BigDrinkOfWater

Coming up on four months after my move to Oregon.

Woodie Guthrie

Yes, guess I’m what you’d call a migrant worker

I guess you think you had to think up some kinda name for me?

I travel, yes If that’s what you mean

With your red tape and your scary offices

But, you just call me any ol name you want to

You just set and call me off a whole book of names, but

Let me be out on my job while you’re doin the callin

That way we can save time, money, and get more work turned out

I ain’t nothing much but a guy walking along

Can’t hardly pick me out in a big crowd I look so much like everybody else

Streets, parks, big places I travel Hell yes, I travel

Ain’t you glad I travel and work?

If I’s to stop you’d have to up and leave your job and start travelin

Because there’s a hell of a lot a travelin thas got to be done.

GUANO CRAZY – GET the Dirty : Part 1

I was born in Colorado Springs but I don’t know where my heart is. Maybe it’s there, I’m not ruling it out I just mean I don’t know yet.
Until I was nine my Dad had a hard time finding long-term work so our family moved a bit. My parents bought a house in Hammond, Indiana and Mom and Adam still live there right now.
Papa died last September after fighting with cancer for almost two years. I was pissed at nature for putting him into battle again, but this world is full of forces I can’t contend with and ultimately I should probably just learn to ride the waters. I’m twenty-three today. I’m strong but have doubts. I’m compassionate. I love to give love but need defined boundaries from others before I feel capable of opening myself to them. I think I’m a good friend, but those services don’t seem to be called upon much lately. I’m a horse-lover, an organic-lover, and mud and dirt set me free when the man gets me down. I’m one part anarchist, one part rebel, one part hippie. I don’t know about the other parts, just that the elements all fell together like some sort of comet, and here I am steadfast and twirling towards something…. Somewhere. My Mom calls me eclectic. I’ve been told I look like someone who dresses in the dark, but I pull it off. And if not? Awesome. I’ve been told I’m pretty and I like the way it feels when someone I love says that. I don’t think I’m ‘normal’ pretty though, I think people have to look for it, or be looking for it. I don’t wear make-up a lot, and I haven’t had a haircut since my birthday. My aunts took me out,- it was one of the funnest parts of that day.
Last Tuesday, two days ago, was the one year anniversary of my living on Maui. I remember before I left my parents’ house I was talking with Adam and he asked me where I wanted to be in my life a year from now. At the time, I was using a typewriter to write quips and stories of life, as I’d decided I needed to write a book about my life. A lot of stories, a lifetime of ups and downs, needed to be put out there. Put out there not for the masses, not for the reviews, but for one person to find on a used book store shelf some time from now and find peace with. Find a friend in. Believe in.
I told Adam I wanted that book done and on the way to a publisher in a year’s time. That time is now and I have no pages.
I’m okay with the delay, or at least I was comfortable with it. I’ve had a lot of good times and great transformations within myself in that last year, so- nothing is wasted.
However, I felt an urge to write this now- quickly, as I don’t know what will be in two weeks time. And I’m scared I may let that one person down if I don’t write even this little bit. It may be a moat cause now, and I am sorry, friend if that’s true. But I can’t quit on it entirely, so I am contributing what I can- a devotion of quickly written sketches, but devotion no less, to portray the things I cannot say and I’ve found few ears for that look beyond my clumsy and incomplete vocabulary. Because time is “so fast, Inconceivable”, to quote an old dear love.

So Stoked Not to Be Stagnant, Said the Bee to the Wind 3.20.09

I’ve been thinking a whole bunch about the miracle of life and its contributors. It amazes me more and more each day that this world can be so huge and full of diversity, yet such a tiny blimp at the end of long string held by the hand of a miracle. We float. We bob around, unaware or perhaps in denial that that string creates a boundary for us all. But the boundary was never the point, I suppose. Of course it wasn’t. There is so much more here on this blimp than we could ever love, learn, appreciate, or contribute to in one lifetime. –It seems we should not blame the string for our restrictions. “Blame” is a terrible word. My program tells me its synonyms are: guilt, culpability, fault, and censure. That isn’t at all what God wants for us, is it? But there’s more to be said of that, and it is not the reason I’m telling you stories tonight. So for progression’s sake, I digress.

Dane has been so kind in letting me read his copy of “The Shack”. Right now, I’m about thirty pages away from finishing, after reading five pages last night. Now, there’s a reason I call him kind, of course. There are probably a gazillion (Comon’ Webster! Catch up!) reasons why I call him that- but obviously I mean now… You see, I’ve been thirty-five pages from finishing for almost two months now. The book is riveting. A couple months ago I was telling my friends and family to read it, now I can’t even pick it up. I have no good reason. If you haven’t read it, I would suggest you do. Not that my opinion is worth much now that you know all this- but it is a short read. J If you have already read and enjoyed it, could you please prod me to complete it?! Haha…

I’ve also been in the middle of reading a book by A.J. Jacobs about his living the literal moral and ritualistic laws of the Bible. For nine months, he follows the Old Testament. Just today, he is starting in on the New Testament. It’s interesting. I find myself from time to time being upset about the directions he takes, or doesn’t take at times. I don’t know why I’m doing that,- I would never do that to you or a stranger. Still, I’m learning a bunch about people and relating to them.

It’s been a long-time habit for me now to view the people of the world as the reason for our downfall. And this downfall I’m talking about is perhaps not a downfall at all. Sure there’s the Environment and the cries for it all around us, but I’ve had a true stick up my butt aboutmuch more than that. Doctors. Technology. Common courtesy. The rising of violence. The list, I promise you- would both offend and surprise you. I’ve truly had a way of chalking up all of the things I’ve ever disapproved of to one common aggressor: People. I’m sorry. The thing of it is, I don’t know that I could look one person in the eye and think him or her the culprit. The whole while, I’ve been imagining these “people” somewhere off in a desolate place with no interaction or relation to others, stirring the pot of humanity’s disgrace, one malicious design after the next. I never knew I saw it this way, simply because I was ignorant to my own beliefs until I sat down and drew it all out, uncovering the basis of this theory one brick at a time.

Can you see how this hypothesis doesn’t hold water? I didn’t. Not until I thoroughly explored it, with the help of so many current instances. I can’t believe now how long it was I lost in feeling this to be so true, all the while so completely oblivious- and Ignorant!- To myself, at that. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of exploring of how great not only our home is, but all of us are. I feel this recognition has come to me through a process, a long journey through an unfamiliar forest. Trusting God as my guide and following him even as my steps have seemed to circle. I think he knew I needed them to …I’ve been stubborn all my life and need a little redundancy at times. I had a period of complete disgust in my life elevating after Dad dying, where even more egregious factors came to mind and I wanted these people to be blamed for even more. Coming out of that, and not without making a few loops, was one of the most frustrating times in my life. Realizing that my heart and mind were saying two different things was hard to digest. It made everything confusing to me, and added more to my frustration. I still don’t feel completely over that hill, but just by changing my mindset I’ve already been tackling ground I never thought to before.

The Earth, I’ve discovered, is not a downward spiral. As Dane has helped me to understand, people, as a whole are more conscious and aware of other factors than themselves now more than ever before. Yes- we still have war, homicide, herbicide. And it is a shame when history repeats itself like this. But it is a great thing when history repeats itself with bigger and better ways, too.

I won’t deceive you, last week at the airport I was extremely disappointed with what I thought the shift of our culture. Standing at the baggage claim waiting, a buzzer sounded and the first piece of luggage, a plastic tub, tumbled downward and jammed itself at the end of a belt. The first of the two belts stopped rolling and after a while a head popped out to see what the problem was. We all just stood there, staring at the trouble that was just out of sight of the baggage handler. In the five minutes or so of stillness that followed, I assessed the situation; If just one of us jumped up on the apparatus and grabbed the tub, the situation would be resolved, but as most Americans have learned in recent years- jumping outside of those invisible boundaries at airports is a terribly amazing way of starting trouble for ourselves. It bothered me. And it still does.

Someday I hope to write a conclusion for this piece. I don’t have one yet, and I may not anytime soon. My life is an expedition- one thought, one theory, one deed, and one act of love at a time, all a part of a brilliant scheme I was and am continuing to be graced with. Maybe, thinking again – I don’t ever want to write a conclusion.

It’s A Great Big World & We’re All Really Puny…

Space is a beautiful blunder we have the privilege of intruding upon moment to moment, but she doesn’t seem to mind one bit as our arms and toes twirl onward and occupy the sanctity of her being. The steps we take in the dance we make, however clumsy they may be or erradic we choose our cadence, prove we are fortunate beings. She only sighs and steps aside, providing the floor for our interpretive dance of Life!

I am a weary traveler of space at times. Though there are moments I feel I have paused, perhaps to catch my breath or to get a glass of water, I’m never too late to realize the song still plays on. The shuffle from my feet never strays, like a compensation for untied shoe laces or a maneuver through ribbons of balloons that have fallen.

And the Android’s Red Blare! The Bombs Bursting In Air!

Remnant aromas of cigarette smoke and hard liquor clung to the sheets of Lonnie’s bed like the dog that was ready to go out and relieve himself. And so, Lonnie woke early, therefore upsetting the eager alarm clock’s meticulously planned attack scheduled for fifteen minutes before the hour of nine AM. “Rats,” thought the Timex, not allowed to speak, “perhaps a nap later…”. All at once he opened his eyes and peeled an imprinted face from a pillow with a large gasp, similar to one made of a close-call drowning victim and the momentary shock of this such feeling scared him instantly into wishing his bed sheets were not deep blue. As he slid a numb log of a foot into one slipper after the other and stood, he ran his hands down the sides of his body to ensure he was wearing shorts knowing full well this was not the time to trust his eyes. As his fingers glided over an elastic band he knew he was safe. With eyes open now but still focused on the howling lolly-pops of his dream and a tiny Polynesian stripper singing the words “electric chair” over and over again inside his head, he sashayed to the wooden door of his studio and opened it exasperatedly with such jovial acting skills that he wished someone were there to see it and take note of his talent, as he imagined it was now oozing with such an ease, as acerbic as he looked. Kelsey,- from algebra back when he was just a rookie in high school- suddenly appeared sitting in the chair facing the door. With her knees crossed and interest in him peaked he thought for a moment his imaginary company was about to piss herself until he was calmed by her smile. Her curls were floating around her lips. She looked just the way he remembered her when he watched that dickhead ask her to prom her freshman year. Only this time, there is no Johnny Quarterback and she’s way into Death Cab for Cutie and ink. “I Am Fred Fucking Astaire. -On drugs” he said to himself somewhere on that cloud. His earthly ears of the hear and now not functioning yet, stifled still by slowly departing imaginings, he failed to hear the old joints and boards below creek as a large woolly dog darted around his wobbly legs. Lonnie suddenly thought of the fire swamps but did not know why or how. He felt a soft push of fresh air creep through the doorway and closed his eyes. The alarm clock took notice and considered. One hand on a big brass doorknob and the other down his shorts, he half-consciously debated whether he should wait for the rodent of unusual size or permit the breeze to carouse around. If there was a moment Lonnie thought his mind was coming back to him, it subsided now as “You’re like Paris in April and May” paraded through his vocal chords and crowned its hometown queen in the courtyard of his lips. Streamers and confetti were floating everywhere around but he could feel it mostly in his toes and fingertips. The dancing clowns reminded him that he was nauseous, but they were damn good jugglers he thought. He was enthralled now by his own charm as he swayed slightly, knees buckled beneath him, imagining he was dancing around a ceiling fixture and tap dancing on walls. A long night always makes an entertaining morning, for Lonnie. His blurred vision was only mottled further by the dimmed lights and covered windows, and the candy tits painted on the back of his eyelids only supplemented his absence of effort. It was only when the stripper came back from the coronation and fondled Kelsey that Lonnie raised an eyebrow and grinned, but regrettably, in doing so crept one eyelid apart from its resting place. In the darkness of the room bright red incessant blaring numbers startled a dormant brain cell and soon turned all troops drudgingly to attention. Lonnie was reluctant to focus as well, but when he felt a squeeze in his eyeballs as they contracted he knew something must be done soon to destroy this nuisance who was sure to interrupt the lot of them soon. With a practiced leap, Lonnie simultaneously floated to the bed and smacked the clock to “off”, landing in precisely the position one would be outlined in after an inner-city skydive. At once he was asleep again dreaming he was Sergeant Pepper. The baton felt steady in his hand now that Fred’s shoes were getting tight, and the girls threw candy to waiving little boys who wrestled eachother to the ground at times in effort to see Kelsey’s tattoo. The dog came back inside and plunked himself down at the foot of the bed. The mattress bounced and Lonnie thought that he had been lifted atop Catherine Hepburn’s shoulders. With that, he drew a tenacious smile.

“Fuck You!” said the Timex audibly, and immediately began to plot his next malicious assault with ever more preciseness. In his spiteful disposition he will never see he is only programmed, and there is no battelfield for the scripted.

Mindpaste.

Lately I’ve been feeling like the building blocks of my thoughts got knocked down one night while I was sleeping and I’ve been too jaded to play legos ever since. I didn’t even know it. What kind of bubblegum punk would do such a thing? Oh well. Maybe it was more like a layout of dominoes, and everyone knows those are so much more tempting. Serves me right for setting them up, – I guess I screwed myself on that one.

Regardless. My mind is mushy.

I feel so good though. I think I’ve just been taking it all in, considering each spice as I shop. But really folks, I can’t write. It’s a curse. And with luck it will pass. So I was riding the bus one day. I decided when I came here I wasn’t going to be buying a car… I’m balancing my eco-deposits out since driving a gas lovin guzzler around for the last couple years…. but I digress…. So I’m riding back from Lahaina and thinking to myself about how honest of a person I am. I hate sharing these thoughts to toot my own boat here, but there is purpose.

: purpose, puuuurpose, – … hmm, where did I file that? :

I don’t steal. Not when people are looking and especially when they aren’t. I was thinking about this guy who I’m trying to start business with but contemplating how he may be hesitant because the possibilty of me thieving would be all over the situation. He could be a real jerk to me and kick me in the chin everyday and I still wouldn’t think of stealing from him, I’m thinking to myself.

So it went on like this for a bit, and ultimately I decided that I am not a thief nor would I ever try to rip someone off by taking advantage of them.

“OH YEAH, Chel?” says God.

The bus stopped at Ma’alaea and I sat waiting for the next one to take me home. I was early and it would be late, so I went and checked out freights. It was sweeet. Too much for me in reality so I day dreamed of owning it. -Because in your day dreams noone laughs at you and you’re not scared of your face getting smashed. Oh yeah, I owned it.

Then I met Hope. Without warning she was my best friend and I knew all about her life. So I told her I owned freights. She told me she really liked to steal things, and one of the easiest things to take is food. I wasn’t worried, I had none. Hope really told me a lot of things, and she showed me her artwork too so I was pretty stoked. She was waiting on the bus to Kihei also.

The bus came and transactions were made. I stepped aboard a few moments after my sticky new friend and plopped my wadded dollar bill in to a crazy contraption of a spaceship sort, and wondered if even the transit authorities would ever see it again. Surely this capsule had dreams of interplanet schmoozing soon. …But I digress. Maybe three of us are seated on this short bus and I chuckled to myself thinking of all the jokes I’ve heard before. The driver pulled his bifocals closer to his face as he made check marks in the margins of a spreadsheet. Once we were all tucked in he turns to me and asks if the lady before me put her dollar in.

: dardardar, ho humm,-Quick!Think! Whowhat? Oh shit Hope.Why’sheaskinme? Dammit!SheTotallyDidn’t! :

“Uhm, Yeah!”

: WTF?! Dumb ass. You really are a jerk. :

Dude, she totally didn’t. I’m not saying I Know this, -but I do. So I owe this driver a dollar now or my karma may forever be f’d. It’s gotta happen, I tried waving at him extra big and cheesey today when I saw him drive by but his bifocals must not have been pointed in my direction. And he probably would have thought I was crazy if he did see me. I’m a jerk. I totally lied to him. AND stole. So on that bus right after this happens God’s like *SMACK! Take that ya uppity! HA!*. I got off the bus and held my stomache. It hurt. That was motion sickness.

Broken Sandal Vandal With A Nomad’s Reprise,  A Nomad’s Reprise

An opportune fence to straddle!

I’m just a kid. In fact folks, I’m at that wonderful age of twenty-something where I can jump in line for a loan to buy a house and pack up my truck on the same day with my tail between my legs and make it back to the parents’ house in time to be tucked in after a nice warm glass of milk. But that would curdle my stomach. I can stand up for myself when an adult has wronged me and finally get serviced from clerks, my eyes now peering from over 6 inches above their counters. I am at that special age when others allow me the liberty to choose what I’d like to be doing and who I’d like to be while pardoning me in my ignorance and blessing my fruitless trails. “I’m just a kid”… It’s a great card to have in your hand and stigma to have smeared on your face.- Except when it comes to the IRS, they really just don’t give a shit about that. All of those who have lived through this time in their own lives must miss it, although I’m sure not too much. It kinda sucks, one day you’re rubber and the next you’re glue, and so on. …But how awesome is that?! I totally plan to take advantage of this situation. Don’t get me wrong- my wabos haven’t matured yet and like the child I am, I’m still terrified of things that I can’t see; Credit, Mortgages, Taxes, Electricity and Escrow. My mind has really refused to absorb any of that. You know what?! For good reason, too! Remember in high school when we were all like “Arg, algebra. Who the hell invented this? Must be a dipshit, I’ll never need it.” Ok, well damn. I mighta used it a little bit since then and DAMN, thanks to taking it six times, twice in summer school- yeah, I guess I even remember some of it… but the point is this! Adults everywhere- why aren’t we saying this about credit!? Seriously,- what a hokey theory when you get down to the essence of it. *Knock-knock- It’s friggen IMAGINARY and it’s ruling our lives?! Only one man’s idea… now like a snowball… damn. It’s like time. Oh but that’s irrelevant.

Ok. So screw you Credit, screw you Time. If you’re with me grab a Camelbak and some trail mix and let’s go live out in the jungle. Allright see you there.

Well, so here I go. No, I won’t be out there munching on pretzels waiting on your pansy butt, I can’t be. Here you should go too. I’m gonna get out there and soak up every ounce of handouts-for-preemptive-pissants short of the ones my dad complains about so that one day when the next generation asks me “What did you do for us?” I won’t have to look into their cyborgallactic megapixelled eyes and say “Sooo… was totally GOING to, but uhh- in my day we were all running from bad credit scores…. hmmm, yeah. And about that electric car- yeah we were gonna really get going on it but I couldn’t figure out how to get the electricity to fill the gas tank without spilling. So, …here you go, the world’s all yours! Good luck!” Maybe we won’t even have to speak to them; they could just read our minds. Euw, freaky.

reads: Dump No Waste! Drains To Waterways!

I was staring downwardly. Perhaps I should not have been. But nonetheless, it was then that I found myself enlightened. Can enlightenment be disturbed? –Doesn’t matter, that is what it was and that is how I feel about it now looking back on this moment. An unwarranted thought arrested all the others and brought me a disturbing feeling of enlightenment, – which only now are those seeming to damper the experience.

Oh well, it stays. Along with this time, I believe I’d discovered the reasons to why I have set up camp teetering atop the fence that sits between opposing viewpoints of the world. And here I’ll set, sipping tea with my Lord, my one true Knowing, jubilant in the sunshine and surrounding ruckus. …Hey, it’s not all ponies and rainbows I see through these rose-colored glasses, all right? Please stay with me, all rivers lead to one.

It feels as though the messages we all carry are restricted to the size of our place in the world. And although a pity, it’s true that that size often feels a bit snug. Our natural tendencies to expand are stunted… but in relativity to the ongoings of all things, -well, I’m okay with feeling dwarfed.

Oh humanity… why does it feel odd to identify with you?

What means so much to us and the people around us is so easily ignored by others. And vice-versa. How can it be so easily disregarded? (Dammit I’m vain.) How can we be so oblivious to the messages and creeds of others? Granted, there are so many in the world, it’s only practical that we’ll never be exposed to all that reside, but even with a message so strong and passionate? Sure, it’s discouraging. For me and for you. I can only imagine how Jesus feels. (Yikes!)?

Perhaps this is enough,- so as to not become overwhelmed, confused. All spices are added to taste, after all. I wouldn’t eat from a pot full of spice but a stew without season is bland. Isn’t it a shame?

Our messages so specific and worthy to us are like a grain of salt in a jar of sand, drowning, but there still the same and they have a place in this world that can only be as big as the space that is left for them amidst the tides in another’s world view. (Do not feel inadequate because of this!) We all have so many choices. So many areas for our interests to awake. And such is life, and life is good. But to hear the cry of another’s world eek by us for just a moment,- just a moment of their passing passion- is a moment to listen. Time is fickle and doesn’t always allow us to indulge… (this “time” is a force we must counter-attack (but now we’re getting off topic))… so then, the ideal action would be to choose wisely to thoroughly benefit our lives, right?? Ha! I made it sound easy…if only ignorance wasn’t in the equation. And our messages and creeds, or whatever we bleed, should pour from our eyes ears lips and fingertips for as long and hard as the internal gears grind and beg us from within. Then it will not matter nor be of concern how our roars tremble through the airwaves, turning themselves to whispers along the way, which is in a way inevitable – and it is not the inevitable we neither can nor should fight. For this or whatever it’s a waste. Do not let the rumble of a world frighten or deter you, and you are not a piece of the shrieking.

No, that is not ’shrieking’ we hear that is filling our atmosphere, but unheard stories and lives that have not been sorted by our ears and are by the Maker. Oh but it does sound like screaming when pondering on it in whole! Man! I couldn’t do His favors. None of us could!

We are all all our own and loved as we are, blessed in that alone. My hat is off to the unsung unheard who maintain their roar. Do not abandon your unsoiled spirit. May we all follow their stride.

It was then that I flicked my cigarette and knew that the fate of the next eight hours was sealed and so would be my lips, for now. Goodbye drain cover. I may never look at you again, nor meet your maker.

Somewhere,- though at the time of creation it was decided the importance of this place was insignificant in comparison to the great deal of the message to be placed, (and therefore thoughts of engraving it were relinquished) and C’est la vie don’t you think? Et cetera… Lovers and Geologists, I must have a word with you… I have some information you may or may not like in regards to this last statement. Well, Somewhere-sometime, there was a foundry that collected its passion to create a message to be unleashed unto the world, knowing full well that the space and time it was to fill would only be as big as an aloof stranger would allot. Furthermore- we are talking about destining this roar for a place on the ground that only goofballs staring downwardly may find. And we can all be oblivious to such constant peccadilloes, yet share that disheartening feeling of obscurity.

A cast message and fish to remind us all our worlds and words are intertwined. Oh! And but what else could that message read?!

At an uncertain amount of time later, I stood listening. So began my ramblings and now clarification of such. Apologies to those who read… hmm, but not so much. God once blessed the meek and could do it again, you know.

Hank, the Houndog replied:

The Cincinnati area was a shallow sea 650 to 438 million years ago. Then Eurpoe collided with North America and raised the Appalacian Mountains, thus raising this area too (look up the Cincinnati anticline). So what is here was under water for 212 million years. During that time about 425 feet of shale, limestone, and sandstone was deposited contianing fossils of all that sea’s life. So each foot of bedrock = 500,000 years (each inch = 35,000 years).

Science serves to elighten us about God’s creation. Don’t ignore truth, keep the faith, and keep on writing – Hank