It's so overgrown, you can barely tell it's a road. Removing my sunglasses, I try to imagine the logging trucks parading past. I can't. It seems entirely too steep.
A few miles from my parent's house, I take a survey of the property. It's a familiar route. Well trodden, I suppose. My entire live, the road itself has been in a constant state of degradation. The ruts level out, trees sprout, debris accumulates. A relatively brutal reclamation.
I continue my walk, taking a shortcut through a thicket of pines, emerging at the edge of a field. I cut across, towards the the treeline. Something emerges from the woods ahead of me, barely in my field of vision. I stop. It's a cat. It's her cat. Ellen.
She adopted Ellen when she lived in California, but Ellen was never meant to be an indoor cat. She stayed hidden. Reclusive, even. Erratic outburts -- from purring to scratching in seconds. When she moved back to Oregon, Ellen came along, but was soon banished by the housemates, eventually ending up living with my parents, on the farm.
After being delivered, Ellen stuck around for a few days, only to vanish into the wilderness. She occasionally returned to eat, but after awhile, even that stopped. Now, every year or so, someone catches a glimpse of her, but never up close and never for very long.
In the field, I try to remain unseen, but she immediately spots me and tenses up. There's a pause, a hesitation, after which she relaxes. I smile. Slowly, I take a few steps forward. Then a few more. I attempt to advance again, but I see the tension returning, her back starting to arch. I stop, a mere fifteen feet away from the ghost cat. We both watch each other. Intently. A shared moment of silence.
Without warning, she silently darts into the forest, disappearing.
-----
September 29th. A great day.
Morning:
I wake five minutes before my alarm, feeling alert, wonderful.
I take an extra-hot shower to a delightful soundtrack.
On the road, I hit every green light.
The barista gives me a free americano.
I consume a wonderful breakfast amongst wonderful friends.
We take a gorgeous stroll through a quaint neighborhood.
We attend a retro videogame convention.
I win five straight Puzzle Bobble matches.
Afternoon:
I write some rad code.
I go for a five mile run to a delightful soundtrack.
I play guitar like a motherfucking riot.
I make (and eat) a rad sandwich.
Evening:
I pick up Sledg.
We see a smiling bride exiting the side door of a venue. I yell 'congrats' out the window. She smiles and waves.
We drink whiskey and talk about things.
We meet friends at the Dam Funk / Ariel Pink show.
Dam Funk puts on the best performance I've ever seen in this town. Facemelting.
-----
Intermural softball. A beer league between local agencies. Our team sucks. 0-4. We don't even have a team name. We don't really care, though, as we're just there to have fun. Still, noone ever really likes losing.
A hot summer evening, our stands are packed with an assortment of friends, lovers, family and other coworkers. There's a stupid amount of beer in very tight vicinity.
The team huddles up for the pre-game cheer. We shotgun a beer and yell as loud as we can. Someone blasts Boyz II Men from a boombox and it's game on.
It's a tight game. For the first time ever, we play like a respectable team. The other team keeps me incredibly busy on third base.
The fifth inning, we're down by one. There's tension and excitement in the air. We could actually win this.I'm the fifth to bat. Two outs, two people on base. I take a step back with my right foot as the pitch comes, driving the ball deep to right-field.
My first homerun. Ever.
Teammates rush the field. One guy picks me up. Boyz II Men blaring in the background. Perfect.
Last inning, they bat. We're still up by two. Two outs. Bases loaded. The batter drives a fast grounder directly at me. I scoop it up and blast it across the field. So on-target the first basemen doesn't even have to move. Game over.
They chant "MVP" and assault me with high-fives. We fucking won. Greatest athletic performance of my life.
-----
Sitting outside a neighborhood bar, we're a few beers and a few hours of conversation deep. We're streetside, the last table on the end. It's a warm summer night and there's mischief to be had, so we decide to jet. I make eye-contact with a server, as to get my check.
Suddenly a chubby, middle-aged man appears at the end of our table. He's dressed in an oversided tracksuit, holding on tightly to a crutch, his right foot fitted with a clunky brace. His other hand holds two giant huskies. Giant. Snow wolves. They don't look mean, but they could probably consume a small todler with little problem.
Behind the dogs stands a woman. She's beautiful, but her clothes sort of make her look like a stripper. She is extremely disinterested in the current situation.
"Hey, so, I'm pretty injured right now. If you let us have your table, I'll give you a handful of organic, medicinal weed."
I laugh. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I just really don't want to walk around and try to find another table. And I have a lot of weed in my car." he says.
"It's cool, we were just about to leave anyway -- it's all yours," I say.
"Here, hold my dogs," he says, handing the leashes to the lady. "Let's go get some weed," he says, pointing at me, almost losing his balance.
"Oh, it's cool, I don't need any weed."
"Got any to roll with?" my date says.
I'm shocked.
"Yeah, but I'm too fucked-up to roll one for you," He says.
"I can do it," she responds, "Where are you parked?"
"Just around the corner," he replies, as he starts hobbling away from us.
He wasn't joking. A Mercedes G500, illegally parked in a loading zone, just around the corner.
I'm a bit sketched out, but really, what's the worse that can happen?
I sit shotgun, she's in the backseat. The smell is absolutely ridiculous. He struggles to prop the crutch against the car, Hopping one leg, attempting to get into the driver's seat. We just sit there, staring at him.
"Do you need any help?" I ask
"Nah, I got it."
An awkward minute later, he succeeds, closing the door.
Rummaging through the console, he produces a pack of papers, handing it to her.
"Okay, now reach in the back. There's a bunch of buckets. Open one and grab some."
"Jesus, there's like 10 5-gallon buckets back here."
"I told you I had a lot of weed" he says.
"This is, like, felony quantities. And you just drive around town with it?" she jokes, retrieving a bud.
"Yeah, I just restocked." He laughs.
"Here, let me see that," he says, awkwardly trying to rotate in his seat. She oblighes.
"Ah. Hydro white widow hybrid." He says, handing back the bud. "Good choice."
Still stunned by the whole situation, I watch her roll a ratty (but ultimately effective) joint.
"What is Pi?" He asks me.
"Pi? Like the number?"
"Yeah, what are the numbers?"
"3.141 ... ?" I trail off, as to not appear too nerdy (3.14159265)
"3.14. Now, what's the number for weed?"
"Uh, 420 ... ?" Trailing off again.
"Yeah, that's my number," he says, reciting a forced combination of the two numbers. He looks quite pleased.
"So, did that just happen by chance, you getting that number?"
"No, I payed a lot of money for that one".
"Well done."
"You need any help getting back to your table?" she asks.
"Nah, I got it."
"Last thing: what happened to your leg?"
"Ah, just an old guy trying to be like Pele," he says.
We exit the car as he thanks us again for the table.
We depart into the summer night. To explore, or at least meander around the neighborhood streets and talk about how neat the moon looks (does the moon ever get lonely? [no. stars, silly.]).
15 blocks behind us, we find ourselves at the gates of a cemetary. We squeeze through and explore. It's dark, and only mostly spooky, but we ain't 'fraid of no ghosts. We find a patch of tombstones from the early 1900s. So ornate. Crooked. Creepy. We continue walking.
I become aware of something behind us. I turn to look, finding an orange tabby, following about 10 feet behind. It's wearing a collar, so I attempt to coax it closer. It doesn't budge.
We continue. A few minutes later I look over my shoulder -- still following us.
In the central section, I find a giant outcropping of Russian graves. They're all made out of the same black stone, all pretty much unreadable, all with engraved pictures of the person burried below. Again, only mostly spooky.
We make our way to the gate on the opposite side. We cross below a streetlamp. I stop, turning around. The orange cat is only five feet away.
I squat down and attempt to coax it closer. This time, it works. I pet the cat, reaching for it's oval-shaped tag with my other hand.
Struggling to read the small print, I turn it, catching some light: Dr. Cheeseburger
-----
-----
Refused at the Roseland. Amazing. Nostalgia aside, they played an absolutely incredible set. Fierce, loud, precise. Truly, everything my 15-year-old-self could have hoped for.
-----
October, 2010. After months of anxious anticipation, we finally procure a copy of Sufjan Steven's Age of Adz. To give it proper treatment, we decide to go for a drive and listen to it, end to end. Donning our sunglasses, we speed towards the vast farmland just a few miles east of our house as the album starts.
It's dense. And confusing. And dark. Remarkably detailed, yet pained. We're both confounded at the radical departure in style. He's coming to town in a few weeks. We have tickets. We're excited to see how he's going to pull of these songs live. Making our way back, I smile. Goddamn, I adore this woman.
A few weeks later, she's gone. I'm a mess and can't bring myself to attend the show, so I sell the tickets. Exchanging paper in the OMSI parking lot was probably a bit more emotional than it should have been. In the coming weeks and months, I discover that I can't listen to Sufjan anymore -- it's anchored in a place that I'm so desperately trying to forget about.
Two years later, I find myself alone on a stretch of open road, listening to Age of Adz. It's just as messy as I remember, but this time, the themes of isolation, insecurity, longing, frustration, vulnerability, and shame have since become familiar. Instead of confusion, I see tiny reflections of myself.
"I'm nothing but a selfish man."
-----
For the first time in my professional career, I was tasked with building everything. Furthermore, I would have to do it with unfamiliar tools. Ultimately, I knock it out of the park. And I do it without breaking a sweat. It feels good to level up -- this was something, two years ago, I would not be capable of.
I deliver the project to fanfare and promptly retreat to the forest in an attempt to temporarily forget about computers. After three days of rest, research and recuperation, I feel refreshed and ready to execute my plan.
I've been trying to build this goddamn thing for the past six years. I'd start something, only to get caught up in the details, become overwhelmed with the scope, lose motivation and eventually abandon things. Five separate attempts: each one scrapped after a few months of work.
This time, however, I wouldn't be bested. I return to Portland, locking myself in my house. For the next four days, I do little more than sleep, eat, run and code. Hours upon hours, perched in front of this monitor, music blasting, channelling code. My code. When it got to the point where I wasn't thinking clearly, I'd go for a run. When it got to the point that I couldn't run anymore, I'd sleep. Repeat.
It worked. At the end of the 96 hours, I set up a server, pressed a few buttons and was greeted with:
"System startup in 00.13ms. Now accepting requests :80"
-----
Lustful glances and pigeontoed stances,
you think you're
so
godamn smart.
Postured but primped, yet torn and/or ripped.
Race-day-disqualified.
Reasoning: false start.
You've got a sharp tongue, but you're not the one.
Falling, over and over.
Seams: burst apart.
yeah
yeah
yeah
yeah
you're a work of art,
but you're profoundly fucked.
Playing me like a violin.
Heartstrings: hand-plucked.
-----
