Within the harem beneath, the king wretch, incensed and hazed.
Fogged and spiced plumes mask his misshapen guise, and
Cinnamon, rosemary, and clove potpourris placate his violent stench.
A stark white and silken veil hangs over his rippled face,
Supple concubines and taught skinned eunuchs
Assuage and shelter the leprous king.
From his perfumed lair the spice king dispatches his
Spice soldiers to

Every moment of calm and content painlessness is a blessing. Because things will go wrong, they will go drastically wrong for all of us. There will be a second in my life where things change from good to bad and I will look back and remember this moment of painless contentment and I will long for it. I'll need it and I'll be willing to do anything to get it back but it's impossible. Life is just differing states of mind. I can feel alive and alert while I'm running because the blood is rushing through my veins and nourishing my brain, or I can feel sedated and numb without emotion or thought. Which is better really? The end result is still the same no matter anything at all. But I'm fine.

I saw this painting of a matador recently and it inspired me philosophically, or reinforced ideals I already held. Thematically it was graceful and elegant, even in the face of chaos or violence or death or irrationally destructive behavior the matador was able to maintain composure and calm and focus and earn triumph. This black raging bull is charging towards with every inclination to gore you through your femoral artery, but with precision and a click of the heels you can narrowly avoid all danger. An inch is the same as a mile in effect. It either happens or it doesn't, there is no gray area, but the artistry and the sport come from showcasing grace and elegance. The more efficient, simple, and beautiful your movements are the more power and brilliance they convey. I've seen this be true in so many other aspects of life. It's nothing I can achieve but it's something I will always appreciate.

I'm surprised by how few people actually appreciate my disposition. I don't bitch, I don't complain, I don't get angry much. I'm relaxed and content almost all the time. Maybe most people are so bored with themselves that they need others to entertain them, even if it's sick, toxic, embarrassing entertainment. I hope to god I will continue to be as happy with myself when I'm in my 30's as I am now.

Dirty rags, empty beer cans, and coins will never dictate my emotions.

Poignant Thought Of The Day

I find the poignance of today in the dichotomy of my news feed. Half of the posts are about the tragic shooting at my high school, but between those posts I see gorgeous pictures of Vienna and simple reflections about a bike ride on a beautiful day by people who have no idea about the shooting. The truth is that daily there are millions of impersonal tragedies and blessings world-wide, and we need to approach every day thoughtfully, graciously, and with gratitude. Those things will keep us humble and will keep us from the self-pity that destroys our good nature and creates anger. Sociopathic violence is born from ungrateful, angry, pitifully self-absorbed people, and we have to keep ourselves and others from that by being thankful, each day, for something no matter how small it may be.

Hasn't self-pity done enough damage to this world? I guarantee you 99% of your problems stem in some way from self-pity. People have these unhealthy perceptions and expectations for themselves and when they think they deserve more than what's actuality, they pity themselves. And when they pity themselves they weaken themselves, and weaken the integrity of the society around them. And if there's only one rule in life that should be followed, it's the golden one, "don't fuck over anyone else." And you fuck everyone over by moping, and raging, and sniveling, and complaining, all differing forms of pity. 

What I would do to have you here to open my packet of hot sauce...

I can't wait for the Sun, and the blistering heat and the muggy monsoons and the gallons and gallons and gallons of sweat and I can't wait for the dry lips and headaches and cramps and sunburns or the teeming swarms of irritating flies and cicadas and hot helpless stinking people, and I can't wait for the Squids.

I've lived life surreal and semiconscious before, and I've truly enjoyed it. But there is nothing like a reality that you've made your own, and a reality that offers to you everything you need. Needs are wants and I don't want much but I do need love.

It's weird to think about those experiences, good or bad, that absolutely change your life, and I can only imagine since nothing has happened in my life significant enough whereas I can feel its effects indefinitely. Like a car crash late at night and your friend dies and you're seriously injured, or horrid sexual abuse. Something that you will never ever forget and you will think about it daily. Like a weight on your chest always. I'm so thankful nothing as bad as that has happened to me, nor anything equally as good. I would give up all the good in the world if it also took the bad with it, to be content. And there's no way I'm lucky enough to get through the rest of my life without something as terrible happening to me, but what and when will it be? How will I deal with it? I know it's coming because there's absolutely no way I'm lucky enough to escape it.

Someone will die, someone close to me, someone whose face I've looked at for years, and studied, and known, and loved will die. I don't think I've met this person yet. Maybe I have but everyone is so far away, I'm surrounded only by new and unfamiliar faces.

There's no way a good God exists, because if he exists he is not good at all. No good god would do such a shit job of taking care of its creations.

Pokarekare Ana

"The waves are breaking against the shores of Waiapu.
My heart is aching for your return, my love.
Oh my beloved girl, come back to me,
I could die of love for you.

The Sun's hot sheen won't scorch my love,
Being kept evergreen by the falling of my tears.
Oh my beloved girl, come back to me,
I could die of love for you.

I have written you a letter and enclosed with it my ring,
So your people could see how much I am troubled for you.
Oh my beloved girl, come back to me,
I could die of love for you.

My poor pen is broken, my paper is spent,
But my love for you endures and remains forever more."

Rainy Moody

The trumpet's sound reverberates off walls of concrete,
And twenty stories of window pane provide reflection for night lamps and Street walkers,
But the stars remain images.
The twelfth story man looks out his office window to glimpse the city life,
And for once finds contentment in a long night of work.
A nineteen year old girl at a club called Ground Level tries ecstasy for the First time
And decides she doesn't really like it.
A man and the woman he loves get caught in a rainstorm,
He finds her goose-pimply pale skin and wet brown hair completely Disarming.
The stars still shine over cloudy skies.

The white hot summer Los Angeles Sun beats down on the floodway
    The white hot summer Los Angeles Sun beats down on the young black corpse
The white hot summer Los Angeles Sun beats down on the floodway
    The white hot summer Los Angeles Sun beats down on the young black corpse
Left for long and the shadows of the bridge will creep towards his toes
    Mangled and strangled as a passerby peers down with a jolt of mortality
Let the blood flood and wash away this Los Angeles heat
    El A water isn't cool enough

Oh man, it was  brutal. 

So I started down at 6am from the south rim, only took me two and a half hours to get down, I ran a lot of it. Got down there, spent some time with my friend and the rest of the folks down there. Ended up just having a few beers, playing scrabble, listening to records, relaxing. 

I meant to start up for the north rim at 7 am but I ignored my alarm and didn't start till 9. Started walking... and walking... Cottonwood is about 6.5 miles from Phantom and that's when I took my first snack break, only took me 2 hours to get there. It was a really good day too, thank goodness because a storm system had just passed by us, the same one that snowed on Tucson. If it was raining I probably wouldn't have gone because rock slides are extremely common up there after rain, and I don't really feel like dying yet. BUT it wasn't, it was blue skies and sunny. 

There wasn't any snow till after a little past Roaring Springs and it wasn't that bad really at that point. The North Kaibab is an awesome trail though with sheer drops and high canyons on both sides, it was dead quiet up there. There was only one other set of foot prints out there besides mine and that was probably a ranger or something. There were these awesome terraced shallow side canyons that had massive icicles hanging and dripping from them. I came upon one side canyon along the trail and it looked like there had been a small avalanche of some sort because there was a huge mound of snow and ice over the entire trail at a point, I had to carefully climb my way over it. 

It was really good hiking up till the Supai tunnel and that's like 2 miles from the top, it was caved in also. But just after that the snow got pretty deep. I was sinking in about a foot every single step and it took me 2 hours alone to hike that last  part, it was grueling. I was just going so slow and slipping and it was starting to get really cold up there even in the middle of the day. There were multiple points where I was just asking myself why the hell I was doing this and that I should turn back. But I got to the top at around 3pm, hung around for about ten minutes. The places where the snow hadn't been touched all winter long were up to my chest, half the information sign was under snow. 

Then I started back down, and it took me 6 hours to get to the top and it was already 3pm so I ran/jogged most of it. And I was so exhausted and tired. Stopped for a bathroom break at Roaring Springs and that was the only stop I made. The sun set at Cottonwood but the moon came out shortly after and it was pretty bright. Got back to Phantom at 7:30, had some Tecate and Fruit Loops and played Scrabble. 

The day after I started up BA this time because I hadn't touched it since October. I regretted doing that because after the mile and a half point there was nothing but hard packed and slippery snow again. But wow the rest of it felt like a breeze. 

Earlier in the day before I left Phantom I talked to the manager down there about working there and I had already filled out an application but that position had been filled at that point but apparently there's some more people leaving so I've got an interview down there on the 6th and the 7th and I feel like my chances are pretty high for getting this job. It's still relatively menial work, taking care of the rooms, and food and guests, but it's at the bottom of the canyon man. And there's always the sound of running water, which reminds me of Oregon and it's so much quieter and simpler down there. And I'd be making the same wage but they also get tipped quite a bit, especially now that the busy season is starting back up. So I'm really excited for that. 

I walked home a few nights ago without any lights. Usually that'd be no go but with the snow on the ground there's a clear enough distinction to keep on the path. It was cold to begin but I got used to it once I started walking. I kept thinking about the elk and the deer and I was wondering where the hell they sleep and what the hell they eat if the snow covers everything. I could probably google it.

 About halfway home I entered this clearing and the light of the night sky immediately caught my eye and it was glowing. I'd never seen the night sky glow like this, it seemed like the black space in between the stars was even glowing, like a t.v. does when it's on a black screen. There were so many stars, and I needed a moment like that, a reinspiration for what I'm actually doing here. I hadn't forgotten, I just hadn't had that religious moment, like when I see the milky way, in awhile. I had it and it made me feel so much better. I'm going to do it, I'm going to get it done, and I will be there. I will be at my destination. I will get the things that I want, that I need. I don't deserve them yet, I haven't put in enough work, but I will. I stood there for a good five minutes just staring and thinking until I got cold again and started walking.

 The snow outlines the trail because it's been pushed off to both sides by a plow and the ground is dark where the snow is white. And as I was walking the dark trail ahead of me looked like a figure in my upper peripheral and my imagination gave me chills. But I sped up and looked it straight in the eye till it went back to being a trail. I almost wished it was something evil, so I could confront it. I've been feeling confrontational lately...

Why waste my graces?

I've only learned one thing, and that is that things will happen. The things that seem so far off in the future, old age, and death, marriage for some, kids, school for me, holidays, visits. No matter how many years or months or weeks or days or hours they are from now, they will come, they will be here, they will happen. Some things require patience without negligence of course, some things will never happen on their own, you've got to whittle away at them or seize that opportunity immediately or else it will be gone forever and it will never ever come back. Everything will be in the past at some point though. 

Death is coming so fast. I imagine it coming in old age, but it could happen for some stupid ridiculous reason. But it will come, it has come for every single person so far. I'm not scared of death, I'm scared of life coming too fast and happening and being just memories. I want to do the things that I want to do but I don't ever want to be done with them. 

It will come, everything will happen, no matter how far off it seems. It makes me kind of claustrophobic.

I was born too tall.
If I was shorter, I would have just one more thing to be angry about.
But maybe I would have been more humble, more responsible,
More courteous and generous as I should have been, as I wanted to be,
Maybe life would have been cleaner up to this point
And I would have a hundred less things to be angry about.
I would be more humble if I had anything to be humble about,
But I have nothing save for my height, which is nothing really.
I was born with a head too high.

I see the reflection of monsoonal lightning in the passenger mirror.
Where's your whimsy?
Where's your patience?
Where's the solidarity? At least.
You're so deeply entrenched within your own issues.
You're far from perfect,
And you focus on what's wrong with others
As a distraction.
A defense mechanism of yours. Just love.