I had a 3 hour layover at JFK. Just enough time to grab a cigarette and meet my nephew for the first time.

Walking off the plane, I was immersed in a sea of people, all blissfully unaware of the existence of anyone else. "Ahhhh," I thought "New York".

Being able to maneuver your way through city crowds, NYC crowds specifically, is as much an art as a talent. Many people make the mistake of caring about the rude individuals who cut you off in a seemingly desperate rush to their final destination. The mistake of caring, of course, lies in seeing them as individuals.

You'll never make it to where your going that way.

New Yorkers, though it might not seem it, do in fact work together in a buzzing mass of organized chaos. The weaving in and out is a combined effort. You'd better be able to accept getting bumped into, cut off, and cursed at quietly at least a half dozen times per 5 block radius. And you need to be able to do it yourself.

In any case, it's certainly nothing to take personally.

Eight hours of flying, and I made it back to the very state Id fled from so many years ago.

After years of complaining about the humidity of the east coast, I realized my body had lost its favor to dry heat. I can feel myself dehydrating. I imagine Ill be needing to drink much more water while here. And I doubt ill be able to continue getting it solely from coffee and beer.

I'm trapped now in a retirement community while visiting my mother. People tooling around in golf carts, eying suspiciously the hooligans under 60 that prowl the streets past the ungodly hour of 8pm, when all decent folk here are sleeping. But its a fine place to decompress. And I've many fabulous mother-made-meals to look forward to before heading out into the real world, if the Valley can so be called. I don't know if I'd use that word, but I'm sure someone out there would.

And anyway, its at least partly more real than Sun Lakes.

So long, and thanks for all the shoes.

Today I cashed in my Grandma's savings bonds. Thank you Grandma. I think she'd be proud that the money is not going towards drugs or erotic paraphenalia. I think. But then I didn't know Grandma very well.


I also had to close out an unused account, which had in it a negative amount. They let it slide. What bank really needs ten dollars?


Ive got bank accounts containing insignificant amounts all over the east and west coasts.

The teller was eerily sedated. Every word from his mouth carried itself in droll tones.

"Where are you moving to? Do you have family out there? Friends? Are you going to school?" I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition, but then no one ever does.


"I don't know what Im doing out there. I go looking for adventure", I told him. I don't think his vacant expression changed at all during the entire transaction. And as I headed out the door, he wished me luck and fun on my adventure.


"Yes," I thoght, "Im not opposed to fun or luck".

My niece came into my room with red eyes. Those tears run thick against safe walls. "I go to grow" I tell her. "One day, you'll do it too"

With my bags packed and my Yankees hat on, I head now for the airport with meager funds and open eyes.

Bring it on West coast, bring it on.

"Art is why I get up in the morning, but my definition ends there"

It's 3am on a Tesday morning. Im out of paint. The rest of the house has succumed to sleep. Only me and my loyal feline remain concious. He waits for me. And this makes him cranky. Cranky and affectionate.

He and I are one in the same. But only towards eachother.

My plane ticket has been purchased. My notice at work given. And soon I shall be wandering the awkwardly familiar surroundings of my youth in search of something I cannot define, with a plan no more clear than to have no plan at all. It may come to be that I visit only two states. Or perhaps I will bus myself from one city to another in a desperate need to see. Time and chance will tell.

My eyes are becoming heavy now and my cat flops at my feet, beckoning that I either join him in sleep or play.

I shall do one or the other. Or perhaps both.

Goodnight, good morning, goodnight.

Dappled and Drowsy

Many many months ago I planted some seeds in my mind. Almost forgetting they were there at all until the stems began to emerge from the well maintained compost pile that are my thoughts. Not refuse, exactly, but certainly not anything to consume.

Beginning as still precious and precarious they were fed the proper environment. And now, they grow larger everyday, at a rate still amazing as only the youth of life can do. I pinch them back and sing to them softly, I pluck the pests that wander their leaves.

They are too young yet to identify the species. Will they flower? Is their color to be green? Red? Purple? Will they grow to a mound, or will they trail?

Are they invasive?

The joy, of course, is in that they've grown at all.

Perhaps Id not forgotten them. I might very well have just put them out of my mind to allow nature to take its course with no expectations of results.

I rather like surprises.

Mood Indigo

I was able to catch some sleep this morning, though it was not sleep Id been chasing. But a barrage of silent conversations to span from rise to fall of the nights scenery.

Tubes of paint vanished to a canvas that looks mysteriously similar to its state 32 hours ago. So where did it all go, i wonder? Somewhere in this house is 4 oz of Cadmium Red. Can there really be so many layers? And more disturbing, are they all the same? I knew that shade didn't work, but i tried still, somehow expecting the right color to emerge.

Hmmm..isn't that used as an example of insanity?

I found solace in the discussion of dufflebags and film. Of reality and perception. Questions of memories danced to my eyes before the sun found its way thru my windows. Things not known, and not knowing what is unknown. What is self? How mch is too much for a pair of jeans? Whatever happened to that fabulous shirt? Desires, temptations, forgetfulness. Quiet battles with deafaning results. These things played with me to the overlap of days.

They plays still. My hands remain covered in dry paint, reminding me Im not yet finished.

And with this I return to stratify my reds with purple or blue. perhaps green. Perhaps.