Tuesday, February 26, 2008

I hear it's my birthday

My birthday is rolling around,
and I'm thinking about all of the things I want. Please visit the links.
I want to be materialistic and terrible, so here's a listing of stuff.


I want something dedicated to me, lifesize, like this.
I've kind of always wanted one of these, if only for good luck.


I really like sweet stuff. So here and there would be a good place to shop.


I would also like Rogue Wave.
The band, not the music.
I want some music,
But please, only stuff that isn't going to be popular in five years because it is overplayed and poorly made. Yeah, that stuff is gold. Love ya, Rihanna.


Last, but not least, I want my own one of these.


Thank you for your time.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Drying the Laundry

The last few weeks have seen emotional breakthroughs in succession. I have had the steady pace of overcoming the great obstacle (Wall of China) that is my mind. I am trying to repudiate my nonclinical depression from the life I should be so happy (!!!) to be a part of.

Life is a hayride.

The biggest thing I allude to in my writing about myself but, rarely, state outright,
is my parents alcoholism.

It isn't real, to them. There is no physiological dependence on the wine and the ale they consume nightly.
It's just a silly habit that they could stop, if they really wanted.
But, as it turns out, they don't.

I walk into my kitchen and glance at the counter. There is a case of Henry Weinhard's pale ale. Wonderful. I believe it was only a week ago when my (visibly drunk) mother was telling me about how much a pain it was to be liquored up every night. We made a plan that would stop their drinking altogether in a not so distant future. The first step was to not buy alcohol during the week, and if they felt like drinking on the weekend, they could.
And they did.
This was a week and a half ago when all of this was put together,
and I saw them stay sober for a work week. It was amazing.

The weekend came and they were more drunk than usual.
Not really a surprise, but a step in the other direction.

And it's Thursday today.
And there is beer on the counter and wine in the fridge.

Immediately, I see a need for action.
I give my mother, not drunk, as of yet, a deliberately casual question.
"Why is there beer on the counter."

She explains that her and my father went lax, specifying his suddenly noncommital attitude towards being dry. She heard his agitation over the phone, didn't sound so good.
Doctors say one glass of wine, my dad would give them more, if he could.
She buckled and bought a box of beer.

We kept talking...

She was argumentative and defensive when I told her about my codependence and how I never want to be around them when they are drunk. It hurts me as a person.
She turned it around and actually believed that I meant that I didn't love her or my dad when they were drunk.
What?

This idea was so far past what I intended, I succumbed to this bullshit charade and hugged her until she stopped crying.

My name is Joel Arken and my parents have been alcoholics for over sixteen years.
I have been contact-sober for about an hour.
I wish I could be contact-sober for my life.
I'll let my dreams be dreams for now.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Just a run

Life: Uneventful
Poetry seeps through my sweat
and boring haiku
My shoes are tied, my bandana is tied, the Dodgers and the Mets are tied, bottom of the eighth inning. I look my door, juggling my keys, Nick's cds and my music machine. I rush down my hill, as

Back to You
by John Mayer unsubtlely kills my hearing. The song is so melodious, but my mind is cluttered and reminded of dull sore of reality. My feet hurt, already. They will be numb. My breath is heavy. I am out of shape.
I
am
worthless.

Brushfire Fairytales
doesn't let me down. I have let me down. I have done nothing to better myself. And now, Jack Johnson is telling me to slow down? I think not, my acoustic friend. I think not. I am thankful when Son et Lumiereby The Mars Volta starts up and bumrushes my insides.I walk to Matt's house, exactly where Nick said he would be. Three mutts sprint at me, rabies clouding their motion, I assume. I wave at the door, laughing, but not smiling. Putting out my friendly hand, as if to say, "Stop Barking!" No avail. I stand, cars drifting and skidding on Halsey. The door goes unanswered, and I put my music back in my head.

Clarity
what a great song, I mean, it can pick me out of any hole when I'm feeling down.No other John Mayer song (Other than Heart of Life, thanks Reaney) can do that. I walk back to Halsey, honing my high notes in an obscene fashion. I just run, controling my pace with the clap of the hands in the back of the song.

Home
by Marc Broussard pushes me up Nick's hill and through the mud. I pause the Blues rock when I get to his house. I say, "You weren't at Matt's house."
"Yeah, sorry."
"It's okay."
"Here's Vampire Weekend and Rogue Wave."
"Thanks." Eyeing my bandana covering my head. "Grow your hair back."
"It will grow, but I'm liking it now. It's working for me."
"Are you getting the ladies?"
"I wasn't before." We both laugh. I wave at Nick and his brother as I run away.
By the time

Fortune Faded
by the Chili Peppers comes on, I'm practically sprinting up 148th. Some (punk) adolescent runs up the hill on the parallel golf course. I pick up my pace. Yeah, nobody asked me to, but I ain't lettin' no punk kid win a race he doesn't know he's competing. Why not go to Burnside, Joel? Because I hate Burnside, that's why. Whatever, you're going. Fine.

I'm Totally Not Down With Rob's Alien
Minus the Bear plays as I stretch my flat feet at the intersection. A group of four, differently-shaded men walk to the MAX stop. Temptation is my friend. "Hey, how're you doing?" rings like an oversized bell in my head. What stops me from walking over to these men? Racism. No, actually, the element of surprise just doesn't seem worth it today. I keep going.

Worldplay
has to stop. I jog past Playschool Daycare. "Jason Mraz, you must stop singing now." I pause the cleverly resounding music. I remember the piledrivers and the molestation. There was even a court case about one of the owners pushing a little black girl down some stairs. It seems odd now that the sign out front says "State-certified." That state must be made of fools. I push my eyes against the locked and alarmed door. It seems so small, quaint, even. I mutter to myself, "This was my childhood. Most of it.""Let go of your roots [and grow]."

There's a Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't Figured it Out Yet
That funny band from Vegas sings. I round the corner of 160th and Burnside, and run North. Two Obviously cool men in cool jersies and basketball[er] shorts move in the opposite direction of the sidewalk. It sounds like he asks,
"Do you work for the Post Office?"
"The Post Office?" as I run past him and his supercool buddy.
He laughs and says something unbeknownst to me, yet still crude to his friend.
I am looking back and running forward as he yells, "Get out my face! GET Out My Face!" to me. It reminds me of Martin, except this man is serious. Huh.
You are so right, Panic!, It Doesn't feel like a night out with no one sizing me up.
I keep running to the next light at Glisan and pass another man. "You have a good day." That's all I say to him. I wanted to start a running conversation about what "to hope" is in Spanish, but move on, letting him wonder who the hell I was.

Theme
the one from Eternal Sunshine by Jon Brion, lets my pace slow down. Some woman sorting tomatoes outside the Farmer's Market on 162nd and Glisan is moving into her sixties. Her grey hair shines under the mild sunlight.

40 Oz. to Freedom
by Sublime starts as I'm halfway down my street. It doesn't seem to fit my mood from the previous songs, but only Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey can keep me satisfied, and I don't think they live in Portland, anyway. I cross the street slowly after a car passes, only to cross back when I get to my house. As I sprint down my empty driveway, I realize why this song is necessary.
"Ohhh, I'm not going BACK!" Nowell ska-croons.

My laces still tied, sure, but looser. My bandana is on sideways, and in an Upset, the Mets have made three runs in the Top of the Ninth. The Dodgers have lost, and I feel a whole lot better.

Monday, February 11, 2008

I believe (NPR

Assignment for Writing 122:

Sappy side:

I believe in the second chance that a new day brings. I believe in the warmth of waking up in the morning knowing that the mistakes and misunderstanding of yesterday are part of the past. I learned this from the days after I was depressed and suicidal, but mostly, forgetful.
With my freshman year of high school peppered with failed relationships and rumors of pregnancy, I was willing to close my eyes and walk in the street. I was serious when I said I wanted to kill myself. I felt as if there was no way out of a dropping out of high school and a dead-end job. I had walked myself into a corner that was also between a rock and a hard place. The only option I saw was to let go of fear, and die.
I still do not know whether I was being outright melodramatic, or if my small mind could only comprehend the surreal disaster that I believed my life was by equating it to a life and death situation. Now, it doesn’t matter.
I started each morning with silence and patience. I trudged out to my bus stop and calmly, soundlessly sobbed as I measured the speed of each passing vehicle in my head, tallying whether or not I would have died if I would have jumped into one of their grills. This process went on for months.
With the help of my loyal peers and counseling sessions I grew less despondant. Looking back, though, with retrospect being one of the most beautiful talents of man, I remember taking pleasure in the exact same things as I do now. I eat, run, and mope exactly the same way, whether or not I was desiring my life to be over. So was there any difference, really, between my life then and now?
Yes. I know that every day is temporary, now. I was so head up about everything in the present being so important and grave that I was willing to end today. Tomorrow hadn’t even come, yet.
On one morning, with little importance otherwise, I opened my eyes with a different frame of mind. That morning, I didn’t think about yesterday, and hardly about today.
From that day, and every day after, I focused on what’s to happen next.
Tomorrow is different day; it’s kind of like starting over,
This I believe.

Realistic, though, dishonest side:

I believe in destroying borders with no reservations. I believe in acting on whims and making the unexpected, expected. I believe in popping personal bubbles and making others uncomfortable. I learned this from the blank stares and open gawks that have made me the happy person I am today.
My instances of daring unforeseen and actions have made life wonderful. For instance, I walked out of my house seven months ago, on a drug-ridden street, the moon dawning high in the sky. A man trots and wobbles past my lawn, with furtive glances backwards every off-beat.
“Good Evening!”
He looked confused and angry. He meandered towards some drunken destination. It didn’t surprise me to see his mug on the front of the Metro section in the Oregonian. Albeit, in the paper, he was clean-shaven and sober, he was still the same man. Something made him clean up his act and build synagogues throughout the Portland metro-area. I believe I had a hand in that, especially my unexpected greeting.
I hate that norms are accepted and followed by so many, with so little room for personal differences. What I love is moving past those norms and refreshing the system. “Welcome to Wendy’s; how is your night going?”
“Oh, My GOD! Thank you for asking me that question! I was hoping someone would ask me. I AM SO INCREDIBLE; YOU HAVE NO IDEA! LIFE IS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED!” The woman on the other side of the microphone was smiling. I know this because she told me… on our wedding night, three years later.
On the same note as the unexpected, taking risks has worked out for everyone that has worked, indirectly, to bring up my birth. My great-grandfather (on my biological father’s side) had a terrible heart attach when he was living in Germany, before immigrating to the United States. He took at chance and became the first man ever to have open heart surgery performed upon him.
The only way to be truly happy with your life is to take risks. My best example is George Washington. His story need not be retold.
Take risks and succeed. This, I believe.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

A veces

Estoy enamorado de todos.

A veces, no estoy.

Está todo para nada.

That's how I feel.

I've been playing the waiting game for months.
I guess I'm just a varsity player of the waiting game, at this point.
Can I letter in waiting?
I'll talk to DeWitte into it.

Please God, Let Time Pass Faster.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Oh, it is addiction (No, Thank you, Henry Weinhard)

Part of the reason I am so quick to leave my home a breath away from Suburban Portland lies in the bottom of a friendly green bottle.

You might have seen the popular boar's head. Mmm, Pale Ale.

Sweet, bitter lager.

i'm not sure what year my mother started drinking heavily, but she started the process in high school, in the early '70s. Beautiful. It's coming on 40 years of wonderful alcoholism.



Life is Beautiful.



She's crying right now. My door is open and I can hear her slamming cabinets (an action of which she berates my father when he is in an angry, drunken stupor) and crying. The soft, poignant sniffle pleading for respect and understanding.



"So, Joel, are you going to have any food before I put it away?"

"No." At this point, it has been over three times in ten minutes that my mother has asked some derivation of the same question. "Mom, I already ate." I shake my head, so tired of repeated questions and dull, empty laughter. "I've already said this, Mom. You just don't listen."

I understand that was rather harshly-worded.
Despite that,
living in a pool of ale makes it kind of hard to pay attention.

I don't want to hurt my mom, Obviously.
But at what point to I stop coddling my parents?
After which yelling session do I stop my dad and say, "Gee, Dad, I know you love yelling at me for no reason and throwing my belongings, but hey, maybe you have a problem with alcohol and that is the reason for this craziness."?
I don't know.
But I feel harsh.
I feel like an overbearing asshole that can't control his annoyance (understatement of the year).

My parents say they are functioning alcoholics.
I think this phrase is utter bullshit.
Alcoholism is a physiological dependence on alcohol. It doesn't matter that you've been doing it for so many years that you don't even slur your words. You are still drunk.
And you are still fucking addicted.

I feel crass, now.
My apologies.

I'm lost in ways to approach my parents.
Can I even help to solve this problem?
And if I can,
is it one of those situations like speeders on residential streets where I have to wait for a speeder (or in this case, my drunken parents) to kill someone?
Do I have to wait for someone to get hurt?

Because I don't want to wait that long.

Monday, February 4, 2008

De repente, Tengo mucho frío (Suddenly, I was very cold)

And now my blogs are current.

Here's a poem, translated from Spanish to English, that I wrote.
My Spanish is limited, ergo the poem is limited.
Yeah?
Dig?

:::Okay:::

When my telephone is ringing,
the subway stops
and my heart is jumping
to the beat
but that was then.
When was the day that your innocence was twisted?
My love, I think, is living.

The ruins of our security and warmth are sincere
I ran.
I ran far, my friend.
Are you my friend.
I don't know, my best acquaintance.
Why are you leaving?
I was happy.
You were happy, no?
No matter.
I am deaf, blind, and very awful.
You are beautiful, blue, and sweet.
That roll of film is burnt;
I'm Sorry!
I am burnt.

You are right to go. You are correct.
Walk the path.
You walk away, walk towards the sun.
I want to go, also.
I want to go with you.

I am not satisfied.
Once more, please?
Why are you leaving?

Sunday, February 3, 2008

A Stabbing Disquietude

Monday, January 28, 2008

Here's the scene:
Small, nondescript building
Filled with many hungry
Windswept sidestreet
Cold January evening, snow and rain in puddles
Silence

I'm dishing out raspberry parfait and yakisoba noodles onto paper plates like no one's business. I make some off-handed comment about homeless people being antsy for food they are getting for free, and I stop.
"AHHH! WHORE! GET OFF ME!!"

I turn. Doblo. There is a man and woman, both with their dukes up, pounding on eachother. Immediately, the ranking adults and volunteer coordinators rush to the angry fighters.
I turn back to the food.
"Man, let's just diffuse this situation, right?
We don't look at it, they don't..."

I just stop talking. No one is listening. I look up at my fellow volunteers.
Their mouths are open,
Their eyes are frozen.
I turn, one last time (I'm thinking to myself that this turning business is getting pretty old):
The man in the fight has a nice dripping blood splatter on the back of his head.
The lady has stabbed him on his head.

Okay,
It doesn't exacly hit me here.
I just feel weird.
I keep stirring stuff, holding plates
Anything to get my mind Away.

Stacy calls the cops, freaking out, still calm, though.
Odd.

The story unfolds,
volunteers go in and out, making sure everything will be alright,
which it is.
Cops come, 15 minutes later.

The funny things:
Ego
Self-importance
Reality

"CAN WE GET SOME EFFING SALAD? I'VE BEEN WAITING HERE LONGER THAN ANYONE AT THIS TABLE!"
Yeah, okay lady,
Seriously, there are over 40 people that need food, so be freaking patient.
She didn't understand that other people are just as important as her.
She continued complaining, less quotably, as the guy was stabbed.
Man, there are some serious conflicting values here.
Hey, MEGA
LOMANIAC

The police didn't come for 15 minutes.
Their station is two minutes away.
"Hey Frank, we got a call at the Service Center. Some chick stabbed a guy."
"I'm eating a doughnut, Spencer, give me a break. Aren't they homeless?"
"Yeah."
"Let's take our time."
No doubt this is not an actual conversation,
But damn did it feel like it was.
They must be: MEGA
LOMANIACS

It's all about what is worth more,
Your time,
Or someone's health,
safety,
Life.
So what's worth more?

Refrigerator Haiku: Meet the Sea

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Mermaid came Riding
Dove breaks his hammer bottom
Live, fight, flounder: Lost

Sad Chase, Octopus
Swim Angelfish rain water
Jump a great big hole

Have Love, sky color
Imagine smallest ocean
Salt(y) black bubble

Blow Atlantic Squid
Dive and grab for red sun conch
Surfer crashed that night

Sea lobster says, "Dream"
A trip away was friending
Head below smart rock

The wheel bleeds ale

Friday, January 18, 2008

Dilated pupils

clammy palms

gripping on the passenger

side door

Smile is weak

Mind is set

Each lane change

closer to death

But now I can see

the road I'm on

has an end

Reflective Rain (Music in Winter Part 2: Orchestra to Choir and Back)

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Much like the band concert, I brought my journal to the Winter orchestra/choir concert 2007.

The date is December 20th.
The writers are Joel Arken, Brittany Emch, and Martin Rodriguez.
Brianna Nuñez-Webb has a word, as well.

Simply put, A gorgeous Hall of the Mountain King in time with the beating of my hands, rhythm, never lost
I feel like I've been raped into a Disney Christmas Special.
The birds chrip and stamp their talons into my head.
There's a squirrel liking the composer Dickson far too much.

Out of pitch, out of rhythm, yet I am content with the snow that isn't falling. We're all thinking, we're all oh so merry, we're all breathing. Aren't we?

And the Dalai Lama said, "Life's like a beanstalk?
"Isn't it?"
Only use orchestras to prove a point. Nothing else.
Punting infants = bad orchestras

She dances, childlike, and he responds with a flooded glare. Once again, she has lost the battle. Tremulous fear has flown out the kitchen window. You prick my heart. I don't have diabetes.

Each fluorescent sparkle on the adjacent tree is like one note in an arranged piece, and the sparkle so brilliantly together, sometimes. Why are there seniors in this orchestra?

I think you mean señors? Sometimes Mexicans are left out when the current of the great motivation highway sweeps past them.
Mr. Brooks' combover creates a ridge through which all other guesstimations are made euphonious. &heart;

But when the silicone souls collide, they create something as extravagant as that of a bohemian rhapsody. Sophistication, elongation, segregation. It's all the same.

BOOM!

I want there to be more to music than four instruments of variable size. Rich mahogany would taste all the better a la mode.

The platform she is standing on might as well be a baby's head. And the bows are poking the eys of various forest animals.

THX has a new theme writer: Travis Chapman.
Say goodbye to cows. We are from the future, where there are no cows, or the unethical treatment of cows.

Cows will always be eaten.

I imagine Jesus Christ as a weepy infant or a really angry, profane coworker. I don't know why.

My blood isn't flowing. The left cerebrum has shut down. The third ear hears nothing bu the vague vacuous air. We are at a hoe-down?

This (hoe-down) is how my inbreedin' grandaddies (aw heck, my whole family) celebrates the Christmas. Uncle Willy don't have to use no spitoon, I reckon, on account of his mouth cancer.

It is my civic duty to eat cows. Just as it is my job to kill replicants.
By the way, what would you do if you found a turtle upside-down in a desert?
Parahippocampal gyrus... malfunctioning...

Orchestrations seem so angry. It's probably all the rushing hormones.

I won't be home for Christmas.
It smells like butt....er.....finger.

I believe the finger come first, if I'm not mistaken. The backdrop color reminds me of a mild rash.

The most alienated, socially awkward sit next to the terribly inspired, repressed geeks, tonight. Just wait until the boisterous attention-whores flood the stage.
Stereotypes galore.

Foreign! Fuschia! Fiesta!

How sisyphean are the efforts of the 2nd bassoonist to keep in time. I wonder how bad Travis is pitting out. Maybe he'll keep some in a jar for me.

This musicfest is majestic, like an eagle. It is an eagle. A dancing, swaying eagle. The eagle is yellow from hepatitis, though.

This is life.
I feel like we should be eating some Hors d'--uvre.

The maître d' is using his scales.
"Just go up there and kill time. Make up some notes."

There better be a Voodoo Doughnuts in heaven.

I'm going to get married there...
Voodoo Doughnuts — not Heaven...

It could go either way with you, couldn't it?
(I really want a melodrama and bon-bons. Though I don't see how this is all related.)

Hey, I bet even Satan likes doughnuts...
Hmm does that make it evil? Or does the doughnut-eater have free will?

This conversation was predestined.
And my friend Peter is a trueblood Countertenor.

Oh. My. God. (It's not in vain, I hope.)

Joel is (fill in the blank)
fool

Sullen snow (Music in Winter Part 1: Band)

Sunday, December 23, 2007

I decided to bring a journal to the Winter Band Concert and write whatever comes to mind as I listen to the music, just like I do for Jazz Band.
Instead of simply writing in it, this time the people around me took turns writing in it.

This is the written response to the Winter Band Concert 2007, December 19th.
The writers are Joel Arken, Travis Chapman, Brittany Emch, Daniel Navarro-Gomez and finally, Martin Rodriguez.

(Sympho)
I work in the steel factories. I bite the heads off of Communists with my gritten American teeth.

Chasing rabbits, no, chasing cars.
It's a doggy dog world

The imminent essence of the trumpets flood my esophagus and I am elated.

The articulation of the tubas tickles my anus, or the outside of it anyway.

Black and white bowties beguile the illumination of my soul

As the sound reaches the audience's ears,
We discover that it is nothing more than shouts
And the joy of our souls seeking to escape

Like a dove set free into the sunlit sky. We are free

Maya Angelou and her caged bird sing with the melodious saxophone. I would love to live on Bakerstreet, in a gold-wrought Suburb.

Egads! What brobdingnagian beauty eminates forth from the tuba! And lief the cues from the conductor are truly magnificent. Never mind, that was quite the musical imbroglio.

(Concert Band)
I just murdered Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra with my flute in hand. Proof that musicians go to hell.

With a pipe in my mouth & a sword in the other I am the king of jesters. I laugh in the face of Sinatra & fear, for my imminence shall reign.

Shout at me, oh, jubilant and flamboyant harmonics. Inspire me, you who smells like my favorite carol. Sink into me, little eighth notes, I long to be your lover.

That's provocative, that's it.
Trumpets roar, flutes tweet and drums are banged. But who do they call for? They seek to be heard and are kept as a faint memory like your ex-wife's
howl.

With one great leap backwards, I smash the noise out of the room. A cacophonous pur and a general disquietude is left in the beige auditorium.

Don't ultracrepidate me, young miscreant!!
I had a sexual affair with your mother!
Which produced you! Ha Ha, I chortle at you, ignoramus.
Let me tickle your nozzle.
(P.S. The jabroni playing the bass drum was doing it all wrong.)

At least five of these accidents ^ will drop out of band and start smoking the weed.

Girl, let me lay it out for you.

Left, towards Hell, okay now 3 inches right, up, up, up, 3 quarters NW, okay... You've tickled my nozzle.

That boy in the front, look at him there. All timid and scared...
Would Brooks have dared.

(The Ensemble)
Ok, do they really need 8 percussion players?
Or 2 black people?

Cleanup on aisle French Horn. We've got an oil spill. Commanding the stage, Ben Brooks demands respect.
I do not want Sylvia
.
(That's a lie, Joel ^)

Hella tight song but don't get me wrong, where's the gong...
The bass palyers perpetratin' the flute guy
you can see the mean look in his eye
Yo, today my mom went to the Red Cross
Did I mention that I told Tony Danza that I'm the boss?
Anyway, Back to my mom, she gave red like Stalin
The bassoons are all in... it's appallin'
Wait, I hear the phone; I think it's your mama callin'
Too bad about your dad he must be bummed when he sees me strum
His wife's heartstrings.
Am I the only one not clapping?

The dazzling display of polluted snow fallen and collected on the side roads. Blue birds, sopranos and altos gliding endlessly around the ice rink, where none other than Mickey Mouse has mastered his Double Axle McTwist on the frozen ground. The mountains do not threaten, they hang low, like Craig's cufflinks.

Band concert tonight,
the sound like cookies and eggs.
My mom is better

And that's all she wrote.
Is it progress if Cannibals use forks?

More importantly, is it inevitable for cannibals to use forks?
Or do they possess free will?

My holiday season starts with rum, coincides with whiskey, halfway, then ends with light beer. Thanks for reminding me, B. Brooks.

Lasciate ogne speranza vo'incontrate
Life has me at a crossroads right now
But both paths are washed out from a flood.
And somebody I am close to knows how to make a canoe.

My coyote manifest

Tuesday, November 20, 2007


The Red in the Masonry

(Clarity on the Rocks)

It was a great objective. It could have been better, granted it lacked peaceful resignation, but it meant for so much more. It would have been atypical for Sam to make such an irrational decision, but today was an irrational day.

On the jagged horizon, with the tips of sullen mountains gloriously lit, the sun was rising. Sam looked out cockpit window, but missed the silhouette of the small crop-duster glinted like an eclipse. Sam was looking at his destination, a small, white, steepled church in the middle of a vast, yellowing field.

Sam knew that he was destined as a chain in the mithril of an infinite struggle. He could've been a policeman in a corrupt city, making the law abide by justice one step at a time. He could have been a revolutionary in a third world country. He could've tackled an environmental issue after running for president. He could have been a dreamer, a poet, a visionary. He was all and none of these things, and he knew it.

The plane, a pale speck in the grand tide, dived down, lower and lower. It was suspended by the air slamming against its metal skin. It flexed and eased, calmly. Sam steered the plane in a helix, gradually ending with a small, repressed bang.

He thought of his father, a valiant, Catholic Air Force Sergeant. His father would be proud, wouldn't he? How could he not? The "Ride of the Valkyries" flooded Sam's mind along with a great confidence. He smiled, shallowly, to himself.

"Well, I won't worry about anything now," he muttered to himself."

The plane came down faster, meaningfully. His eyes widened and a final thought was brought before him as his old aircraft slammed into the nearly-built, small, white church.

"What if…?"

The brick-laying was tedious, especially in the sweltering summer heat. The small Mexican town lay within five miles of American land, but the real joy, the real experience that Sam was supposed to find was in the laying of these bricks. He was building a church.

"Hey, Sammy, could you barrel over some mortar?" Sam looked over at the bearded gentleman. He was burly, and masculine. He would also kill for Jesus Christ.

"Christ, Mr. Keller-" Sammy started

"Samuel, do I have to remind you that you are building a holy vessel on God's green earth? Please, don't make me remind you to not use the Lord's name in vain."

Sam stood up, after the older man looked down. He grabbed the wheelbarrow of mortar and walked it over, along the edge of the building to Mr. Keller. "Thank you Samuel," he said. "And God bless you." The older man took a bucket beside him and swiftly filled it with mortar.

Sam spun and walked back to his bricklaying. The sun was high enough in the sky for one to block it with their hand. It was ten in the morning.

He slopped the mortar on to the edge of the foot tall wall. He placed the brick down and thought of God himself placing different species on this planet, like an elaborate game of chess. The knights go here in Italy. The King gets placed into power here, and stopped here. Here are the pawns that will toil till the day they die.

Sam saw these sacrilegious comments appear in his mind every day he was at work. This had only been the third day of working in the small town, his burns already accumulating. He had been coping with this substantial open space and position of a forced audience member with sarcasm and blasphemy. It was only blasphemy if it was spoken, so Sam kept himself quiet, under the harsh stare of Mr. Keller or the judging glance of the other at-risk adolescents at work at different stations.

This journey was for him to discover his faith. He was being pushed to his limits, in the hopes of his soon-to-be-divorced parents he would find God in the desert.

The problem lay in his doubt and mistrust of religion. He was himself very faithful, but not of a title to his love for life.

This Eden was a fat camp for atheists and hoodlums.

Hours later, a whistle shrieked over the flat, sandy land to order all of the workers within the mile of the campsite where the mission trip advisor was setting up lunch. Sam looked up, his brow furrowed and drenched with sweat.

"Christ, why is everything on schedule here?" he muttered to himself, sullen and bitter.

He stood up, wiping the layer of dirty sand off of his skin. He felt like a prisoner of war.

The sun rippled and hazed in the empty sky. A blue plaster sheet hung over the air like a suspended window. The thought of his father breaking through the giant window above, and gliding down over the frame of an old building delighted Sam, just momentarily.

The shrill whistle screeched a second time, dotting the 'i' that was Sam.
He marched toward the large green tent and canopy to see his coworkers ready for conversation or noise that wasn't their own breathing. Sam didn't much come face to face with most of these people, primarily because they volunteered to build churches in their spare time. Sam slept and read in his spare time, but the desert highlighted neither of those things.

"Hey, Sam! How's the mortar?" a ruddy teenager in charge of moving bricks asked, with a demeaning undertone.

"Oh, you know it's great, peaceful and light." Sam noticed the boy's complexion was suffering in the sand. He looked like he had shaved for the first time with a machete. Sam enjoyed the view.

The lunch today was a mixture of leftover burritos and fresh chili. Sam waited in line behind the ignoramuses and the clandestine agnostics. He smiled by the scent of the food. The salty aroma lit his nostrils and made his stomach clamor in hunger. The warm food was slopped into a paper bowl, which Sam eagerly rushed to a table and inhaled.

The food was like water, dripping down his dry throat, his canteen as worthless as a three cent piece. Sam licked his salty lips and watched a plane take off not far from the site of new Eden. The plane was a crop-duster, and was fitted with fertilizer. The mission trip information packet made this barren area seen deserted and primitive. There was a coke machine at the market two miles away. One car that was passed in the trek to Eden was a Prius. A crop-duster, not two miles away, flew over the empty land, skimming the window over the amphitheatre of sand. Sam pondered this scene, and realized that Jesus was being thrown at these people as if they were lame in the mind and completely ignorant and blind to even mildly popular culture.

Was this church a nice gesture? Was it structurally sound? Was it the only church in twenty miles? Sam knew these answers were yes, but was this Protestant mega-cross in the center of possible farming land to support dozens of families necessary? Sam gulped from his canteen and thought.

The moon bled holes in Sam's eyes; it drifted, dead center in the middle of a purple nebula, swirling and smiling. The man on the moon waved down, winking. Sam smirked and nodded his head. He looked on, towards the blanket of snow, dark blue melting, on the nearest mountain. He saw a darkling creature dart in zigzags down to the foothills.

The panting, dark animal appeared in front of Sam. It was a light brown coyote with bright sanguine streaks, parallel. It spoke.

"Beauty lies within each of us. A glory in the machine is in my brain, infested with diabolical substrata. If you believe in me, you believe in God and the Devil. I am, as you are." Her voice was soft and smooth, like verbal silk. Her sharp white teeth filled a grin with spinach leaf hanging to the side caught Sam's attention. She was an herbivore, he knew.

"You are, and you always have been. I want you to look in my eyes." Sam already was, but she knew that.

"I already am," he said pointlessly.

She nodded. Sam looked deep into the shallow pool of black and red. He stared in, as if there was some great truth hidden inside the black gems and-

He saw it. There was a white glint grazing the surface of her eyes' reflection. He spun around, looking at the now green sky. A pale plane flew toward an engulfing fire. He wept and spun again. The coyote was gone, drifting on the other side of the mountain.

Suddenly, he was drowning.
No, he was actually drowning. He opened his eyes, bathing in sweat.

"God," his body shuttered and watered the tent walls. "Oh, God."

Maple syrup dribbled down Sam's hefty pile of pancakes. He spun the pile with his fork, looking at the mess inquisitively.

"It doesn't look good, but they are so good. I'm telling you."

Sam looked up, hardly awake, and smiled at the hairy guy across the wooden table. He looked eighteen, he was probably sixteen. Sam had learned from the name game that he went by Taylor. "I just feel weird, you know? Hard night," Sam spoke with an unusual amount of pleasantness and extroversion.

"Dude, I hear you. Sleeping on sand is terrible, uh." They both laughed. "Samuel, right?"

"Sam."

"Okay, Sam, I've got it. Taylor."

"I know."

"Name game?"

"Yeah," they laughed again, quietly.

Sam brought down his fork and scraped it around like a poor pizza cutter. This was disgusting. Nothing on the table looked edible. If he ate, he would most likely regurgitate it, as if the sand were baby birds. The sand was not a baby, nor was it a bird. He pushed the plate towards Taylor. "You want some?"

"Nah, I'm stuffed, man. Thanks though."

"Okay." Sam wriggled out of his chair and threw away his pile of pancakes.
Taylor eyed Sam. "You okay, man? Substance is sustenance, you know?"

"I just don't feel good." Sam took a swig of his water.

After Sam walked away from his lunch and left his snack bag of chips unopened, he went back to his mortar and bricks. If he just worked through the day, the job would be done faster and he wouldn't have to work any longer than necessary.

His wall was as tall as he was, and forced him to use a ladder. He saw Taylor and his friends working, laughing on the other side of the building. Sam's wall was, by far, the tallest, and he was alone in making it. He watched Taylor fling sand at his friends. He must not have cared how long this took him, Sam thought. Lazily holding a brick, Sam's hand, without him noticing, buckled and dropped the brick down. He heard the soft catch of the sand. He looked down at the brick, and suddenly he was very tired.

Like a rag doll, Sam fell of the top steps of his ladder and face first, into the sand. As his eyes automatically closed, Sam saw a white plane slowly scuttling in his direction, but much higher. The lights went out.

He found himself, in a microcosm within the black of his mind. Sam was enraged, blameful, but immobile. He was alone with his resentful thoughts.

Where am I? Sam inquired, glancing around the empty space. The darkness separated into a building site, under a glaring sun. It hit him, just like he had hours before. Culpability was suddenly the focus of his mind.

If it were not for this vile establishment of a church in a desert, no less, I would be awake and aware. I didn't want to come here, anyway. This was not my choice, he thought, mentally spitting furiously.

Sam thought of his visits to churches, his hand held by one or both of his parents. "Here, Sammy is a place of God. This is where we worship. Can you say worship?" He was four, then, the memory still crisp in his mind, like a mild concussion. He was bored into submission and dreaded each Saturday night's passing. When he grew, he learned of other cultures and how each thought they had recorded the voice of God.

"Mom, why is Judaism wrong?"

"Well, Sam, it's complicated, but they just are."

The youth leader, Mr. Keller, looked at the body of Sam, with the slight trickle of blood from his forehead bandaged. Sam frowned and shook his head slowly. Mr. Keller stared, wide-eyed.

Sam remembered growing throughout Junior high and realizing that zealots were wrong on a rational level. This thought brought him back to his temporary resting place, and the reproach settled.

What great Injustice! What incomparable arrogance is the outlet of the churches in communities with deeply-set cultural beliefs that are not necessarily the same as the churches. This behemoth structure being erected probably feet away was against Sam, was pushing him down. He would not tolerate this.

Sam opened his eyes.

"Samuel, buddy, you awake? The sun is still shining on you." Mr. Keller looked at Sam, right in the drop in his eye, not piercing, but somehow seeming to Sam as if the youth leader knew exactly what Sam was thinking.

"Mmm." Sam looked around. He was in a small, dark green tent, with first-aid kits and a jug of water. He eyed his canteen near the door. This was sure no Providence, barely an Adventist. "I'm here."

The older man smiled and turned to the side of the cot Sam rested on. He turned back with a damp compress. "Good, Samuel. Good." He placed the compress on Sam's suddenly throbbing forehead.

"Christ, Ow," Sam blurted and paused. "Sorry, about the Lord's name and stuff. That just stings."

"Yeah, I know. Sorry, buddy."

Sam's father used to call him buddy. It was something Sam loved to hear when he visited him in the cancer ward at the hospital. The last time he heard "buddy" from his father, was during his last visit to the small, sterile room. Sam had walked in, teary-eyed and noticed the nurses had tied the paper airplanes and model kits he had made for his father from the ceiling. Sam gasped with a childlike excitement as he walked in the room. "Hey Buddy." His memory stopped with a burst of tears.

To Mr. Keller's bafflement, Sam sat erect and marched out of the room, grabbing his canteen on the way. "Sam! Wait!"

Sam did not falter, he had a simple plan.

After laying a last level of mortar on his own wall, Sam turned the corner to work on the walls next to his masterpiece. He stacked and spread for hours, breaking only to eat, despite his stomach pains, and to drink from his canteen habitually. He did not want to find anger in black emptiness again; he had found enough, already. Taylor noticed the odd work ethic.

"Hey, Sam," Taylor said, interrupting Sam's working groove.
"What?" Sam asked, shortly.

"You okay, man? You seem to be pushing yourself pretty hard, and we've got a week left. You don't have to put out so much. Rest, Mexico is sweet." Taylor smiled, his green eyes showing a genuine cheerfulness.

"I'm fine, everything's fine," Sam said sheepishly.

He continued slathering mortar while Taylor stood for a second, then departed.

The following morning, a quiet alarm buzzed next to Sam's head. He jolted up, ready. He was already clothed in warm, dark garb. He unzipped his tent's outer zipper one zip at a time. He waited what seemed like an eternity between each zip. He stepped out of his upright shroud and looked around. Good, the sun had hours to before its rise.

He stepped with his heels on the sand, and walked as silently as he could to the entrance road, a quarter mile away from the site.

His face was calm, indifferent. His eyes were droopy and punctuated with dark bags. He did not waver. He marched onward.

The wind breathed salty on Sam's face. He heard is name being whispered by his old friends back home. He smiled and received them. The rough terrain made him feel like a gaucho or a frontiersman, rugged and masculine. He marched for several miles north, guided by the stars. He felt the sun rubbing her eyes, and knew time was being cut short.

Minutes later, Sam saw his dull, white instrument, conduit, channel. He looked at the small plane, and thought of how these machines had been utilized as tools of destruction. This machine had no turrets, or attached explosive, but it still could destroy a man.

Sam glanced around. No one was in sight, no dusting for another three hours. The time was six am. Sam had everything planned.

The trek back brought Sam to the waking of his fellow architects and carpenters. He smiled, knowing that they loved what they did for God. They sure understood life, didn't they?

His smile did not pass, did not move, as he ate his heaps of eggs and toast. Somehow, his food stayed in his mouth, with a full grin of a joker. He sipped from his canteen and giggled. His jovial sensations were on the downswing, he knew work was on its way.

Sam brought all of his force to his extremities, laying the brick and slopping the mortar. This process was almost finished for all of the walls. Sam had even stepped up his help of Taylor's wall. He wanted the church built, darn it.

"Man, this is some heavy stuff, right?" Taylor asked, the bright sun, closing its eyes, Mr. Keller setting up a makeshift campfire in the distance.

"What do you mean?" Sam was elsewhere, lost in his thoughts.

"I don't know, building a church, hundreds of parishioners to come. This will be an epicenter."

"Yeah, I guess it is kind of cool." Sam looked at the dusking day. What glory, he witnessed on this everlasting night. "Yeah, it is cool."

In his dreams, pushing and pulling his mind around like a broken balance.

His rationality and his morals tugged at his psyche and culminated in his subconscious images.

A great beast of a building, the Empire State, proudly was being washed by Sam. He hung on a roped platform, a mile in the air. In his dream, the building was two-dimensional, though. He was on a cardboard cutout of a giant.

His clear plan in his dream began as he swung the platform from side to side, adherently not dangerous, but adding tension to the rope. He swung back, making a circle pass through the air, and the rain began to pelt his head. He swung forward and slammed into building, but his eyes were closed, and his ears plugged.

Sam fell from the platform knowing nothing, as if he couldn't know what was to come. He woke, his forehead dripping like a flooded attic.

The time had come.

Again, Sam was fully clothed, ready for the day to pass, as all things must. He unzipped his tent, slowly, but not apprehensively. Each passing moment provided even more understanding of the hours in progress. His obviously confused, near-lucid dream notwithstanding. He knew the score, and he was ready to play.

Walking in the footsteps he had created the day, Sam held his gear (a canteen, a flashlight and a pair of scissors) and pushed onto the beaten path, like an old poet.

He heard an anxious voice call out, as quiet as a fallen tree, miles away. "Sam? Man, what are you doing?"

He tensed and almost fainted. Sam quickly faced the man behind, knowing the voice. "Taylor, you startled me." He breathed deep. "I'm just going out for a walk; I've done this on all of my mornings.

"Sam, I know something has been going awry lately, but I don't know what." Taylor looked concerned, grave. Taylor could never understand what he was up to, Sam thought.

Sam sighed and focused his melancholy, "I just miss home. That's all."

"I'm not sure I believe you."

"Taylor, I am fine.

Each stared into the other's eyes.

"Taylor, I wouldn't lie to you. I am perfectly fine." Sam's face did not move, but his stomach dropped to his feet.

"Okay, man." Taylor spoke with a disappointment, repressed with a history of bitterness. Sam didn't know the first thing about Taylor, but Taylor wished he could have shared his stories. Taylor turned, his stomach at his feet.

Sam speed-walked, knowing it would be his last chance, all the way to the small crop-duster, by doing this, he ensured the safety of all of his trip-mates. They were not a target, not by him.

He gaped at the stars and the land around him from his snake-eye view. He smiled, half-unsure. Sam placed his hand on the cockpit door and felt the tension of the ropes holding him high in the air. No, he told himself. This was the only right option.

Sam swung open the side door and stepped inside. He took his theft gear and went to work. The Air Force had taught his father many things, and most of the immoral skills were passed down to Sam. He cut two separate wires with his scissors under his flashlight and hit them together. The engine revved. He would be in flight momentarily.

He took a swig of his water and pressed on the accelerator, gently. The plane eased forward and gained speed; Sam flipped the occasional switch and turned his attention towards the sky. These motions had become habitual.

He was in the air, and gaining height.

As Sam hit the top of his stride, he began to slowly change his grade toward the Earth. On the jagged horizon, with the tips of sullen mountains suddenly, gloriously lit, Sam was flying.

Sam knew that he was destined as a chain in the mithril of an infinite struggle. He could've been a policeman in a corrupt city, making the law abide by justice one step at a time. He could have been a revolutionary in a third world country. He could've tackled an environmental issue after running for president. He could have been a dreamer, a poet, a visionary

The plane, a pale speck in the grand tide, dived down, lower and lower. It was suspended by the air slamming against its metal skin. It flexed and eased, calmly He steered this downward spiral.

The "Ride of the Valkyries" flooded Sam's mind along with a great confidence. He smiled, shallowly, to himself.

"Well, I won't worry about anything now," he muttered to himself.

The plane came down faster, meaningfully. His eyes widened and a final thought was brought before him as his old aircraft slammed into the nearly-built, small, white church.

"What if I was wrong about everything?"

And it hit him, with a thousand bricks on his head. This was a great violent, hand-crafted nuisance, and he was stealing a man's machine and destroying one of the mission's finest works. Guilt swept over him like an avalanche. He couldn't win. He'd already lost. He spoke.

"So God, Buddha, whatever, I would just like to go down saying that this was wrong. Okay? I feel terrible about lying to Taylor, he was-"

Which one is sick?

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Upon watching public service announcement about the deaths related to tobacco use,

I begin to weep.

My father walks by, nearly teary-eyed, already having seen the announcement..

"I feel so sorry for her (a young woman singing about the tobacco-use-related death of her father). I cried the first time I saw that commercial."

"Dad, you could've been one in eighteen (that dies everyday of tobacco usage); you know that, right?"

"I know."

There was a brief pause, where we both collected our thoughts.

"You can't act like you are going to live forever—"

Angrily, "You keep counting me out. I don't like it. You can't keep doing that!"

He storms, quietly out of the room.

Then I finish my statement, "—You've got to live in the moment."

It doesn't always pour

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Sometimes I really wonder what gets me through the day.

Faith?
No.
Love?
Nope, I don't place my thoughts around it.
Hope? Self-improvement? Trust? Grace?
No, man, not at all.

If not a cliché, the what?
Don't I have an adventure of finding some dead body, like in Stand By Me? Some Grail?
I lack an imaginative provocation as to what lies ahead for me. I can only see to the next couple years.
Though, it doesn't bother me.

I will wake up tomorrow and do what I have to do.
Simple, catchy, poignant, I like it. It does miss something.
Tomorrow, I will wake up and do what I choose to have to do.
That's more realistic.

Tomorrow is a better day.

I'm diggin' my schedule, a little too much

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

A day: AP Calculus Lindow
AP History Beaman
Theatre Arts 1 Martin-Cohn(exed out)
Writers Workshop 1 McCarl

B day: AP Writing Wallenius
AP Biology Stoffregen
Spanish 2 Harding
Leadership 3 Bousley

At lunch, I can stop thinking, every day.

I was super-hacked

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

I'm sorry about the crappy blogs,

I wasn't trying to repost them.
Hackers, I'll get you.

Probably not.

The haiku was pretty funny.
So funny, that if you want me to send it to you, I will.

I want to clear out these non-blogs.

Happy Fourth of July.

Refrigerator haiku

Monday, July 02, 2007

They walk the happy
Depth, you slimey white walrus
Loving, I say yes

Predator Serpent
Ate the lost baracuda
Under the huge surf

Imagination
Crashed breach, bottlenose porpoise
Say Deep Easy Sponge

Dark humpback monster
Has an octopus snout
Awesome and coral

Hammer fast, urchin
Channel a summer lagoon
Music plays "Blue Moon"

Black jelly surface
Pacific aqua giant
Below Arctic swell

(with Kristy Carlson)
Get Teeth, angelfish
And sail my magic Narwhal
Like no still seahorse

Wake, Live, Tidal wave
Eat that, sand lobster dreamer
But flounder for night