Dear Diary – Mercury Lights – SeaDate 260807
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
Jump to: Missing Pieces Monster Slayer Veteran of the Psychic Wars The Small Hours of the Night 2AM Wisdom The Stars at Night
LATE 9am
Crashed at 2, planned to get up at 7. That came at 8. And now I'm 2h in on writing when I should be doing client work!
Why are you like this? You know life will be easier if you front load with what you HAVE to do and then do the rest of the stuff later. Good, lord man. Don't be such an idiot.
What do you know, reasonable half of my brain? I am heart... we chase butterflies.
Brain shakes head.
Wrote the lovey reminder that we are not things to be owned and used, but wonders to be beheld: Vineyards
A thing about Cats (retread), and a second treatise on how we are enough. Kenough, in fact..
And I have to STOP writing/rewriting my piece on wandering around Paris. I love this line from it:
Taxi ride back to the champs d' Elyse: A man his bike with a baguette—almost as French a thing as I can imagine.
Too much to do today. Skipped breakfast. But
'd
Missing Pieces
Okay, let's see. Looking for a a piece i wrote on a morning in Spain, and a poem about Antibes and Ireland. I got lost on the cliffs of Moher and had a super great essay. I really like writing here, but the file management is ridiculous.
As part of trying to be a human again, I'm combing through thousands of posts and thinking about balance writing honestly with hurting other people. I miss writing like everyone I know is dead. Maybe I'm just a raw nerve right now and in time, I'll have the courage and confidence to just let fly the dogs of love and war. Time will tell.
But writeas just doesn't have a search function. It requires downloading the entire blog, converting it to a spreadsheet and searching through 2300+ entries! Using #tags is pretty useful, but I am just not consistent.
After cataloguing (THAT'S a weird-looking word) I don't think I've ever seen all of my pieces listed in one place before. And this doesn't include the several hundred that I off-lined entirely, nor the other blogs I host—though those are mostly retreads of what I write here, the well-spring of my very very questionable genius.
Some personal favs:
The Economy of Tears Tidepool of Memory Holding Dams The Folded Man The Walled Garden The Place Where We Are Right The Storm Beneath The Water Between Us What Blossoms in Our Wake Rosy-Breasted Tide Runner
I was suprised over 500 were untitled. Very unlike me, but this is a massive body of work. My greedy Mister Burns wants to know how to monetize it. My heart just doesn't care.
The point is the work. Not what it gives you. Do the work. Build it and they will come. At least with writing, you don't need a mansion to store the massive paintings that are stacked all over my house.
Marching order 12p
Okay! Digging in and cranking out the work. It'll be a long day, but we'll get it all done, Keeper. Trust the process!!
Words of Wisdom
Stand firm . . . with the belt of truth fastened around your waist.—Eph. 6:14.
This commandment that I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it beyond your reach.—Deut. 30:11.
💜My copilot, my parter, my journeywoman💜
I wish she understood her potential.
Call me Jack Keeper. I keep the little moments. The quiet sounds. The gentle recollections. They live in my books and smell of salt and spice.
Because no lighthouse keeper can exist without a cable knit sweater and a decent bottle of whiskey to accompany his library and games.
Some days the bear eats you...
Stress stress stress... hurry hurry hurry. The client LOVES everything... then THEIR client sees it and goes....eeeeerrrrrrr. Could we do it three different colors?
Sigh.
I mean! AWESOME! That's another week's worth of work! I gotta tell you, I don't deserve it. I should be homeless and eating out of a garbage can. But here I am. Paying my bills and eating regularly.
I do have to say. I was def stressed before the 5p checkin. Photoshop was just dying on me all day long. Of course I'm throwing 6 files weighing in north of 10gb each. For you non-digital creatives out there: Your average high resolution photograph is going to weigh in at about 2-5 mb compressed. that's a factor of about 2000. All opened at the same time each file with north of 100 layers.
They're monsters.
And, it seems, i am a monster slayer!
Okay, stress is off. Just have to make the giant fake beach I illustrated to look real pink and yellow instead of purple.
Listening to Veteran of the Psychic Wars
SUCH a great song!
“Veteran Of The Psychic Wars”
You see me now a veteran of a thousand psychic wars I've been living on the edge so long Where the winds of limbo roar And I'm young enough to look at And far too old to see All the scars are on the inside I'm not sure that there's anything left to me
You ask me why I'm weary, why I can't speak to you You blame me for my silence say It's time I changed and grew But the war's still going on, dear, and there's no end that I know And I can't say if we're ever... I can't say if we're ever gonna be free
The voice of a weary soul bleating for his/her suffering to end. As if they'd fought all the wars that had ever been fought. And we're a lot like that when we're going through hell. Every day feels like it will be the day that grinds you into dust.
But wounds become scars, armor grows rusty and victories and loses become only stories we tell our grandchildren.
Not romantizing but capturing the weariness of the endless slog the days sometimes feel like.
The writer should have gotten a beehive and just sat and watched them g about their business. If one worker dropped dead, she dies a happy bee having performed her intended purpose to the fullest degree.
Perhaps that is where the frustration comes from: being imperfect, we can NEVER fullfill our intended purpose to the fullest degree.
Been living in the flames Been eating out or brains.
Small Hours of the Night
1:17 am
Work is shelved for the weekend. It was just too much to deliver today. So we'll start again on Monday. I heroed all I could hero, but in the end, the client wants what they want. And their a drug company, so they can just throw money at a thing until it's there. Who knows, maybe I've got six months of work?
That'd fix my debt wagon.
So, what does a poor boy do at 1am on a Friday night in Dust Merdian?
Go cow tipping, of corse!
Haha!
Well, I stopped drinking. And I stopped bothering a clever soul on the other side of the the universe, so my options are: Sleep Art Entertainment
I SHOULD for for sleep.
But I opt for art. There's writing to do! There are sketchbooks to fill and paintings that need painting.
First top. pop down the corner store for a drink and some people watching.
I went a night or two ago about this time and it was filled with morlock men of my own persuasion: middle-aged, sans a female partner and wide awake in the tiny hours of night. Only I'd like to think I walked with purpose and good posture. Those poor fellows looked like hollowed out tree trunks.
A stiff storm would crack them to dust.
But Friday night... no Friday's a different here.
Pulling in to the QT, right off of the interstate, nearly every fuel pump has a vehicle with travel gear: a jeep with extra fuel canisters and a rooftop tent, a dodge caravan with luggage strapped on top, a Bronco with a bullet shaped cargo carrier on top and a bicycle rack filled with carbon frames in the rear.
Through the glass I see the flash of way too much breast. A young woman is wearing a top that leaves little to the imagination.
Once inside, out of the corner of my eye, I see she has three friends.
As a man of a certain age, I make a conscious effort not to stare, lear or even do more than the passing glance if they happen through my eye line. I am not ashamed to admit that I can appreciate a beautiful woman.
But gas stations on a Friday night are not the place for admiration. Where is? Dressed as they are? Life drawing, museums and anatomical studies. Where these young ladies are headed, doing anything more will only arrive in trouble squared and tripled, cubed and more. Julienned.
This is evidenced by the reaction of the other males in the space. It is quite busy and a dozen or so unaccompanied men linger about their business, I see one head then another and another turn in the direction of the gaggle of lasses. One man in particular makes a stage show out of his leering. Craning his neck and nearly walking into the slurpy machine as he tracks the girls across the floor.
Men. We are such big fat retards.
And predictable.
This is one of my favorite things to do: watching other men react to circumstances like this. They are clownish buffoons on the best of days, and sex, the idea of sex or the possibility of it makes them into drooling idiots.
Though me thinks this fellow is much lower on the evolutionary tree than his companions. His dress is deplorable—a pair of weirdly tight stonewashed jeans hanging midway between his thigh and his knees, ballooning blue and red boxers and a shirt with skulls and cigarettes. His shoes are untied and he has a black belt with metal studs.
This is probably a very special outfit for him. I think it is special in the same way that circus clowns wear special outfits.
The store clerks are oblivious to it all. This parade of tomfoolery. The girls, the boys, what they are wearing or who is looking at whom. They see thousands of people every day and even the most die-hard man watcher would grow weary of the constant parade.
As I exit, I see the tables are all occupied with various homeless. They do not live here, but they enjoy the good light, the clean tables and the safety. If i had to guess, they inhabit the abandoned warehouse next door. It isn't much to look at, but I'm sure if you'e got nowhere else to go, it's a palace.
The table denizens, like the clerks are indifferent to the girls as they chirp and cackle their way to the little sedan in which they all ride. The leering man says something to them out of my earshot. By their reaction, I don't think it was a welcome compliment.
The drive home is peaceful. The windows are down, the hot summer air refreshing and the stars twinkling vibrantly in this crystal clear night. I miss the moon. The lat time I had time to sit outside at night, we had a full moon. How quickly it cycles out.
A lot of things in life are this way. Filling the night sky of our lives, growing and then slowly diminishing, then, suddenly without realizing, gone!
As with the moon though, life is a cycle. It never stays dark for long.
2am
The air smells of smoke. There is a grass fire somewhere. It's the middle of august, so no one's burning a fireplace tonight.
It is a pleasant hot this morning. The kind of heat that would be perect for camping. I wish I was camping tonight. Sitting by the ocean, or a lake and listen to the crickets and frogs.
Scraping the days grime from under my nails and dreaming of running through the woods with a pack of wolves—or—wild hogs more likely.
The Stars
The stars tonight. They are calling my name. OH! How'd I'd like to break free from the bonds of gravity and just GO.
I read an article about Steven Spielberg's 'Hook' (1991) and how it is both beloved and a confusing mess of a film. The part I took away from the piece was the filmmaker's fascination with staying young and flight. It pointed out how nearly every film he's made is either about flight or has planes as a central story element.
I immediately think of those WW2 era transport planes superimposed over a map or globe in the Indiana Jone's films. Or that the boys all take flight on their bicycles in E.T.
According to the essay, this changed after Hook. We got films, 'serious' films. Stuff like Schindler's List, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan (planes in this one), AI, Minority Report, Catch me (planes), Terminal (planes), Munic, Bridge of Spies...
His last two: Fablemans and Disclosure Day are very non-flight.
So, mostly checks out.
The realization that wanting to fly is a common desire simultaneously excited me and made me realize I'm just a little less special than I thought I was.
That's probably a commonality as well.
Still, I wish I could fly. I always have.
A friend gave me a pretty nice reflecting telescope a few weeks ago. Tonight is a perfect night to set it up and see if I can find Saturn or Jupiter. Mars is fun to look as well.
But, when I check the star guide, I realize they're already over the horizon, or not up yet. I decide to wait for the moon. I haven't dialed in a telescope in years. Best to not start with some vague tiny point of light.
I want to sit and write all night long.
But. Maybe it's time for rest.
Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager. —Susan Sontag
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“May your seas be wide enough for wonder, your harbor always waiting, and your light never fail when another soul is searching.” – The Lantern Keeper