P.D.T

DEC 9, 2008

An amazing soul took me to a basement hot dog stand outside of Brooklyn. He took a phone call in a phone booth that hasn't worked in 40 years. His eyes shifted then the back wall of the phone booth opened into another room. A lady in a black dress peered around and said' "how many?.". Behind her, an old world bar was thriving. You could smell the ale and rye as the low lights and conversation swooped out the door and into taste buds, with allure. We drank old Fashions and toasted to a city with an incredible heritage. God is alive in the pain of saints. His shadow is all over the contour of our struggle for existence. i'm thankful for dudes like rusty ralston. i'm grateful for bars titled with code acronyms P.D.T (Please Don't Tell) hidden behind phone booth's with secret entrances that emanate espionage. i'm thankful to have a drink with great pal and a good one at that on my road to wholeness.

what an amazingly vibrant city - a home to poets and artists, entrepreneurs and CEO's with in-gorged infastructures. whatever that means! a place where subways are groaning in the undercurrents and fashion is buzzing on the pavement - a place where i was confused as a homeless man and a gap employee in the same 30 minutes.

tile floor

DEC. 6, 2006

the first step is a doosey. i blacked out at 4 am on a tile floor while trying to pee. ever since, i've been off. out of body. aquarium eyes. people look into me, little fish swim around seeking composure, no one looks out. i got a run in yesterday and that was to me an accomplishment. maybe i can shake this feeling of panic by routines and disciplines. i'm still not ready for a drink, but i sure want one.

virginia sends its love.

sanity

i write to stay sane. not to feel normal or comfortable, but to understand truth and emotion in the tonic. there's a tendency to get flowery, to turtle wax romance on a shiny new perspective when things feel good - but those are always the pieces that get chucked when reality shows itself. i've been all over Texas and New Orleans, seen family, been on runs and caught in practicalities, been feeling like i'm not creating a enough, been feeling sorry for myself and then too i've counseled my demeanor back to a meditative discipline of goodness. i got a straight blade shave in an old world barber shop in the french quarter- i don't recognize myself anymore...6 months of dingy black facial hair lying on the ground - my loneliness with it. writing helps me bitch and moan and come to terms with the inevitable and impenetrable goodness that's coloring our existence. i've been away from home now for a long time, and, as you can imagine, the moods are swinging. crazy monkeys on jungle vines, swinging and swinging. i haven't been this desperate in a long time. i see my need for God in everything i feel and do. i'm an addict coming to terms, once again, with my addiction. And, tomorrow, i'll be home. i need more risk in my life, in my faith and in my love. i need to write more and read it aloud to nay-sayers and i need to play bass in front of Victor Wooten and have him rip me a new one.

treadmill

8 miles on a treadmill is a breeze with the Matrix on TV. i only fell off the back once and crammed into the front handle a few more times than that...good thing the empty room sparred me of much embarrassment. i made sure i found a java shake to replenish the fluids before i hunkered down in the closest sports bar for the Packer game. note...i didn't want local ale to be the first thing in my body for the day...especially after a run. not ready for that kind of statement... yet! day off in albuequerque. been to this down many times before. just never to this part, wherever this is. you kinda just arrive in some dark corner of parking lot, behind another marriot, next door to another hyatt - piece barrings together and meander. Bob Seering and i texted back and forth while he was watching the pack face to face, and i was watching Lambeau through a porthole, from another world. i feel no guilt from watching so much football. i put on the winter parka and tried walking the mall with Big Sur, but fittingly, my hands froze. finally i found a corner somewhere to read Kerouac out loud. That's were poet's beam, in the articulation of words. got a good shower, even put some conditioner in the hair, so it's a fluff ball. i keep looking at pictures of Augustella and dreaming of her chants. I want Eden singing in my arms. I want Jenna's hands in mine. sorry to share so many intimate leadings with internet eyes. with digitized beings. i can't help it.

bike swap

went like a taxi cab towards downtown. without fail, every morning walk, absent of google's assistance leads me in the wrong direction. i got so close, with the Rialto Theater in plain sight before i realized the train tracks would deter me from reaching it. improvisation and a load of luck lead to a street buzzing with a market in full force at 9am on a Saturday morning. found the first cafe i saw and ducked into this little funk-ti-fied wood paneled crepe house and sat for awhile. i knew it was the right place when the girls behind the counter denied my existence and exchanged snobby glances while i ordered. i'm putting the pieces together, but i think i walked right into Tucson's bi-annual "bike swap." it's a farmers market for bicyclists, with modern tricked out spandex street riders and scrappers with vintage ten speeds and beards. little dudes with old ratted out baby bmx bikes with for sale signs on them... really an interesting scene. especially since i have no idea how i got here and no clue on how to return. should i follow up this amazingly savory egg white crepe with a banana nutella situation? absolutely!

sola

a few things. all the store fronts in Scottsdale seem desperate. another, i am magnetically drawn to good coffee. Sola is staffed with a crew of part owners, who remind me of my friends. Jared poured me a crazy dark brew and we chatted for a few minutes while the hot water funneled straight through the grinds, through the filter and into the ceramic mug. no machines needed. all the eccentricity you can imagine. i'm proud of a place like that - a week into it's own existence, in the midst of jewelry shops and clothing stores for a previous generation, baring it's own signature in permanent marker on the front glass door while the rhodes is being played for allure. maybe i'll be you some day jared. maybe.

budget truck

drove a budget truck from san diego to LA with a short hood. it deceived me into believing that the back end was tiny too. these days, the first days of travel are heavy too. thoughts of excitement and weight collide. by day two, the reality of distance presses in further. i find myself looking at pictures on my phone or computer, and pretend - like that starry eyed street talker, that we are conversing. i'm not sure what to do with emotions. they determine my motion. my ability to take in and press out - but i'm not sure how valid they are. if a ship has one rudder, i feel they are the result of some whack rogue entrepreneurial scheme to stick another in an unlikely spot - like, on the side. The real one is pushing forward with motion, while the gears of the other, the fear and romance cycle true things in circles. ya hear me? i guess what i'm finding is that my world view seems narrow, when i merge it with the burden i feel from leaving family. it's heavy enough that it starts to guide me, though it lacks progression. and once it sets in, oceans of other things come to. i tried a little to brainwash my soul into sobering realities, but the pendulum of feeling swung back with its nasty seismic wrecking ball. pain isn't something to brush away. the only road around loneliness is through it. i woke up early today to chase something. to lock a bit more into God - to feel the breath of Jesus in all things, with the leading of the Spirit eliciting my trust, because really, things are so damn good. i've seen brilliant things. they sparkle and glitter with newness and they're allure will not fade. this seems horribly weird. the idea that i'm using the internet as a soul confessional, but i don't really care. desperation is like that. any road will do, as long it grounds me into God's rhythm and follows through with a redeemed perspective. i need something caffeinated that's worth while to awake the body and some motion to quicken the soul.

"the slide into pervasive soul corruption begins with the heart (or will) deflecting the mind from God." - d willard.

the sound of ocean

october 24. the wind has been howling from the deep west, bringing the sound of ocean through our windows. it's a dangerous hum - the drone of a thudding drum, a chorus in a song without verses. the world is terse, but God is never shy. we're writing our own lines here; sending the wave lengths back - matching miracles. the growls on this side of town reverberate from the lungs of babies. i make my own noise too and send it your way, like a prayer. and then i get on a plane and sit in fabric for 4 hours. i open this book and find that i hear things. at 10,000 ft in the air, i hear beats. sounds rush out of words in prose and stanza. sentences formed around the chaos of ocean roar and the sheer goodness of seeing new life and living it. it's tonic, with claws that dig deep into the skin, but it's catchy as hell and sounds more like heaven. dreams are dashed. boats are sinking. but we are better for it.

big sur

reading beat poets out loud while walking down Rubenstein, with a book light, in twi-light. so much meter.

third world

"in spiritual matters there really is no "Third World." It's all Third World."
- Dallas Willard

red raw. pry-bar. black eye. blue sky.

the other day, which was yesterday, i turned 31. i went running for 3 hours and 3 minutes; which culminated into the longest run of my lifetime. 18.8miles. let's call it 19. feel like rounding. Speaking of that, i wouldn't mind stumbling upon some old Math text books. i'm older now and that sounds entertaining. free time sounds entertaining. I also wouldn't mind looking like a math teacher. Been gelling my hair for a few months now. maybe 6, and finally Jenna tells me the other day that i look like a mechanic. It wasn't a compliment, but i thought it was. The other reference was Michael Douglas in Wall Street. Also apparently not intended for a compliment. But it is, you know, to me....and i'm feeling pretty great about myself. Even with my blue eye. I'm squinting a bit. i hit myself in the eye today with a pry-bar. I hope it turns black. The past month has been black, like the hole you fall into and forget about the land where you came from. Being a dad again has pushed all my limits. Including and not limited to my perception of goodness. Eden has super-sized it. all my girls have. been also raw. red raw, like the rash on my backside from running too long. strangely, i feel the angst encouraging athletic prowess. If you saw me exasperated and texting on E street, i was updating Jenna on my progress as the hill crept up, "E St. Oh hell!" Augustella wore a pink sweatshirt today and pounded nails alongside of me with a plastic hammer - while covered in dirt. . Her mind must have been bending when i showed that she now had access to jon and emily's yard. She disappeared and then reappeared sucking on some blue plastic propane lid that i'd never seen before. what a scavenger. we tore that fence down together, and despite the unpleasant weight of living i feel semblance of something that seems like building blocks.
red raw. pry bar. black eye. blue sky.

what does a t-shirt sales have to do with the kingdom of God?

goldilocks.

welcome to the land of the living. it's a wonder that we're here at all. astronomers call this the "goldilocks principle" ... meaning that we inhabit a floating mass orbiting a star at just the right distance. not too hot...not too cold. just enough zam for hydrogen and oxygen and beating hearts. and in this time and place, our thump and thud fight the atmosphere we call home for survival. pressure and pain squeeze the daylights out of all our laws and intentions. the struggle is not just the anomaly of life, it's to actually be alive.

song bird

there's a blue bird outside my window
there's a dirty man drinking whiskey and flirting with words
everything is left out on the kitchen table
empty bottles like fallen bowling pins
for me to clean up
it's time to get moving
enough is enough
life is blooming
despite all us perverts
being stingy with faith like it's a watering hose
we are the mess in living
in regeneration we are the cure
in my house jesus wrestles the devil
and still apathy seems to rule
there's a voice outside my window
a singer looking for songs
a family holding babies
a new atmosphere being formed

42.5 minutes with griffin house

i went running the other day with griffin house for 42.5 minutes. the urge to continue some kind of outlet or expression came pounding. so i ran 9 miles into the sunset with Augustella yapping in the stroller. the fall walked in with it's chill and encouraged a solid rash on my upper thigh. i figured that was a good place to start.

weight

God took the burden of man upon himself and it weighted him to the ground.
- D. Bonhoeffer