Hell, we've all got a ways to go

--jmhenner

A quick compress of the last few weeks. Work continues unabated. Mara came down sick with IC, and then asthma. While buying medicine for Mara’s asthma, I was assaulted in a parking lot and broke my nose. I had nasal reconstructive surgery. Mara’s asthma continued unabated. We went to Quirky and my stomach and I had disagreements about whether or not green chili is proper medication for someone experiencing bad bouts of vicodin withdrawal. I entered graduate school to study cognitive psychology.

In between all, the wedding plans run rampant.

I’ve been asked why I don’t write more often. Quite frankly, I’m not sure I have the ability to write well anymore. The way I used to write, with words coming out that made beautiful sense, feels dried up. I write corporate now and I don’t play with my words like I did. I’m noticing that my particular style in which different meanings could stretch and frolic come harder to me. While trying to write my psychology papers, I sit and ponder the proper way of writing a particular sentence. A few minutes ago, I spent a bit of time wondering what the word subject meant and whether I could write it in a non-discriminatory, non-gender based meaning. Singularities have become as rare as they are in physics. My world is plural; literally and figuratively.

I’ve entertained notions of killing this blog. Who I was when I started it two years ago in some bleak midwestern weather is definitely not who I am now. I have a feeling that if I met myself two years ago; I’d send him to the bottle.

I won’t delete the blog. I need to write. I feel it bottled up in me and it’s stagnating. Mother’s milk dries if kept in the breast too long. I’m drying up and I know it.

I can’t wax poetic with my words anymore. My writing has taken a Hemmingway slant. It’s the pitfalls of my profession. Excessive conjunctions and pretty are forbidden to me. I’ve placed my ands, my buts, and my obscure punctuation on a shelf. Occasionally I let out little signs while ogling them. Then I go back to work writing for people who have a high school degree. High school degrees don’t count for much these days, apparently. I write with the assumption that my readers can read and write at a middle school level, which in modern terms, translates into a twelfth grade level.

So, where are the soft and drinking melodies of the soul?

I’ve taken to exploring zen moments. I’m not quite sure how to describe a perfect zen moment. I think a zen moment is when everything manifests as holy. Holiness, for me, is a realization that I don’t completely understand my life yet. While life seems Ikea and managing personalities through words, it really isn’t. Life is a collection of holiness; a gathering of zen moments.

I was at a Vietnamese restaurant the other day with my boss, her boss, and her boss’ boss. That’s a lot of bosses. They were talking and I was looking at the waitress. The waitress was one of those small, shy Asian girls with a hint of breasts poking through her shirt and the smallest mounds of hips pushing against her skirt. Her hair hung lifelessly in front of her unusually large eyes. She wasn’t attractive, but there was something about the way she smiled while setting a table. I found it fascinating that she would smile while doing something so mundane; as if she knew something about living that I didn’t. I wanted to talk to her to see why she smiled while setting chopsticks in front of white women with too much make-up.

The waitress was still on my mind after I left the restaurant and followed middle aged women back to work. She was still on my mind when I sat in front of my computer and readied myself for an afternoon of meetings.

She made me smile. Holy.

My leisurely slide into middle class live continues unabated. I awaken in bed to her and roll out. Breakfast is egg whites, followed by a round of core exercises. I get to work and the day is a competition of writing and meetings. When I’m not in a meeting, I’m writing. When I’m in a meeting, sometimes I’m writing. I come home and either head to the gym, or I cook dinner. Sometimes I cook dinner and then head to the gym. On the weekends, I reintroduce myself to alcohol. Monday comes. I awaken in bed to her and roll out.

That’s how I roll.

I didn’t really plan my rather happy white bread life. It just sort of fell into my lap and I took it into my hands with the kind of child-like wonder a kid shows at a gift’s unwrapping. At first look, it’s bland, but I know underneath is the festering raw ambition which has driven me forward even though I appeared apathetic and without motivation.

I want my luxury apartment. I want my v-twin sport bike. I want my leather furniture with warranty. I want my good food. I want my speakers with beautiful sound. I want my plasma T.V. I want my ikea catalogue, my three martini lunch, my brooks brother suit, my waking up at 50 wondering what the hell happened to my life and my wife is fucking the pool boy and my kidshatemebecauseimeverhomeandimhavinganaffairwiththesecretaryatmyfirm.

Yeah. I’m going to crawl into bed; next to her, and evaluate how I can remain relentlessly ambitious, climb to the top, while retaining my soul. I want to keep that part of me which drove down the PCH, which sat in the Missouri Ozarks wondering why, which walked the streets of New Orleans with a German in tow, which froze in the rain outside Boston thinking that the Atlantic smelled fishy, which screamed insults near the rumbling Chicago L train while a friend chanted nearby, which looked west with wonder and thought that life was too good to live. Being utterly corporate has a way of sucking creativity out of a man. I intend to defy that.

“T’ain’t no thang,” he says, setting down his legs in a tantric position. She observed him from across the room and decided that the flow of leather against his denim was enough of a liner to drop her panties.

The last two days have seen me striding two energies: that of my wanderlust and that of my need to provide. Sunday, I turned to mine and I told her that there are some curves she doesn’t possess, and some needs she doesn’t fulfill, and pointed my bike south towards Casa Grande.

Phoenix is a grimy town caked in the dust of its own progress, but outside, there’s nothing but the road, cactus, lolling mountain, and the remains of the Hohokahm. I followed some lazy curves until I came to a structure that had been standing since the 1400s. It crumbled at me and I decided to celebrate by eating at a trashy Mexican restaurant. Sometimes, all I need is a bottle of Pepsi chilled to slush, and the dirty smears of the road.

Today, after work, I decided to surprise mine with a new showerhead. We’ve wanted one of those heads that simulate rain. I find it at Target and bring it home proudly.

Me man. Me provide good. Me deposit hunt in front of woman. Woman go ooh. Shiny. 60 nozzle heads and 9 inch extension. Man provide good. Man reward what? Man get shower woman.

I decided to try to install the showerhead while cooking dinner. The shower pipe and I had words. I wanted it off. It wouldn’t budge. I threatened to strip it. It laughed at me. I came after it with a knife. It stood stoically.

I think I’ll have to buy a monkey wrench and show it who’s who. I wear the fucking pants in this house. That’s right. ME.

Back

It’s been a long time since I’ve written in one of these, or written for my own reasons. Sure, I’ve been writing, but it’s the corporate kind, or the kind that fulminates in the minds of lazy high school students. It had sufficed, but last night, I found myself wandering from room to room, gawking at the events which have chained together over the course of the past few months. In less than a year, I went from a broke college student, to a group home worker, to a teacher and a wrestling coach, to a designer for a large telecommunications company. I moved out of my parents place and into a luxury apartment with my fiancée, who I met as soon as I landed in Phoenix almost ten months ago. We even bought furniture which, according to my mother, is the ultimate sign of commitment. Fuck marriage, we have furniture.

I don’t intend to write long introspective rambles, but I do need to give at least ten to fifteen minutes of my time a day for writing. Otherwise, I’m going to lose my soul to the corporate world.

And that would just suck.

What kerry simon gave us for desser

Cotton candy
~ For we walk by faith, not by sight ~

Vegas, baby

So I haven't been in the mood to write. Who can blame me? It was cold.
See, I thought I remembered cold. Cold was that unpleasant sensation
which was quickly cured by some warm body. Ah, no. Cold is that
desperate pain in the fingers which drives me haphazardly to gas
stations at 6am, looking for anything to cover my hands. Cold is peeling
off my gloves at 8am and looking at white and black pockmarks on my
fingers where flesh used to be. Scientifically, cold is the absence of
heat. In reality, it is the soft and drinking harmonies of my
suffering.

I swung by the hoover dam. It wasn't that impressive. I don't know what
I was expecting, but after all those movies and all those pictures and
all those stories, I expected something much more bigger, I guess. In
any case, it was worth a few snapshots and a rest.

Vtr touring is a bit different that vfr touring. The vtr isn't as
comfortable, but it gives me more passing grunt. The vfr is comfortable
and stable as a rock in the straights, but squirrelly in the twisties.
In any case, we need to modify the vtr seat as to not mollify my ass.

I have been trying to find the vegas man, and the vegas woman. I believe
I've found the vegas man sitting across from me. He is a pudgy middle
aged man with a long pony tail, a blue collared shirt, yellow pants of
sorts, and loafers. His wife walked by earlier. She may have been drop
dead a generation ago, but at the moment, she's a pantomime of youth
failed. The chicago man smiles his lopsided smile.

Twist and shout. D is out.
~ For we walk by faith, not by sight ~