Merry Christmas
Monday, December 22, 2008
From the Hickoks.
Uplift Tree Final
Saturday, September 13, 2008
I finished Uplift Tree. As usual, it’s much bigger (triple-sized at 3k pixels). Here is the 500x500, I figured out the thumbnail trick, so simply click to see a bigger one. If you like it and want to see the full image (bigger monitor than mine?), I’ll send it, just leave a comment or email me.
Uplift Tree
Friday, September 12, 2008
The storm is bleak
is harsh
no rest, wandering
parts have faded
wisps one with the air
But some substance
remains living
Uplifted
remains
in root
and sight
right-click, view-image for larger view.
When The Ship Lifts
Monday, September 08, 2008
Can’t seem to wrap my mind
round those final feet
in this my inevitable
with all my desire
I cannot bring me to care
they have not beat me
though one could not tell
from the weariness in here
I have in my eye
this thing I cannot see
this weakness, tiredness
that is relentless
untiring
and I stumble
I mumble
Forget the dreams
forget these memories
I’ve banged my head
against this wall
strained for this
for all these thousand breaths
and it will not shift
perhaps I will not shift
I talk to myself
aloud, to my followers
of weakness, tiredness
my mind relentless
untiring
still, I stumble
I mumble
Fix me
lift my countenance
to meet yours
drift this transom
to face the setting sun
abandon this strait
to meander free
unfetter me,
lift anchor
all bills are not paid
set me loose
Still talking
out loud
took seven days
to finish just one
too long, too long
these words, these breaths
shift my colors
I’m tired, tired.
Ever have one of those days when
your glasses are crooked on your face and no amount of adjusting will work?
When you’re convinced that your face is just too oily and wash it a hundred times to see if that will fix it?
When your nose itches and won’t stop, regardless the socially unacceptable actions you take to resolve the issue?
When you stare at the same thing you’ve done for 10 months straight, every single day, and can’t make sense of it?
When you walk home at precisely at half the speed you would normally, making 10 minutes into 20, talking to yourself the entire way?
Have you ever recited, to yourself, the litany, “whatever, dude,” over and over maybe a hundred times in the span of twelve hours?
When is the last time you reviewed your condition, your moment as-it-is-right-now and said “This is not me, not right, not welcome?”
This, in ever increasing frequency, is the sort of day that haunts me.
I am truly tired. I was tired before, but this is tired beyond that.
I don’t want to be tired.
The Waiting Tree Final
Saturday, September 06, 2008
My Fair One made a note. That note resulted in a second look at the painting. The second note resulted in going back to work on the painting. NOW it’s done. And I agree, it goes nicely with the poem. The original is at about 3,000 pix square, and looks better at 1000 than this 500x500. I keep ‘em resized to the itty-bitty so they fit, and EE doesn’t like my artistic pop-up attempts. Email me or leave a comment if you want to see the REAL big one. Right click and View Image to see the bigger version.
Though some might think so, I don’t really find this image to be dark and foreboding. It’s kinda nice.
Postcard From There
And too afraid to make sense of this
That would probably come out as nonsense.
To say how much I miss
That sense of you
Where I could feel through walls,
See your thoughts through your eyes.
You see I lost parts of me.
And I can’t bring them back.
But I can’t explain to you how much it means to me,
For maybe you don’t see the loss so hard
And how much I die
When I recall what I cannot.
I trundle about
On my peg-leg of reality,
Shuffling my fingers across the shuttle,
Weaving the means to scratch by.
And it seems sometimes
That this is all I have,
All else scattered to four winds.
No passion.
None of what I was.
Just gray morass of breathing.
Of peering from apprehensive eyes.
Fine on the skin, real and tangible,
But empty as a dried pomegranate,
And hard.
And if that is real life?
I want to be fake.
The Foot Thing And Other Miscellany
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
The foot thing has not been miraculous as I first thought. Didn’t take more than about 3 days for the “improvement” to fade. The regular pain found a new friend, the chafing and constriction of the new addition.
I’m trying not to outright doubt my doctor, but it’s pretty tough. Can’t do the running and jumping thing very well right now. It hurts a little during, and a LOT afterward. The tough thing is that this pain doesn’t really restrict my movement unti AFTER the movement. Like a brick wouldn’t hurt much until a second or two after it fell on you. A little while later, it’d REALLY hurt. That’s kinda what this foot thing has turned into.
And other things? Work is work. I’m tired most of the time again. Mopy, even. I’m intent on changing that, but it’s not something with which I’m finding much success. I get good stuff done. I get pretty good sleep. I take care of me. Just ain’t feeling the oats, I guess. I even eat my green beans.
Sure, it’s probably just wear-out from almost a year of straight work. I don’t have the play or the peace with my family. I don’t have much to “live” for when not in the office. I live for talking with my girls or sending them the over-and-over-notes on the email, of course. And for my GPBC and my Favorite Microwave Burritos. But I don’t think that’s the same.
And all my personal worries and wants and doubts, of course. But I’ve experienced all these plenty of times before. So maybe I’m worn out. I spend too much time missing my girls (though I’m doing other things at the time, which is weird).
I spend a LOT of time thinking of them. Probably most of my time. They are a strange part of most of what I do. Work (tedium and important stuff) includes pauses to consider how I would tell the story of the event to my Wife. Breaks, well they’re just packed with high-intensity missing-ness. Off-time? Mostly introspection, deepthoughts, prayer, study, but they all circle round the family.
How would I explain this to Molly. How would Bo like this one. Can’t wait till Gwenny is old enough to talk about this, what a bobblehead we’d get from her. Bunky wouldn’t get it. Anika would. Stuff like that.
It’s good to be on a monorail with thoughts of home, I would think. But it ain’t, I guess. At least not in a way that’s good for my mood.
Here’s a pair of what I’m thinking right now.
Postcard From There
And too afraid to make sense of this
That would probably come out as nonsense.
To say how much I miss
That sense of you
Where I could feel through walls,
See your thoughts through your eyes.
You see I lost parts of me.
And I can’t bring them back.
But I can’t explain to you how much it means to me,
For maybe you don’t see the loss so hard
And how much I die
When I recall what I cannot.
I trundle about
On my peg-leg of reality,
Shuffling my fingers across the shuttle,
Weaving the means to scratch by.
And it seems sometimes
That this is all I have,
All else scattered to four winds.
No passion.
None of what I was.
Just gray morass of breathing.
Of peering from apprehensive eyes.
Fine on the skin, real and tangible,
But empty as a dried pomegranate,
And hard.
And if that is real life?
I want to be fake.
In The Bitter Wind
Kiss no more
In the bitter wind
The biting wind
Of winter’s deep
Beats mountains down
And hardens the soul
With sparkling halls
And its frozen cloak
No shadows lurk
Within this dream
Awaiting summer
And the healing pools
Of tears and wishes
That fuel our hearts
Rejoining loves sundered
By the icy shards
Embrace my love
In the blessed peace
When the ice has fallen
To water pure
And all is warm
Under the sun
Steal a tiny breath
Between the vicious storms
When comes the day
At the winter’s edge
And the moon rises high
In balmy nights
The gods will wake
And unveil the stars
Quell the biting wind
Warm our icy hearts
Galactic Sister Day One Week Later
Friday, August 29, 2008
I love sister day. I’ve missed most of them, but I’m there in my heart every year. Here are some favorites that are good any day, not just Sister Day, but they’re specially special on Sister Day.
First, the ever popular MONSTER SONG! that is Bo’s signature ditty:
Click THIS: MONSTER SONG
Roen makes sure we stay very familiar with this song. We groove to it on a regular basis. It was sort of a “setting sail” song on our trip cross country to Cali last year. Watching sisters get boogies going to this song is just plain hilarious. Wish I had movies of our dance-capades in Iguana Land the last days we were there. No furniture, just empty floor and music. It was great.
And then there’s the Eternally Popular GENNY SONG!
Click THIS: GENNY SONG
This one is GREAT for when you’re brushing your teeth. Only ONE word for the WHOLE song. Just sing it over and over.
GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY! GENNY!
And Molly’s? I have a hard time with Molly’s song. She’s too growed up for these things, I think. Kinda crazy, eh? Molly seems to like most everything her whole family likes. She loves singing along with me (or maybe we both stink at singing, so we’re trying to drown each other out?). I think I’ll pick one I’m pretty sure she loves (and I’m not a big fan of, BUT what my girls love is good enough for me).
Click THIS: MOIRA BRENNAN
I have to admit I do like the drums. Once again, all the girls love this one, so it’s a perfect Sister Day anthem.
And then there’s Bunky. She’s my doll-girl. Heck, she’s EVERYBODY’S doll girl. Sister day was established at first mainly because of her. Her big sisters do so much to take care of her and help her and the spoil her rotten (and I love it). Joscelin has her own song too. It’s a vile corruption of a goofy song sung by a cucumber, but I think the revision is much better than the original anyway. BTW, she knows where her head is, even in that gorgeous mass of curls. And NO, she’s not ON~ON though the shirt seems to hint at it.
Click THIS: OOH I LUV THE BUNKY
That being all said, I only have one thing left to mention:
You’ll have to go to LAH to see the amazing epic movie I had made for this special occasion. I couldn’t stick it on PS because EE doesn’t like it, and my FTP program died and I am not interested in spending a couple hours to fix it. WP will eat WMVs so… Click this: SISTER DAY!
Besides, if you didn’t see the one on WP, it’s worth the extra click. More beautiful pictures of MY GIRLS!
I love my girls.
I love that I have a whole tribe of SISTERS in my house.
I love that they are loving.
I love that they miss me (though I prefer that they don’t have to).
I love my INCREDIBLE readers.
I love my TALENTED dancers.
I love my GOOFY booger-brains.
I LOVE ALL 4 of the beautiful daughters in my house.
I wouldn’t trade any of them for anything!
Yes, I love my 5 (5 since MOMMY is ALWAYS included).
Response Cause I don’t Know Either
Sunday, August 10, 2008
My good pal Lib wrote about this foreshadowy-hindsight subject and I have been mulling my own version.
I don’t hold much in common with hers. In fact, we may well be opposites all round.
I am stuck in the now most of the time, being some twisted form of practical and efficient that takes me out of the loop of contemplating the future. Most of the time, I am focused on immediate problems, and the extent of my “scrying” is tracking the potential outcomes of what is going on right now in my life. Now, this can often lead into long-range speculation, but as might be noticed from my language here, I’m still pragmatic about all of it. Very rarely do I get the emotional, personal sort of condition spun up to be of any impact.
There are only two sorts of situations, offhand, that have ever emotionally engaged me. One would be the fairly routine times where I am (in my opinion), the catalyst or a big player in change at my work. I am too much of an idealist and perfectionist which just don’t jive with today’s relativistic, no-conflict sort of culture. Drives me nuts.
Or
Something that impacts my relationship with my Wife. Whenever we’ve had our spats or knock-down-drag-out fights, I’ve hit my all-time highs of emotional extremes. Prior to my marriage, there were about maybe 2 episodes that killed me inside. One was the catastrophe (at the time) with Janelle, and the other was Korea. Both were shocks that built upon each other and I didn’t really clear the fog from them until I met Anika. There are a couple more little shadows lingering in my little existence, but they have yet to turn to the energized sorts of events as the ones above.
Why am I blubbering all about this? Is it on the subject? I think so. I’m often emotionally detached, I think, and very rarely FEEL the fear of the future, or the remorse of the past about which many, many people write and think. What is going on now, is simply going on now. What happened last month, is just that. There are some items that haunt me, sure. I wrote about that on my other blog, about failures so miserable that they come back to guilt me from time to time, but that’s not really the point.
I get trapped in thought of the future sometimes, and the fear sets in. But it’s rarely much more than daydreaming. I can’t seem to find any worry (or excitement) about the future. Call it 1, 5, or 10 years down the road, I have no idea what it will be like then, and though it’s probably crass to say so, can’t bring myself to care. I just shrug the worries off. This may seem convenient, but when mixed with my anti-empathetic here and past, it’s hard to deal with.
I don’t do well around the emotional events. Deaths especially don’t make me jump. I have many losses, but none have precious loss value. Grandmas and Grandpas and Grannies and others have passed on, and I have no sense of attachment, though I know in my logical mind that I wish they were still here. I am unhappy when knowing that it isn’t too long before my last Grandpa’s passing, but only in that practical way that seems to be all that I can muster for emotion.
I can’t, and haven’t ever been able to envision the future very well. I haven’t ever been particularly surprised about the future, and when looking into that mirror, I don’t think I feel much of anything to see what I was. Were I to see into the future at 15, or 17 years old, I’d probably shrug and say “okay, I think that’s cool.” I sure didn’t think anything of my future back then. Sometimes I’ll get locked into fear of “what will happen next” but it’s never associated with important stuff, but usually the improbable or impossible. Work-related challenges or child-raising challenges usually drive me nuts and it’s mostly like trying to figure out a soduko puzzle (I’ve never managed to solve one of those things - I’m mathematically retarded).
I joined the Navy because it “made” something for me to do next. I didn’t do it for “my future” as all the advertisements used to say back then. I didn’t know what the heck I was supposed to be doing in the future. I didn’t foresee my family until a few years later. I didn’t put any thought into marriage or kids at any point until I was oh, about 20 or so. Then, of course, I was the lost poet type who romanticized everything and mooned over vapors and visions. None of that was foresight, really.
There was one point, a short few moments of maybe months in 1995 where I actually saw Anika. I saw Molly then, too. I just can’t explain how I saw, but I knew them and that they were coming. But I could never have envisioned the circumstances of our meeting, joining, or future together at any point, and still can’t. I don’t have the gift, if that is it, that Lib has of connecting to future or past. I don’t know if I want it, as much pain as it seems she has found there. I can’t see past the end of my nose, future-history wise, and have no idea how to go about it.
In all, the ninja-master-MAAS-gamer-total-nerd-introvert (who hasn’t changed much at all since) that was me as I grew into self-knowledge would never have payed attention to the future that loomed ahead. I wouldn’t have taken the time to look for that mirror that showed me the future. I was oblivious to just about everything up until the last couple of years. I’m still pretty dysfunctional as far as realizing the gravity of situations in my life. I feel as selfish, blind and immature as I was 18 years ago and am not sure when (if ever) I’ll ever get the connection connected. I sure envy Lib and my Anika and many others sometimes for their ability to be passionate and thoughtful about things that I have no idea how to approach.
This whole mess will probably make little sense, especially in the light of my writing and poetry, but it’s sort of the real me here as I feel and be, rather than as I present myself in words. The poetry may well be my “passion” that never makes it out in other forums. That could be a good thing, I guess, but I’m not sure. That’s all I can think to put down right now, though, so…
OBTW, Gwennie has been better since about two days after my last post. I am certainly embarrassed that I’ve posted nothing for so long. Sheesh. I think I need to go home now, I’m losing touch.
...OUT
One Favorite Picture
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Just one of my favorite pics. Was thinking of my Gwennie, who has been under the weather this week.
HOPE YOU’RE FEELING BETTER!!!! I love you DoubleBobbleHeadElvisStevieWonderHuh?
Michael Whelan Dream List
Sunday, June 15, 2008
My favorite artist. I want to hang these on my walls. Way cool. I don’t know if he’s put all of them up for sale. A couple are in the store on his website. Not sure where else he has released sales, if anywhere. Big time pro artists probably don’t have all their stuff in the poster joint at the mall. The ones on the site are for sale SIGNED!