over old. Eventually, after the impending construction date quit being updated and had fallen at least a year behind, someone spray-painted over the whole sign...

and so it goes

I can't really explain how much this spoke to me, and probably most everyone else that drove by that sign every day. Oroville is a shithole, and it's no surprise that this dream of fancy houses on the bluff was never realized. Nothing goes right in that town. Everything dies. so it goes.

At the time, i didn't know that this was a quote from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. I didn't realize all that was behind it, but i guess that's what makes the phrase so perfect: you know without really knowing. When Vonnegut died last year, i read many of the memorials and tributes to him, mostly because i knew he was a great writer that i should have known, but never did. That's where i really made the connection to this perfect phrase, where it came from, and why it fit so well. So i bought the book, finally, and told myself i needed to read it, to fully understand. Months later i took it with me on a train ride to Oregon, finishing more than half of the book in one sitting. But for whatever reason (but for the many distractions and angst that came after that) it sat on my bedside table unfinished.

Last week i finally picked it back up, started over, and finished it. It's a beautiful book, in a most peculiar way, and requires reflection while still being subtle about it. That phrase, so it goes, is used extensively throughout the book (106 times, according to Wikipedia). But it has a very specific purpose: briefly reflecting on death and mortality, and transitioning to the next thought.

They saw some other people moving down by the riverside and they shot at them. They hit some. So it goes.

It's the same refrain, whether he's writing about a man, a dog, nazism, or the entire city of Dresden. Death is a part of life, and though you should pause and reflect, you have to move on and keep living. This also plays into the main character's time and space travels, and introduction to the alien concept of life as a never-ending string of events that you can travel through at will (making death just another event, but not necessarily the last one to be experienced).

Going back in my own time, to the beginning of my blog, and that week before Christmas in 2004, starting with and so it goes makes so much sense, says so much about where i was at, even if i didn't really get the connection at the time. My wife moved out, my marriage ended, that winter was death. so it goes.

Reading the book now, reflecting on that time in my life, all that is similar and different, it all fits all over again. a relationship that i wanted for so long, before i even realized how unhappy my marriage had become, has fallen away and died. that future ended. there's still more to come, but that string of events, and where we thought it was going, is no more. so it goes.

Like Billy in Slaughterhouse Five, i can revisit times and events, both happy and sad, though i know how it all ends. It's hard not to get human and emotional about it, and mourn the death. then again, sometimes it's hard to not just approach it as another event. there's a tendency to avoid the emotion, and mourning, and pain. at least in me. Maybe i don't really agree with Vonnegut. I think we need a balance of both.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

1. i'm not dead. i'm not even dying. and just because i'm losing, doesn't mean i'm lost.
2. that bottle of Admiral Nelson is only $6, and if your pride can handle it, the Cap'n is pretty sure it'll do the trick.
3. i saw the end of summer on the day before Labor Day. i was walking out to the mailbox, and a breeze blew right threw me; the sun was setting in a slightly different shade of orange; and i finally noticed how many leaves have fallen off of the Asian maple in front of my house. it's not a bad thing, this summer needed to end.
4. when i stop having that special someone to share my life with....
   
   
   
   • i start looking around at where it's gone right, and wrong, in the past. and i focus on the right. and i wish i could have that all over again.
   • i think more, and write more, because you have to have some sort of outlet.
   • sometimes I think I'd rather settle than be alone
     
   
   


5. Secret Admirer is still one of my favorite 80's teen sex comedies. A classic story that Shakespeare could have written, a top-notch cast (including a young Corey Haim), and Fruit Loops with chocolate syrup.
6. communication is the thing.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

just right
Originally uploaded by jojoware

i always think that when you shoot a roll of film, you can expect 1 good picture from it. And even that one may not really be that good. It's all timing and chance, and just the right moment.

ken

The last roll of film i developed had several good pictures, and two excellent ones. Oddly enough, the first 6 frames on the roll were from a year ago. i need to take more pictures.

Here are my two favorites, in a very long time...

1 Comments:

At 8/10/2007 2:27 PM,  Anonymous said...

she is soo beautiful joe...
you are gonna have your hands full!

 

Post a Comment

I just saw a shooting star, and I don't know what to wish for. There are 3 or 4 things, and I really can't decide.

I just left dinner with bunch of friends & coworkers. One of the out-of-town guest had an obvious interest in me. She has a boyfriend back home so I don't worry about it too much. But I wonder, and I don't have an answer to my own questions.

I'm parked at a spot off the highway, up on the hill heading outside of town. A place where teenagers go to learn about each other & themselves. A place where I spent a lonely night sleeping in my car, not knowing where I was at or (more importantly) where I was headed. Before I knew what Fillbrook seats were, or why the homeless were so insane, or where best to lay my head.

Lately I'm reminded of those nights in the space between, not feeling at home anywhere. Knowing I could say the word, take it all back, and find a place to lay my head again. But not feeling okay there. Or anywhere really for that matter.

It's not the best place to find yourself, but not the worst either. Just where i find myself right now. As one person said earlier today, at least a bridge didn't fall on you.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment