Safety...first and finally

Looking no less defiant than a Jew on Easter, I entered a number of sporting goods shops this past Monday in order that I might finally acquiesce to the requests cum commands of my superiors and purchase an em-effing helmet.

Yes, I'm finally protecting my brain...
...and my email account.
(Thanks Marc and Mum for the incessant crash photograph attachments, I'll treasure them always).

And while I may require serious therapy to overcome the psychological damage done by the constant viewing of bloody, helmetless gore, I'm sure that will be far less expensive than physical therapy.

On a more resplendent note, I purchased a new bike this past Sunday (thus predicating my need for a helmet). And it's quite a lovely and exciting little zipper. While I may not have the same protective attachment to it as I did my former vehicle, what with the kidnapping incident and all, I'm sure the bond he and I have created will surpass all former connections.

I'm still trying to come up with perfect French name.
I was thinking Francois or something but I wanted it to be a little more left of center.

Anyway, here's his picture (and mine)!

I just joined GoodReads!

I know, it may seem innocuous but I'm relatively excited about the new membership.

This is the first review I wrote for my profile.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is my favorite book, bar none.

The innocence with which Lowry addresses such heinous acts of obtuse social crafting is a thing of delicate genius.



I will forever remember the sensation of warmth I experienced the first time Jonas was receiving and the aghast feeling of disbelief when the apple flies through the air.



This chronicle of the marginalization of the human condition is absolutely stunning.


View all my reviews.

You can tell I how I am by the state of my nails

Noah looks down at his haggard fingertips, examining with curious disgust the frayed bits and shallow divots vertically papering his dry and cracked cuticles.

"I'm nearing the end of this brief period of madness,"
he thinks to himself as he tries to ignore them while lathering his digits in the watery remains of the last dregs of a tired looking soap dispenser.

As the pallid and dirty gray bubbles accrue, he stops for a moment to enjoy the filmy, glove-like layer of covering mess before clean.
He likes to feel the small pockets of cool air pepper his skin as the weak bubbles burst in a sound almost like TV snow at an incredibly reduced volume.

He pushes the faucet handle with his still dry wrist so as to avoid spreading the grimy suds and thrusts his cupped palms beneath the flowing water, letting the shock of liquid cool carry away the hot, sticky layer of sweat, dirt and dead skin.
Regarding them with the delicacy of a godparent, Noah rotates his limp hands to thoroughly rinse the remaining soap from between his fingers.

He returns the sink-mounted handle to its original place and steeps himself in the momentary silence after the fierce rush of water ceases, closing his eyes to fully appreciate the half-second of meditative quiet.

His eyes open. He picks up the towel from its hook near the window.
His hands feel cold and mushy and shine with a refreshing brilliance.
He wraps them tenderly in the folds of tufted cotton, massaging the moisture out of his smooth skin.

Replacing the towel on its hook, Noah seats himself on the bathtub's edge and rests an elbow on his knee and his chin in his clean hand.

There are those ragged nails again.
Staring him in the face.

But this time he smiles, thinking to himself, "I really am nearing the end of this brief period of madness."

J'aime Les Papillons

I've known for awhile that I have a tendency to begin my writing with an active tilt.
I like to use verbs as my introduction to assure the reader's inclusion in the forward motion of my recounting.

This time I've chosen to begin with the less common although equally popular "I..." statement to allow the person reading inside my life/head/opinion.

Regardless of my starting point, it's really the continuation that matters.
Speaking of which, this morning, as I was sitting outside, enjoying a cup of coffee and murdering my lungs with yet another cigarette, I caught a glimpse of a lovely Monarch floating with aimless intention through the leafy masterpiece framed by the archway of the porch.

Every time I see a butterfly I think of that moment with Jewelia in the white beat up grand am. Our smoke traveled skyward as that tiny royalty wove its way through the slender veins of burnt tobacco.

And to think of where I am now as opposed to then offers me a keener understanding of just how grateful I am to be...where I am, who I am, how I am...all of them.

Signs of metamorphosis never seemed so chance and beautiful.
To me.

Digging My Own Comfortable Grave

Of my own accord, I neglected to go to bed before 4:30 am for the last two nights.
Needless to say I've been somewhat torpid the whole day as a result.

I can't say that I wish I would have slept more even though it would doubtless translate into an increase in energy right now.
I look to my time spent in the last 48 hours as being not only fulfilling but also adventurous.
Lord knows I'm constantly in search of a new and wondrous adventure.

With today marking the 1-week countdown to the imminent move to the house that God built (aka: Clinton Manor) I feel a little twinge of anticipatory stress as I realize that I will have to pack, move, unload, and organize yet again.

I'm so tired of this vanishing act.
I feel like the moves I've made in the last year of my life have been excessively draining and yet I know that the result of those moves has been decisively gratifying in a very comprehensive way with each relocation.

I've found newer better spaces, an increased sense of entitlement and empowerment, and an expanded knowledge of the city in which I reside.

It's a glorious life.

Hotcakes and Beer Cans

I'm only just now returning from a night of completely unpredicted fun and frolic.
I worked for more than 12 hours and felt a keen sense of defeat in that I spent my day doing precisely jack squat.

That is, until the evening began.
I can honestly say that with the Sun's setting came the true start of my day.

Andie and I biked to my house where we deposited our personal items in order that we might attend a nearby party.
By nearby I mean a mere 3 blocks away.

We went, sat on a sloping grassy hillside, drank canned beer from a once ice-filled kiddie pool and kicked it with PDX's finest.

Afterwards, recognizing an unquenchable hunger, we biked to Original Hotcake House.
But not before Kyle had the opportunity to grace with a special little present in the form of a spoke card reading, "Kid-Tested, Mother Fuckin' Approved."

I felt pretty sweet.
And my shoddy-ass bike looked all the better for the addition.

I cannot wait to get a new bike.

Anyway, we went and ate artery-clogging goodness, talked about periods, incest, and Cholula, and had an all around smashing time.

We then went our separate ways home and now I am writing this.
Granted, I'm tired as Hell and completely beat.

The Strangest of Places

It seems to me that my life has once again become quite lucky.

I am led to believe that this is due to my outlook, my decision to see the world as I see it and react accordingly.

So much of what I experience is like a lush fern: bursting with vibrant green life and full in shape and exposure, and even on the underside there is complexity, pattern, intention.

Having only just returned from a late night rendezvous which was, to borrow the colloquialism, a pleasant surprise, I feel reassured that life is meant to be lived in such a way that it's detail is not understood but respected.

I embrace the experiences I have had and look forward to those I will have in a way that I shall call beautifully inevitable.

Que sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.

And in a final flair of timeless glory...


...never do with your right what you may with your left.

Damsel and Knight

Once again repelling the social stereotype of polarized masculinity/femininity where ability and helplessness are concerned, I succeeded this evening in proving my self-diagnosed schizophrenia.

I was both damsel and knight.
No, really.

Let me start this at the beginning (a very good place to start).

Picture me: a meek, demure, kind-hearted, virginal, and incredibly understated lad.
Picture the rest of the world: harsh, uncaring, obtuse, cruel, barren, hateful.
(Perhaps this is a bit generous in its caricature.)

Alright, allow me a new beginning, it's all Elizabeth Taylor ever asked for.
God knows my eyes are almost purple and my drug use is almost as crippling.

I worked this evening.
Not for a terribly lengthy period, only opening through happy hour.
After clocking off I was in sore need of a Red Velvet Cupcake from Cupcake Jones, (my favorite local cupcakery...yes, I coined that term for myself just now. Please hold your applause for later, more deserving accomplishment).

Riding my bicycle over to the shoppe (Yes, I chose the classic spelling to add depth and sophistication to my story, please take note.) it occurred to me to that I had the opportunity to donate a new sense of hope to some tragic soul by providing them with a cupcake of their own.

Now, I don't know how familiar you may or may not happen to be with Portland, but it's something of a cornucopia for tragic souls. It's like they congregate here to
a) find happiness and renewal,
b) seek out hip, young scenesters who drink coffee, smoke too much, listen to "really deep" music, get a lot of tattoos and say words like "Kantian" to compare themselves to and say "wow, I'm not so bad", or
c) gather with numerous other tragic souls and listen to Elliott Smith while bemoaning life's hateful injustice and cruel irony. They smoke, too.

Typically c (or some combination of both b and c) is the most popular choice.
The important part is really the smoking.

The tragic soul I carefully selected is irrelevant.
The salient point is that they work with me therefore requiring a hasty return to my place of employment.

After purchasing and quickly consuming my cupcake, I bought a second and had it wrapped to go. I then pedaled back to the restaurant, all the while smiling and considering just how marvelous and wonderful I was for being so thoughtful as to grace someone with my sugary cadeau. I felt like a bike-mounted, cupcake-bearing Mother Teresa. (Incidentally, this feeling is much better than drugs and should be explored by those who choose to embrace choice b from above.)

I arrived at my destination, cupcake in hand. Venturing only a momentary visit, I neglected to go through the hassle of locking my bike and prepared to experience the effulgent glory of selflessness. As I strode toward to door I was halted by a smiling brunette with a flattering and cheerful bob haircut. She asked to take my photograph.
"Your outfit is just fabulous," she broadcast. I'm quite sure neighboring tables couldn't help but hear her complimentary effusion. This made my narcissism entirely complete and I posed boorishly, cupcake on the pedestal of my upturned palm, and a look of asinine pride smeared across my admittedly smug face.

After I finished channeling Christy Turlington, I walked inside, delivered my uplifting confection, and performed a stoic exit, the gravitas of my goodness weighing heavily upon my now-sainted shoulders.

My bike was missing.

"Shit,"

I thought to myself, envisioning the unused bike lock inside the bag on my back.
Disappointment began sliding its black fingers around my kidneys and through my intestines.

Suddenly Elliott Smith sounded very tempting.

Just then, I stole a longing and somewhat despondent glance down the sidewalk and to my surprise saw my bike riding off without me.

Queen Latifah's voice reverberated off of the walls of my skull,
"Aw, HEY-AL NO!"

Without so much as a second thought my legs began to carry me in a tackle-happy tilt toward the fiend who had absconded with my vehicle of choice.

Everything around me blurred into a 45-second tour of impressionism as I felt an surge of adrenaline coursing through my every fiber. With my bike and its rapist steadily gaining speed, I increased my own velocity and realized with a new sense of championship that I was actually gaining on the bastard.

He approached the end of the block and made a left, slowing a little to execute the turn.
I bent my head down, cutting violently through the light breeze as if it were a menacing headwind and continued to draw closer and closer.
I rounded the block myself only shortly after the bike and its miscreant rider and flew past a small number of unwitting passers by, ignoring their incredulous gasps as I robbed them of their boring evening. (They really should thank me for giving them just a bit of excitement...apparently I was in a giving mood all around this evening.)

Reaching the end of the current side of the block, I observed the kidnapper and my baby making their way once again to the left. By this point my incredible athleticism had made my victory all but imminent thus I craftily slowed just enough so that he wouldn't catch sight of me in his peripheral vision as he turned yet a second left in his journey of flaming sin.

As I rounded the turn myself I noted that the upcoming sidewalk played home to a number of small cafe tables outside of a petite bar, effectively adding a minor set of obstacles to further slow the idiot who dared upset the recently-titled "most selfless person in Portland."

I saw the faces of the patrons sitting at the outdoor tables go from casual to quizzical as they first saw the bike approach and then realized the talk, dark, and ridiculously handsome Mother Teresa cum gazelle careening after, his jaw set in unwaivering determination.

Mind you, I'm still running faster than Prefontaine, inwardly contemplating my first meeting with the vicious captor. I had several scenarios occur to me in my haste:
1. "The name is Buck, Noah Buck. I believe that is my bike."
2. "You spineless little bottom-dweller. Return my bicycle this instant!"
3. *blunt elbow to the side of the face*

I really, really wanted to do 3.

I felt myself get to that point of pre-orgasmic anticipation approaching climax as I came within an arm's length of the bike-stealing douche and with one final burst of speed came up alongside him and went into captive action.

Slamming my hand down on his fetal back, I gripped a handful of shirt, yanked him to a disciplinary and ramshackle stop, and shouted,
"Get the Fuck off of my ride, dude!"

With the desperation of a crazed mongoose, his beady, sub-human eyes grew large as a bull's testicles as he came to a harsh realization: he was as screwed as a nympho's date.

"I'm- I mean- I was- um-" he stuttered in shameful recoil.
"I don't care, ass hat. Get off of my bike," I replied in a tone reminiscent of scolding a pooping dog.
A very, very bad, thieving, pooping dog who stole my bike.

He seemed too drunk/stoned/tweaked to really come to grips with the full consequence of his present demise and yet somehow managed to muster enough cognizance to coherently utter,
"I was just bringing it back. I swear, I was just riding around-"
"Save it," I flatly replied while reassuming my proper place as resident navigator of my own vehicle.
Seeing as how I was slightly winded while simultaneously feeling a sense of victorious euphoria, I decided not to paint the sidewalk with his useless entrails and left him to slither back to the trailer park he thought he would escape in stolen-bike induced freedom.

As I rounded the, yes, third corner of the sizable block around which the hot pursuit had taken place, I heard the vomit pile behind me call out,
"Wait, come and talk to me."

I continued to pedal and blatantly ignored the innocuous blather of the newly-orphaned gutter snipe behind me.

"I'll give you a hundred dollars!" His voice sounded pained and slightly hurt as he gave his position one further attempt at credibility.

"For what, loser,"
I retorted in final farewell as I settled back into my familiar relationship with the freedom between my thighs.
(God, I hope I'm never separated from it again.
The bike, that is.)

If there's one thing to be learned from my harrowing and timeless ordeal it is that with hard work and determination, a person can do anything!
Unless they're a tragic soul...in which case I could recommend some great cigarettes and coffee shops.
Or perhaps a cupcake.