Sleepy

It's 5 pm. I feel like I need to wake up. My life lately feels like this:  Im looking out the window at the fresh growth of spring, how the red of maple leaves catches the light. The new green of a rose bush. The pale purple of bluebells complimented by the lacy leaves and deep pink of geranium. The sky is a stormy blue and gray, and its wind whips the leaves into a frantic dance. It looks cold but for the light which adds warmth and life to this vision through the pane and plastic. But it's all silent, like a strange dream, and I feel nothing. No cold. No warmth. Motion with no force. Light with no life. But still... isn't it pretty?

Am I bound or just in a mood? Dreaming and not touching. At least my dreams have promise, though I can never stay there long enough and I can never go back. 

Oh hell! Maybe I just need a cup of coffee.

Well

...so much for god and the universe and hope and good feelings. I didn't get the job.

May 6th

I wrote the two preceding sentences in the morning of the 4th after I got the call from the Chinese Garden saying "We hired someone else."

I had an interview today for a job that will in actuality be better for me. Not that Im going to get it. It just makes me think, because the day I got the call and set the interview for the Chinese Garden I had received a call prior. It too was for a job but Everett, not knowing it was concerning work, did not take a message and told him to call back in a few minutes. I was upset 'cause Im having a hard time finding work. He never called back or returned my call but when I got home later that day I had a message from the Chinese garden. So now Im thinking how it's good that I missed that call cause it might have interfered with the interview for this job that I really wanted.

MADNESS. Why! I ask, do I have a brain? So now Im like, yeah, this that and that.

Well of course it doesn't make sense.

May Day

Here's more buried American history. May 1st should have more significance in our tradition being that it represents the fight for the 8 hour work day. Most of us Americans do not realize that our country had horrid and inhumane work conditions in our past to include sweat shops and child labour. And Im not talking about little Jimmy helping dad out in the orchard. Im talking third world. In fact, May 1st is International Workers Day and is celebrated across the globe in many countries but you wont find it celebrated here or even mentioned. This could be because it is associated with Communism, Socialism, and the Anarchist movement. But also because it is associated with the  Haymarket Massacre, or the euphemistic Hayward Affair, and other heinous injustices perpetrated by officials, high and low, on those demonstrating and arguing for workers rights. On May 1st, 1986, 170 armed police marched into the area where a crowd was listening to prominent speakers and ordered them to disperse. Fielden, who was speaking, objected and stepped down from the platform. Suddenly a bomb was thrown into the police ranks and one was killed. The police fired and panic ensued. In the end 7 police officers and an unknown number of civilians were killed. What happened in the following months was a witch hunt. Several prominent leaders of the movement were arrested and charge even though many of them were not even present at the tragic event. With no evidence (it was never proven who threw the bomb) and much prejudice, Spies, Parsons, Schwab, Fielden, Fischer, Engle, and Lingg were sentenced to be hanged. There's a lot of American history here. Check it out.

I first read of this while reading Emma Goldman's autobiography "Living My Life" It is a very interesting read due to the actual history of it. I found out about her while reading Howard Zinn's "A Peoples History of the United States" Howard Zinn is a very level headed intelligent man who is prominent in scholarly circles but much maligned buy those in our society who wish to keep evil deeds in the dark and paint a rosy and inaccurate picture of history. Only when all nations confess their sins against humanity will peace be possible. Lies beget lies and wars beget wars and ignorance begets ignorance. Truth is light and when it is suppressed you are left with darkness.

I woke

...feeling comfortably refreshed and I woke early. 5:30 am. Since moving to Portland I have been sleeping till at least 8:30 and usually longer so it seems just a bit strange to get up this early even tough it was pretty normal while I was living in Tucson. Ive been wanting to get back to this schedule and I think it has happened now because I am preparing myself  for employment, hopefully at the Chinese Garden. I felt good about the interview I had there on wednesday, and after being interviewed by Jane and Sam I felt I wanted to work there even more. It truly seems like it would be a great place to work. We'll see.

    So today is the first of May. Yay  (:   The first of May and I feel fresh and gay. It does seem like a special day in some way. It's also my official one year anniversary of being in Portland. What an interesting year it has been. I came here with incredibly high hopes and things did indeed start off quite sunny. I got here at 9:40 pm on the last day of April. On the 1st of May I answered and add for a room in Sellwood. On the 2nd I met Sandy, the owner of the house. On the 3rd I moved in. It was, and still is Im sure, a great place to live which was full of peace and light. Maybe just a bit to quiet but not really. I had a quiet upstairs room with a sunny, south facing window. Oddly enough this is exactly what I had wanted. A room exactly as such in a house near the Springwater Corridor which is an extensive bike path part of which passes along the Willamette. Shortly after moving in I bought myself a new bike and timed my trip from the house to downtown. Yeah, I was pretty excited and hopeful.

    The first shadow that was cast was in relation to relationships. The idea that there would be a lot of fresh faces to date, and that there would be a lot of guys with similar values as myself to meet and get to know, added to my excitement and while it was true it soon became apparent that it was more of the same old. I'll save the details for another day but I still had plenty to learn and realize. The big setback though, was when I fell and broke my wrist while skating. It was a pretty heinous break too and of course on my right arm. It was on monday and I had just started working for Marcia that friday. Needless to say I could not continue work so the cash which I had been spending rather carelessly was not being replaced and I had to find another living situation to make it go farther. I found that situation just in time and after some prep work I moved in to this room in a drab, cluttered house in the middle of sunny september. Unfortunately a rash that I got from exposure to Stinging Nettle moved in with me and grew quite bad before subsiding. It is still with me a bit today, 7 months later. 

    I have to say that I was pretty naive about coming here and how things would unfold. I did think I would find satisfying work right away and that I would even have a boyfriend. You know, I pretty much thought I was all of a sudden going to have this wonderful new life. Everything that has happened to me though, has helped me to see what is really important to me, and has helped me to be more sure and strong in myself. It kind of reined me in and gave me a reality check. Kind of. Reality... Ha! 

    So today, the first day of May, I feel refreshed and new. It's literally going to be a sunny day and Im going to get myself out side and see what I can find.

Cheers!

My Mother's Eyes

The following words were actually my first post to this site and were posted on November 30th 2007. The only change was of the word Tucson, to Portland. Oh sure, there may be some other minor corrections.

I was born on the morning of September 9th, 1959, in San Diego California at Mercy Hospital. Yes... Mercy! And that was the beginning of my imagined troubles. I must have had a scowl on my face for Im sure the doctor slapped my ass as is the custom treatment for newborns, as if to say "This is what you get for being born". What a sorry welcome. I'll have to ask my mom how much I smiled when I was a new human. Mercy. So I grew up in San Diego and its environs but, no, I did not surf, my parents were not actors, and we did not live in a mansion on a hill. I did get to smell a lot of smoke though and get thrilled by more than one shaking. Fun it was.

My dad did mostly janitorial work as I remember. Such was the case at his death. He worked for the city library in Alamogordo New Mexico. My mom raised 6 trouble makers. Well... perhaps we are not all trouble makers. I remember my mom telling me that she worked at some Walgreens type store and that she used to swim a lot. I don't remember her being unhappy when I was a child but she is that way a lot now. There is a connection here to my mother, Mercy hospital, and the deadly light.

So yeah, I grew up in that part of the world, when things were so much different. As they always are in the past. When I was in the 6th grade my parents bought a house in east county. We moved out there and my dad left us soon after. "If you can't stay here with me then leave". My mothers angry, hurt, words that I remember so vividly. I was glad he left and no sadness fell from my eyes. No... that would come much later but my mothers sadness, unrealized to me at the time, was already present.

Oh, I forgot, this is supposed to be about me.

Growing up in east county (Lakeside to be exact) was very different than doing the same in San Diego but I was still timid me. Im still timid me but in a fucked up, angry, confused, sad for no reason but "Im working on that", got you fooled kind of way. Hopefully if we ever meet I will be in a very good mood. Not that Im ever not kind to strangers.

Lakeside California. The only thing that saved me were the hills behind the tract of homes in which our home - strike that - our house was located. I went up there quite frequently with friends or my brothers or myself. I used to wank-off up there a lot. Of course that phrase was not used by me at that time being that I had not yet been to England where I picked it up. Yeah, England. The lost, timid boy did something he thought he never would. Joined the military. More specifically the US Air Force. And while I was indeed twenty and not a boy one would think otherwise if they saw a photo of me from basic training.

I joined the military after returning from Heavener Oklahoma, after trying out Bakersfield, after quitting my job at Smilies Industries, after considering the physical condition of a fellow employee who had been working there for far to many years. My experience in the Air Force was a good one especially since there were no wars or rumors of war. It's called opportunity or "how to get the fuck outa here" cause I fucked up in high school. Military service is an option taken up by many a naive young man.

Anyway... Im in Portland now and there are wars and rumors of war, and there is a connection here to the deadly light.