MY LIFE IN FOUR CAMERAS

PART I

Molly is an old Latina grandmother that owns and operates the only respectable hamburger and shit joint out in the middle of the woods near my place. It is an oasis in the valley that attracts even numbers of fiercely libertarian truckers/ranchers/bikers and extremely wealthy/annoying trust fund babies from the hills. This amuses me to no end. Also, I can buy beer there for cheap.

While I was writing this tome, Molly was cooking up one hamburger and one cheeseburger for me, despite the fact I had only ordered a cheeseburger and fries, and no one would ever order one cheeseburger and one hamburger for himself. I chose not to argue with her, because she reminds me of my own grandmother, and that reminds me of getting my ass kicked by an 80 year old woman with a wooden spoon. I decided instead to take my cheeseburger, my hamburger, and my pitcher of Devil's Canyon out to the garden and keep my wise-ass mouth shut. Never antagonize those who handle your food, I always say.

I spent some time looking straight at the two sandwiches before me, cooling in the gentle afternoon breeze. Which would I eat first? Which would be lunch, which would be dinner? I had paid for both, and I was damn sure going to eat both, but not both at once. It was a tougher decision than I would have imagined.

PART II

Depression cracks me up. I laugh at depression; I laugh at the depressed. They don't know how good they have it. I don't mind being depressed, it's a healthy contrast that amplifies whatever good elements persist in your life.

About three weeks ago, I found myself in what has become an eerily familiar situation; naked and face to face with a woman who is also naked. I wonder how things like this happen. I wonder what I have done to find myself in this situation, for it has by no means been intentional. Nevertheless, there I am, and there she is, and things are to be done, and they get done, but they are executed with a practiced and exacting precision that requires very little emotion. The feelings are there, and they are the appropriate ones, but our needs are physical and not so much else. I am both pleased and saddened by this prospect.

Little by little, my subconscious is trying to sabotage my life.

I also blame nature. She shoulders a modicum of guilt as well. It's springtime, and the aromas that drift through nighttime-open windows are flavored with the tender perfume of Magnolia and Hyacinth. The scent of these flowers conjures vibrant memories that twirl and mix and pulse with sensuous images that drift through my everyday life. One deep breath to drink them in; the air is wine, and all emotion returns. They are the sense memories of the last woman that really meant something unique and original to me. Her scent mingled with nature's simple perfumes is what I can't help but remember.

I resent this. I find nostalgia, that which is slathered in unnecessary sentiment, worthless and detrimental to those in the present. Memory is borderline narcotic if you allow it to be so. Don't want what you can't have, or you will never be satisfied.

So things need doing, and they get done, but my mind is someplace else. Depression gives way to emptiness, to intimacy without purpose. It is an ironically sterile place.

PART III

I have shouldered a surprising emotional burden these past three weeks. Despite what you may have already read, it is not my own. This is the crux of my life.

For reasons I cannot understand, those relationships I witness every day have been silently eroding away. I know this because many (enough to qualify as "many" I should stress) have ended abruptly during this month. Despite the fact I have systematically built very strong walls around me over the course of the last year, I am the one everyone has turned to for comfort and support. This is beyond my comprehension.

(I will reveal a deep, hidden secret about myself right now. I am fiercely empathic. I often wish I did not feel this way. I can't stand to see people in pain, and I act out the tragedy with them. It is not an ugly quality, just extremely inconvenient.)

One could imagine I have trouble with these two instincts, as they are at odds with each other. Quite frankly, I am exhausted by the tragedy in other people's lives because I cannot do enough to put a stop to it.

Then again, it's possible I'm envious of their pain because it speaks to an intensity of feeling that I myself have been missing.

PART IV

Contrary to what I have just written, there have been a myriad of moments in recent memory that have filled me with a deep and rich sense of peace. I find joy in the earthy smell of fresh rain vapor rising of hot asphalt. I have had occasion to breath the rich dust of great, loamy clods of earth in my callused hands. I have saved spring rabbits from hawk's talons (though the hawks will keenly find other meals).

In a life that, lately, I would consider essentially empty, I find these simple pleasures to be more than enough. They are only confounded by the complex responsibilities of modern existence.

Frankly I don't know if I should be pleased or bored to death. For once, very little is happening to me, and I can't decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

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For a few of you, this is the explanation you may have been looking for. Then again, this is just a blog. It serves no purpose beyond entertainment (at best). I'm disappointed with my inability to communicate beyond what I would consider a fourth-grade level tonight, but writers' block must be conquered in baby steps.

Two things for you to consider. 1) a picture of the bunny:
and 2) the CD that's been getting a lot of miles in the rotation: