february 27, 2002 - 7:42
walking on deserted road between the evergreen cemetary and the portugese hall,
jack closes his eyes to surroundings and continues forward, towards his destination in
self-imposed darkness.
initially, the body tenses, braced for impact against unknown obstacles. first
left, then right, each step exponentially increases probability until the anticipation
is to great. --open eyes slightly, peeking, reaffirm nothing is before
him for 1/2 a mile; just so long as he continues to walk straight.
close eyes again...
again, the tension. absolutely certain a curb or fence is inches from
collision, but fighting this time, forcing eyes shut with upward anticipation of
arms to brace the inevitable.
seconds like minutes, slide away with each step. --eventually the body opens to alternate
stimuli and he begins singing along to audio signal piped to ear via analog wire: "
my life ain't no holiday, i've been through the point of no return..."
distracted, arms fall to the sides, and he loses himself in the process of progress.
it's almost comforting, even, just knowing your somewhere different right "now"
than you were a second ago. ...and even father "now," than then, and so on.
smiling to himself, he thinks of jf racing through graveyards, playing songs for the
sleeping, and can't help but wonder if the now recumbent members from "The Army of the
Grand Republic," would appreciate a little new order this morning...
february 26, 2002 - 18:45
ugh. i had forgotten how sick flourescent lights make me feel...
february 26, 2002 - 7:48
wake up: strange room with lots of windows, facing south and east.
light filters through paned glass, refracts on mirrors of closet doors.
it's like waking in a prism.
first bathe, then dress. kitchen desperately empty; i walk to
work.
cold air tickles throat in lovely sc morning; destination just far enough to
get the heart pumping, but not enough to break a sweat. fantastic way
to start the day...
now: staring into plate of cafeteria eggs and seasoned potatoes (breakfast),
jack reaffirms to self: "this is a good thing."
ok then, let's get to work, for there's much to be done.
(sure wish i could do it on rice krispies instead)
february 25, 2002 - 16:22
SunOS 5.6
login: jack
Password:
Last login: Fri Nov 9 16:44:06 from axiom.scdev...
february 25, 2002 - 5:04
am i really this crazy?
sitting in the dim lights of the pdx airport at 5 am, i can't help but to think that even the airport employees are still asleep; coffee shops closed, magazine racks covered up, and a few people like ants, moving at the far side of the terminal.
why then, am i awake?
this morning, roughly four months since my "redundancy" i sit and wonder what it would really be like to be "at work" again. regardless of stature, i probably would have punched you if you had suggested months ago that i would be returning to the employ of the company, but here i am again, working on brushing off old memories and procedures.
except this time, the five mile commute has exponentially increased to about 700, and there isn't even a foot of sea cliffs involved.
it was literally only a day after i unloaded the truck that bosslady called. leaning against the wall of the impromptu cardboard castle in a room that was to be my office, i stared dumfounded towards gray skies outside and listened to broken nokia whisper.
"we'd like you to come back to work. we will pay relocation expenses."
i don't think i'm quite ready to come back you see, as i have only now just arrived....
after some bartering however, i signed up to this insane weekly commute. 4 days, 1400 miles. would 'she' call this "jetset?" technically yes, i suppose, but i always imagined it to be a bit more cosmopolitan than this.
perhaps the error is in my destination?
february 23, 2002 - 12:04 who killed laura palmer?
feeling adventurous last night, i accepted an invitation for happy hour and
set out on scooter into the darkness that seperates my home from the seedy
dive in milwaukie where others were to conregate.
(a relatively short distance (perhaps 10 mi?), but the farthest i've
ventured yet from the security of my neighborhood and predictability of
major thoroughfares); maybe it was just magnified by the impossible blackness
that comes with riding in the forest at night.
darkness, darkness, big scary truck, darkness, darkness, neon lights of a
strip club, darkness, darkness, big scary truck, darkness, darkness, neon
lights of a dodgy motel, darkness, darkness
feeble lights fed on 40 year old 6 volt electrics pushing deeper into the
night...
and in a clearning, near the river, there it was: vic's view. an
antiquated neon sign blazes "ic's iew" in hazy red letters that reflects
across damp streets. there are a dozen scooters outside, and i
park there too before stumbling in the door and frantically peel off layers
to adjust to the new (less chiling) climate.
a stranger says "welcome to portland," hands me a beer, and is gone before
i can say thanks. i think it was pabst, but can't say for sure.
turning then, with amber mug i try to find a shadowy corner that i can
slide into and watch...
three slips later, a call rings out: "5 minutes before we leave for the
twin peaks party."
twin peaks party? what nature of social engagement could this be?
curiosity peaked, i share my beer to expedite it's consumption and
hastily reapply layers to follow the pack, and observe this phenomenon.
a dozen scooters, idling in lazy blue haze, casted red by vic's neon, wait
for similiar numbers to join from the lot in the back before pushing deeper
still, into the night.
the ride leaves shortly and takes me even farther from home. i
follow the dim tailights before me, and watch as roads become less wide,
until we are finally riding on pavement that lacks any form of street
markings all together.
just as suddenly as it started, it is over... we climb creaky stairs
over scooters already working at marking their teritory, and enter a home
that belongs to nobody i know.
the answers i seek come quickly, as there is an introduction by a short man in
wingtips with no hair:
four rooms, three tv's, one signal. we will be watching all 37
episodes of twin peaks this weekend, starting tonite. we will continue
until tonite until there are no eyes open to watch, and will resume again
in the morning.
there are important things to remember: there are donuts, pies, and pots of
fresh coffee in the kitchen. you will be filled with an insatiable
lust for each in turn, at various points of the showing.
there is a keg on the patio. you may smoke on the patio.
you may not smoke inside. you may move around freely as you wish,
and watch from where you feel comfortable.
there are three bathrooms: 1 downstairs, 1 upstairs off the hall, and another
directly off the tv-room with the bed. there are three cats.
cats are locked behind doors of non-tv rooms, please keep them there, as they
are likely to walk off into the night.
you may sleep here; i can see many of you brought bedrolls and sleeping bags.
if we are feelig adventurous in the morning, we will even prepare
pancakes and black coffee for your consumption.
please select your first beverage, and settle into your chosen viewing room;
we will begin shortly.
taken entirely off guard (i had not yet eaten dinner), i quickly settled into
the spirit of things and sat down to watch 5 consecutive episodes (starting
with the pilot). crowds and ambient noise grew and abated, and people
really did slide from room to room.
i consumed 5 olde fashioned donuts, 1 piece of pie, 2 cups of coffee, 2
glasses of water and 1 beer. i went to the restroom three times; once
downstairs and twice upstairs (quickly learning there was no line there).
around 1:30, it began to drizzle, then rain. just before 4am, i became
restless and claustrophobic. questions like "where am i anyway?" and
"how do i get back to town from here?" swelled inside me with a panicky
urgency.
...........
it was a very cold and wet ride home. (don't think i'll be forgetting
that raingear again soon.) but i did want to mention this: if you are
ever interested in getting into a wierd mood, (i mean a really wierd mood),
do try the following concoction:
first deprive body of sustenance (food), then fill with stimulants (such as
caffine and sugar), carefully countering with depressents (like alcohol),
bankrupt it from sleep, subject it to several successive hours of david
lynch, and then send it out on two wheels into the freezing sleet of black
mountain roads of the pacific northwest.
..........
i guess they should be resuming again shortly, i better get going. ;)
february 21, 2002 - 14:12
things are starting to settle down a bit, and the new house is beginning
to take familiar form and feel like a home. the new house: new
to us, new to the landlord, and new to the world...
living in the pacific northwest:
as it turns out, we are the first tenants in this recently completed bastion
of new development. as the only house in the neighborhood not
proudly wearing it's collection of slime and moss (a badge of honor that is
seemingling embraced here in the rainlands?), it really isn't the most
conspicuous of domiciles in the neighborhood.
the house itself is fantastic; three times the room at a fraction of the
price of a condo that fades in memory even as i type this, it also boasts a
it's the neighborhood that seems to be getting more character with each
passing night.
mental note: never buy a house unless you sleep in your car on the
street corner in front of it for an entire week before hand. the
world is different at night, during the day; weekdays and weekends.
as it happened, i saw, and signed for the place on two consecutive
weekends; a time i now understand as the "quiet time." since
then, i've had a couple of revelations:
first off, she would be happy to hear that i live within three blocks
of a high school, and the smoking teens seem to be a geographicly independent
phenomenon. they stand in puddles at the corner up the street,
hiding their faces behind lazy trails of blue haze.
there's also a couple of dealers rolling around.. their mid-80's blacked
out caddillacs make scraping noises as the wheels fall into potholes along
the sides of the street. as predictable as the mailman, i already
have their beats memorized.
perhaps i should mention to them that hydraulic improvements to their fly rides
would provide for occasional ground clearance, should they be presented with
adverse driving surfaces, like our road. perhaps...
my favorite however, is our neighbors. initially just written off as
oregon-style WT, they have come to represent soo much more.
specifcally, boris and max.
(boris was named by us, as he reminded us of a character from a guy ritchie
movie. max was presumably named by boris, as that's what he calls
him when he has run into other people's yards. boris is white, and
walks on two legs; max is black and walks on four.)
boris sleeps nights in a vw van in the driveway. nudged from sleep
by an alarm or the sun, he stumbles inside for a short while. there,
i like to imagine that he is showering, perhaps eating breakfast, but any
suspicions are, as of yet, wholly unconfirmed.
he leaves around 8:30 in his vw van, and returns around 9ish in a 24' isuzu
delivery van, which he then parks back in his driveway. well, tries
to. you see, his driveway is not 24' long, and at least 10' of that
isuzu hangs out into the street, forcing the dealers to drive along the curb,
hit the potholes, and make scraping noises which startles the smoking teens
who jump onto the sidewalk and drop their cigarettes on my lawn...
but back to boris. boris, i guess, is a delivery man. i don't
know what he delivers, as there are no logos on his van. nor, does
he have routines. he goes inside the house, and appears, at entirely
random intervals whilst talking on his cellphone.
briskly walking from porch to cab, he calls for max, brushes rain off the
shoulders of his thigh-length leather coat and pitches glowing cigarette butts
into a pile possibly left by the teens. (or his routine.. also
currently indeterminant)
max in the cab, boris in the cab, the isuzu rumbles to life, and lurches down
the street. an hour later, sometimes three, it's back; water splashes
from underside as it rebounds through potholes and lurches again to silence,
haphazardly in the driveway.
(call it a hunch, but boris doesn't seem to be too concerned about the cargo.)
the doors to he cab open, and out goes max; out goes boris. he former
runs towards a nearby tree and begins to dig, leaving the latter to light
a smoke, and walk inside.
i'd be lying if i said i wasn't dying of curiousity to know what was inside
that truck. or what just was inside that truck.
stay tuned....
february 18, 2002 - 9:55
(dragonspeak)
this is the sound of jack breathing.
(funny how crippling not having a phone number can be... but all
that's taken care of now, in triplicate even. )
i woke up this morning, before sunrise. i drove my truck to the volcano,
and from the top, watched it's rays cut through last night's mist to dance on
dewey trees much older than i, then glimmer from skyscrapers acrss the river
to the west.
hmm. the river. there sure are lots of bridges over that river.
(admittedly expected, as i'm standing in a place nicknamed 'bridgetown.')
today, this morning, right now: i think i must cross them. all of them.
it took some time, due to infamiliarity with one way roads and radical sweeping approaches that seem to launch from impossible origins, but i eventually found
my way across each bridge in turn. zig-zagging between east and west,
urban and rural, before i come to a rest again, this time on the volcano
opposite where i started and look east.
hmmm. job well done. call a friend to share news, but there
is no answer, so i drive home.
it was probably too early to call anyway.
febuary 1, 2002 - 8:26
so, i 'broke-down' hal 2000.5 in the fuzzy time between last night and
this morning, and the living room is soo much more inviting for it.
8:13am : jack stumbles into the front room to continue the process, can't
help but to be shocked by the pleasant morning light, reflecting and
refracting on recently unobscured white walls.
ugh. too much to do, and i still can't say what i need to.
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