Category: Life

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139 Lies Down, 226 to Go

Postaday for May 19th: State of Your Year. How is this year shaping up so far? Write a post about your biggest challenges and achievements thus far.

Well, let’s see. Some things I can’t disclose because there’s a very off chance that the wrong person will read this and we can’t have that. Suffice it to say that soon, if you need a home loan, call me.

That’s a lie, by the way, purposefully vague and enigmatic. Or was it? Trust me, it was.

And yes, I appreciate the irony of saying “trust me” just a two sentences after confessing to having lied.

Also, I appreciate the smug nature of saying I “appreciate” something that I, in fact, wrote.

Otherwise, this year has been, more or less, 139 days long. Went to San Diego, so that was good. Twice. Went to Las Vegas, but just the once. Went to Woodinville, drank a lot of wine. Ran a half marathon, and when I say “ran” I mean eight miles of it. I’ve got a new nephew. I’m going to a bachelor party. I’ll be having egg slad for lunch today

Challenges? Need to lose weight. Need to run more. I’ve challenged myself to write more. And to not let boring topics like this one stop me— and I don’t mean the prompt is boring, I mean the reality of my life is boring. But that shouldn’t keep me from writing.

For example, this year, so far, I’ve earned well over three million in illicit profits. Now, this, too, is a total lie, and may or may not have anything to do with the lies I told above. The point is, since there’s no point to really doing any of this, I’m kind of allowed to do anything. Like confess, finally, to all those cars I stole. Another lie. Or is it? It is.

I swear it is. And if you happen to drive a blue BMW 3 series with oyster-leather interior, and it’s missing, and you live in the greater King County area, don’t come to my house and look in my garage because it’s not there. I did not steal it, nor was stealing it a kind of gift to myself after having stolen 100 other vehicles, a milestone if you will, and it is certainly NOT the case that said grand theft auto was in part payment on a debt I owed to drug lords.

I don’t do drugs, or sell drugs, or buy drugs. I don’t steal cars. I don’t hardly ever even drive my own! So when I tell you that this year has been pretty good, averaging about .8 stolen cars per day passed, I am lying, because my life is otherwise not worth writing about very much.

Certainly not from the back seat of this Lexus is250, on “my” iPad, hiding inside a warehouse, waiting for the police helicopter to go away.

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NaBloPoMo Day 7: Your Time

Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt: When was the last time you asked someone to take a picture of you?

Can’t recall specifically. Other than selfies, which means I’m asking myself to take the picture. I’ve probably asked my wife to hold the camera. “Take a picture of me doing something stupid!”

It’s been touched on before, how much I don’t like being in pictures. Aligned with that is my displeasure in asking people to do things in general. And strangers especially! I just don’t like putting people out. I’ll spend 15 minutes balancing my camera precariously on a rock before I’ll ask someone to squeeze the trigger a few times.

My wife’s not so shy. She’ll grab any old person walking by and ask them to take our picture. And you know how people will take the picture, and kindly say, “is that good? I can take another…” I die inside whenever my wife says, “Yeah, can you take it again?” Aaaaah!

But they don’t seem to mind, And my wife has one of those faces that makes people smile— I’m sure the walk away (eventually) thinking “I did something nice today. I’m a good person!”

For what it’s worth, I, personally, am always flattered when some strangers asks ME to take their picture. So you’d think I’d get over myself, and ask others if needs be… but then, I don’t like being in pictures anyway, so…

Today’s NaBloPoMo Photo Prompt: Your Time

Nice little yard-work break.

A photo posted by Jason Edwards (@bukkhead) on


My time is leisurely. I work from home. I spend time on con calls, and puttering around the house with the laundry, the dishes, making the bed. Occasionally I get outside and do yard work. But no matter how much work I do, I always break it up and spent as much or more time doing nothing. You tell me if blogging is “leisurely.” 🙂

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Gunshots Heard at 4:30 PM

Postaday for May 5: Idyllic. What does your ideal community look like? How is it organized, and how is community life structured? What values does the community share?

Yesterday at about 4:30 PM I heard gunshots. It took about 30 seconds for that to filter through me head. We watch so much violent TV, play violent video games, read violent books, visit violent web sites, drink violent coffee, shop at violent discount markets, eat violent bananas, sleep in violent beds with violent pillows and dream about so many violent cows wearing tutus and playing violent flutes that we sometimes don’t recognize real violence when it happens. But eventually I dialed 911.

I was connected with the state troopers, and I could barely understand what the fella on the phone was saying. I told him I heard what sounded like gunshots, and he asked me if I was in Seattle. When I said, yes, he said he would put me through to Seattle PD. The phone rang and rang and rang. The guy was still listening though.

Then I heard sirens, lots and lots of sirens, and I told the guy this. He took my name and number. Half an hour later the Seattle PD called me, asked me what my emergency was. I told him about the shots, and they said, yeah— multiple reports. He thanked me and said to keep my eyes open!

More sirens, and helicopters. At one point I could see the helicopters through one of my skylights. It was right above our house! I set the alarm. I found a website with a police scanner, and listened to that for a while. Heard nothing about what was going on, but did here a lot of other chatter. The police in Seattle are not idle.

Later in the evening, I went to the Seattle Police Blotter website, and read:

Officers are investigating after gunfire erupted in the Haller Lake neighborhood Monday afternoon.

Several residents called into 911 after hearing gunshots at about 4:30 PM in the 13500 block of Roosevelt Way North. So far, officers have found no victims or damage as a result of the shooting.

Officers have collected shell casings at the scene and are speaking with witnesses now. According to witnesses the suspect shot several times out of his car window and then fled the scene. Police are searching the area for the suspect vehicle.

I’m guessing it happened at the 7-11, the one I go to for Cokes and frozen burritos.

My house sits well off the road, at the end of a long driveway. I have easy access to highway 5, and shopping is convenient, with options less than a mile away. There’s that 7-11, which has a gas station next to it. There are parks and churches around here, bus stops, schools, and not a heck of a lot of traffic.

I like all of that. But here’s my favorite part, which I’ll quote from the report above:

Several residents called into 911

People are people, and things are going to happen, no matter where you go in the world. This is my ideal community— a place where folks let each other be, but keep their eyes and ears open, just in case.

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A Bit of Free Writing

Fathom is a good word. For example: I cannot fathom why the people who park at the Broadview branch of the Seattle Public Library have such a difficult time sticking it between the lines. I wonder if people who drive like that, who care so little for other people, who think only, obviously, of themselves, would ever use the word Fathom. Is it too intellectual for them. Ostensibly they possess a modicum of intelligence: they’re at the library, after all.

But have you seen some of the vehicles. There’s an inexorable association between IQ and income, isn’t there. Not that your average BMW driver is a genius. Indeed, most them are assholes too. Maybe’s it’s an extreme thing: expensive car, park like a jerk so no one dings your doors. Old jalopy: swerve into the space without paying attention to where your tires land.

Come to think of it, perhaps I should eschew the notion that there’s any chance these idiots are smart just because they’d rather get the latest David Baldacci for free than pay for the e-reader edition on their Kindle Fires.

I’ll be honest: I’m not sure, myself, why fathom, a unit of nautical measurement, can be used as a synonym for a thought process. It’s a metaphor, I suppose; one attempts to “plumb the depths of thought.” Or something. But what about that word, “plumb?” And just why are thoughts said to be “deep,” in the first place? As far as I know, if water is deep, light ceases top penetrate it. The deeper the thought, the darker, the murkier.

Forces of nature, is how I reconcile my angst when I see these terrible drives. That’s a bit of synecdoche there (or metonymy; I always get the two confused). I don’t actually see the actual drivers, I just see their terrible cars and their terrible parking jobs. I don’t ever see the wind that blows down the trees, either, just the crushed houses. But I can’t take the wind personally, and certain those awful people in their awful beaters didn’t park like that for my sake.

Maybe I should thank them, though, the way one thanks God. One claims that The Lord works in mysterious ways, and that can be a meditation on finding the Good in tragedy. Look, I know someone’s parking like a total fuckwit is not much a tragedy, but if I can something out it, like, a little self-examination and some pleasure around thinking of a nice word like “fathom,” well, that’s better than the alternative.

Besides, I don’t carry a knife with me, as the alternative, slashing tires, is rather illegal, I’m told.

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NaBloPoMo Day 2: Your Passion

When you’re in love with a beautiful woman… you watch your friends…

A photo posted by Jason Edwards (@bukkhead) on

I’m 43. I don’t know if I have any passions. Or if I do, I have lots of little ones. Beer is one. I really like beer. Am an I alcoholic? Well, I’m certainly trying to be one. It’s tough though… I like beer, but I can’t drink it every day. Maybe one or two a week. Of course there’s Tuesdays, when I hang out with friends at a bar. I can manage two beers then, usually.

We sit at a table and they order food (I usually cook something with the wife before I give her a night to herself in the house) and we talk about the stupidest things. And we laugh. The waitstaff know us. We’re good tippers. The owner knows us. He bring exotic beer samples.

I tend towards the Pale Ales, although I’ll down an IPA if I’m in the mood. I used to be strictly Lagers and Pilsners, but too few breweries get them right. But the ones that do? I’ll have three or four, please! Often I’ll go with a Brown Ale, and if I’m hanging with an enthusiast, I’ll share a Porter or a Stout. I even know how to drink sours and saisons: let ’em get warm.

I like beer after a long run (or a short run, I won’t lie). While the ball game’s on the radio and I’m burning something on the grill. In between mowing the front yard and the backyard. A beer during Christmas dinner is nice. My wife and I like to vacation in tropical places, and a tall frosty glass in a little place with a deck by the beach… it can make up for a whole year of heart ache.

Can’t really drink beer when I’m playing video games (I forget and the beer gets warm) or when I’m reading a book (I got idle hands and I drink the darn thing too fast) or if I’m at the computer doing some writing (I’ll lose my train of through If I get dragged to the bathroom too often). So, beer’s not my only passion.

But it’s one of them. And it’s Mariners at Astros in 10 minutes. Perfect timing!

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Selfie (And Let’s Get Started with NaBloPoMo)

Can you believe I had these #SanDiego sunglasses for 5 days before I thought to #selfie them?

A photo posted by Jason Edwards (@bukkhead) on

Here’s why I like selfies: they’re spontaneous. A person has a camera and wants to take a picture. They decide to take a picture of themselves. I say, psychologically, the order here is important, as the desire to take a photo happened first.

Go ahead and tell me I’m wrong, if you want. But it’s true for me, which is why, technically, yes, I like taking selfies. Cause I like taking pictures. Selfies also keep me from relying on just my DSLR for all of my photo urges. “The best camera is the one you have with you.” I always have my cell phone with me.

And I’m always with me, so there’s never a good reason to not take a photo.

I think some people think selfies are shallow, but I don’t think they are. I suppose one could say that so much-self regard is conceited… but I think selfies have the potential to be more mindful than that. And so what, if the ultimate point is to share? Well, maybe that’s conceited too… but let’s step away from being judgmental, and look at selfies for what they are: fun.

My number one rule is: don’t make a person feel bad for liking something. Which is why I get a little defensive when people bash folks for doing what they like. Go ahead, take selfies. Use a selfie stick if you want! Share your selfie on Instagram and Flickr and Tumblr and Facebook and Twitter. Frankly, rather than all the negativity and nonsense in the world right now, I’d prefer to see your face.

And mine 🙂

 

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and his heart was going like mad

Postaday for May 1st. Your Life, the Book: From a famous writer or celebrity, to a WordPress.com blogger or someone close to you — who would you like to be your biographer?

James Joyce, mostly because I don’t like him. He’s overrated. He had a good thing going with Dubliners, and then screwed it all up with Ulysses. But he made Bloom the idiot seem epic. Bloom the ordinary, Bloom the pervert.

My life has been a nightmare, just like Circe chapter, except that was Night Town, not nightmare. Doesn’t matter. I never read that damn book. I tried, when I was a grad student in English. I ended up writing a paper about how often the damn book’s been republished. Night town, night mare, and me a pig, slave to his appetites. Another lie. I’m no slave, and the people who offer me up on tarnished platters the pills of my illnesses do so without even knowing who I am.

Nor does Joyce know who I am, the perfect objective biographer,  to tell my story and it’s no story at all.

Or maybe Camus: “He fornicated and read the papers.” Or Ford Madox Ford, not because he said “Higher than the beasts, lower than the angels, stuck in our idiot Eden.” But because “Ford Madox Ford” in large red letters on the cover of my biography would look really excellent.

No, it has to be Joyce. Here’s how he would write my trip to the 7-11 to get Cokes and frozen burritos:

“A few light coughs from the highway made him turn to the window. He winced: the sun had broken a few clouds. He gazed numbly the cherry blossoms leaves, wilted and scattering, that blanketed the long driveway below him. His stomach whispered him to walk the driveway to the road. Yes, the sunlight would fool him and he’d want for a jacket. Light reflecting off the sparkling asphalt, reflecting off the green painted road sign, the white of the letters, reflecting off the sharp metal perched in the telephone pole nests coasting again the white and blue sky. His stomach indifferent to the light and his shivering arms, wallet in his back pocket fat against this waddle, towards the convenience store, for sugar and grease.”

Okay, no he wouldn’t, not at all. That’s the fun of writing, not knowing what’s going to come out until it’s written. Maybe James Joyce can take overlong to write my biography too, and the fun will be in not knowing what will happen to me until he runs out of ink.

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My Most Prized Possession

I like to write. On more than one occasions I’ve said that I like to make my fingers go tappity-tap on the keyboard, that there’s a visceral thrill in rapidly negotiating those 26+ buttons, the satisfaction of getting so into it that sometimes I even use four fingers instead of just my usual hunt-and-peck two. But I need to having something to write about, and I’ve come to like that too. Mostly I like sentences. I like to make words bob and weave. I’d like to think that I could read my sentences out loud to someone who didn’t even understand English and they’d somehow get it. Not the meaning of course—the meaning is meaningless. But they’d hear that rhythm.

I also like to take pictures. I’d like to think that there’s a creative impulse in me, and the same on that likes to write is the one that pics up the camera almost every day. It’s not even the thing I’m photographing as much as it’s the challenge. Framing and lighting and depth of field. And then the real fun begins, in post-processing, turning a picture of something into a statement of some kind. But, like above, not a statement that says something meaningful. I’m trying to create rhythm in an otherwise static medium.

The topic of today’s post is my most prized possession, and for me, it’s my camera. I struggled with this idea for most of the day. I knew I wanted to reject going with something pithy or ironic. I cherish my wife, cherish our house, cherish memories of past vacations, cherish the small bag of M&Ms sitting next to me. But I wanted to address this subject without being clever. Wanted to find something to write about that is just an object, a tangible, physical object that I treasure

But I realized that I really don’t hold my possessions that dearly. Indeed, I’ve been trying to get rid of things for a while now. I love to read, I read all the time, but I can’t stand having books overflowing a bookcase. I don’t need to own a ton of esoteric DVDs. I’m a nerd, into nerd things, but nerds love stuff too much, doodads and figurines and all matter of effluvia. I can’t stand it.

Give me four plain walls and something to sit on, and I’m happy. And my camera. (My hard drive, on the other hand, is nearly over-full; apparently my disdain for stuff doesn’t apply to the digital. I was very much born into the correct place in history—I keep I create on my computer. I’m a regular e-hoarder.)

I take pictures, load ‘them up to the hard drive, and then delete them off the camera’s memory card so I can go take more. I’ve only been doing this for a few years now, but I am finding it hard to imagine not doing it. The camera bag goes with me everywhere. Even to the grocery store. Sure, it stays in the car, but I know it’s there, just in case I come outside with two loaves of bread and see an amazing sky.

blades by the seaI can give you a history of where I’ve gone with my camera, but that’s not the point. It’s not for making memories. It’s not for capturing something I’ve seen. It’s for creating. I’m a function follows form kind of guy. That aforementioned tappity-tap? It leads to stories. The stories aren’t there to be told, and the tappity-tap an artifact of the telling. It’s the other way around. There’s music in the tapping, and that music creates its own story. And with the photos, a field of flowers doesn’t say anything. But if I can get it at the right angle, and push the right buttons in Photoshop, I can discover something that’s never been seen before.

The onus, then, is not on perfection, or even communication, but on exploration. That’s very liberating, and let me urge you to consider embracing such a gestalt. Free your creativity of judgement and you’ll find yourself loving the process more than the product. Oh, sometimes, you’ll accidentally create a work of heart-breaking genius. No one has to know it was only one word in a dictionary of millions.

My camera has taught me a lot of things. There’s rarely a good reason to not take the picture. For every good picture I see, there were a hundred others that I didn’t see. Shoot now, think later affords a state of calm, a mindfulness that puts me in the moment without anxiety or fear.

So there, got my pith and irony after all: my most treasured possession is the one thing that helps me create more nothing.

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The Trouble With Those Mothra Girls

It’s dark inside Chop Suey. The floor is sticky from spilled beer. I mean a hope it’s beer. A sour smell in the air, of marijuana sweat, the ozone coming off of poorly-wired amps, a few cheap candles back by the novelty photo booth. I’m waiting to see Daikaiju, a surf-guitar band out of Huntsville, Alabama. It’s a Monday night in Seattle.

There’s barely anyone here. One band played, something fuzzy and forgetful, to a crowd of about 30 people. They broke down their set while I grabbed another beer. I least I hope it’s beer. The next band managed to hang on to half the people in attendance. And now, guys in dirty white t—shirts and ten thousand miles of road weariness on their shoulders are setting up a drum kit. There are so few people left inside, they’re not even bothering with the stage. They’re setting up right on the floor.

A drum kit, surrounded by speakers, surrounded by guitar stands, and a black web of licorice wires, spaghettied on the floor, draped over soundboards. It’s a mess. A complete mess. But no microphones.

What if, right now, there’s an asteroid hurtling towards Earth. And it’s the perfect size to do nothing more than punch through the roof of Chop Suey and kill those four guys who are at this moment putting on kabuki masks. Would I be grateful? That I’d seen them perform before, that I’d always have those memories?

Or would I envy you, reading this now, who have probably never seen them perform, and don’t know what would be missed. Because as much as I can describe for you this place, this set-up, these four guys, I can never convey to you the amazing. I’m reduced to resorting to vague words like “amazing.”

If an asteroid were to punch through the roof right now, that itself would be sort of incredible. A story to tell people. An extremely unique experience. I bet they’d interview me, the papers or the TV or some magazine. And that’s too bad—because I can describe that for you just fine. The sound like a freight train, the heat, the vibration, getting knocked on my ass. Confusion and chaos and running to the back… and then?

And then trying to tell you that Daikaiju will never perform again? You’d think me shallow, to focus on THAT and not the fact that an asteroid nearly killed me.

daikaiju2013But if you’d ever seen them perform, you’d understand. Because here they come, running up to their instruments, throwing their guitars onto their bodies. Daikaju IS the asteroid. They’re going to destroy everything else for the next hour as they run around the floor, wrapping us up in their spaghetti licorice, knocking us over with so much reverb, we’re never ever going to be able to describe it.

People are flooding into Chop Suey now. We’ve gone from 30 people to 15 to 5 to about a hundred. And yes, that’s beer spilling everywhere.  For this writing assignment I was supposed to tell you how I’d feel if something I loved was suddenly gone. But I just can’t do it. Tell water what it feels like not to be wet.

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Dear Over-Caffeinated

To say I’ve missed you would be a lie. I only ever notice you’re around when you make me feel, frankly, terrible. Jittery, obviously, nervous. I tend to spill things. Like the coffee cup you come in, yes?

It’s not as if I’ve avoided you acidulously. Just the way things have been. Fewer morning lattes, fewer shots of 5-Hour Energy Drink, fewer green tea pills. And not because I’m trying! Just the vagaries of life.

And yet, for all of that, I do wonder if I’m getting enough done these days. I “wake up,” (i.e. crawl out of bed. Hard to call the next several minutes actually “awake.”) Stumble around the house, end up on-line, browsing increasingly stupider websites. Maybe a load of laundry goes in the washing machine. Maybe a dish or two gets rinsed and shoved into the dishwasher. On Thursdays, trash day, a bin or two gets emptied. Maybe.

Remember when you and I would tackles everything though? Like that time we did three loads of laundry, ran 5 miles, emptied and filled the dishwasher, worked on my (our, over-caffeinated, our) novel for an hour, vacuumed, and beat Grand Theft Auto V ALL BEFORE NINE AM?

Yeah, I was sick as a dog the rest of the day, and just sort of sat in a chair and ate saltines while watching old episodes of Burn Notice on Netflix. But still. A sense of accomplishment as my skin slowly turned gray.

The thing is, over-caffeinated, you’re one of those friends I could maybe hang with when I was younger, once in a while, but as much fun as we had one or two times, I have to call-out the bad times too. The aforementioned jitters. The two-dozen trips to the bathroom. The heart palpitations—I mean, I’m in my forties now, not exactly cardiac-arrest territory, but not so alien as to be ignored, either.

Just “using” you to “get things done,” isn’t really an option anymore, or, if I think about it, necessary. The laundry gets done, eventually, and the dishes too. And if we’re being honest, getting everything done before nine AM just leaves the rest of the day for, well, browsing increasingly stupider websites.

I have to pace myself. That’s the lesson here, over-caffeinated. The day is 24 hours long, and even if there’s lots to do, there’s lots of time to do it in. And if it doesn’t get done? Maybe it’s not important.

Don’t get me wrong, pal. We’ll see each other again, on occasion. I’ve got a few projects due at the end of the month, so I’m sure I’ll be giving you a call. There’s that 200 mile relay race in July, of course, and we’ll always have the last few days of NaNoWriMo!

But not all the time. Not everyday. And I don’t really miss you. Miss “it,” I should say. I have to stop anthropomorphizing experiences. Have to stop taking them so personally.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a few more letters to write. Got a few tough things to say to Mr. One Pound Bag of M&Ms.