Tuesday, October 30, 2007

soul-fed


Instructions for enlightenment: go to Radiohead's website and download their latest album "In Rainbows." Then light a candle and play the album from beginning to end...


and just go to your place.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

My cute wife

I just shared.
Shared what?
The ----inger.
The vinegar?
Your finger.
My finger?
Mmhmm.

Something adorable and sad at the same time—watching your wife talk in her sleep. She’s so helpless in the conscious world. Unable to express her abstractions into something linear. You fight the instinct to ask more questions because you know she’s dead tired but you also haven’t said all the words you intended to say tonight. Your mind is teeming with ideas and all you can get out of her is a slumbered mumble. Somehow it’s enough. Let her continue her conversation with fairies and trolls.
You watch her a while.
There’s a hair on her face and she wrinkles her nose and brings her hand up to scratch it. Already there’s a faint crease across her face where she’s laid against the seam of a pillow. Her body rises and falls in rhythm. It’s so simple and perfect. You wish you could somehow reach into her dreams and walk hand in hand across the desert landscape of her mind. You wonder which recurring character is on stage now—what kind of dialogue they must be having. And you suddenly get very jealous that she’s having this charming conversation. All you got was a couple lines about sharing and vinegar or something.
You kiss her cheek. “Love you,” she whispers.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Go Green!

Hey all!

The high school I teach at is trying to earn some money and trying to change the world all at one time. To accomplish this great feat, we ask for your help!

Here's what to do:
1. Click on this:
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=cal.showPledge
2. Scroll down til you see View All Plege Drivers in blue on right hand side, click on it
3. Click on the letter H
4. Scroll down til you see Highland High School, click on it
5. Underneath Join Us, you'll see Take the EnergyStar Change a Light Pledge, click on it
6. Pledge!

If we get the most pledges, we win! Simple! Thanks for your help!

yours in saving energy... and by energy I mean money,
loves... jes

Friday, October 12, 2007

Religion


Chris Abney in LCC. Blake on a dangler. Jordan the contortionist.


Nothing like feeling that seismic strain stretch through your fingertips and forearms, through rhomboids and traps, calves and toes, when you hit the crux and prepare to make the crucial clip that either secures your body to the rock or sends you free-flailing--the strain of pushing through the pain of your bleeding hands, scraped knees, and torn muscles. And feeling nothing else but the exactness of that pain, the purity of each breath. It's in that moment that the world slows and you know: it's time. Inhale. Exhale. Dig that toe a little deeper. Shake out the left arm. Dip your hand in the chalk. Pull from the right. Pinch that crimper. Keep those arms straight. Breath. Shift your feet. Reach. Curse. Strain. Breath. And then...the sweet click of the draw. The security of the rope trailing the last 50 feet of rock. And the strain that melts into your muscles and seeps into the memory of your tendons. You carry that strain always, so that one day soon you'll be able to tap that reserved tenacity for a much meaner climb.

(Jes asked me if I'm adjusting since I keep writing about the mountains, climbing, etc. Answer: Inspiration comes from exile. Just call me James Joyce.)

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

the view is unbelievable

Take a look around.
Look how focused on the day-to-day you are. The emails, the paychecks, the bills, the Thursday night TV shows. Stacks of it. Take a couple steps back, walk up that little rise behind you. Ok, now you see your prevailing emotions: stress, relief, boredom, complacency.
Good. Now walk up the path leading to the peak of your mind, cross over the waters of fleeting dreams, past the foothills of last year's resolutions, and lean over the precipice that is your life's purpose. Now look to your left... See that mountain with a little fire burning on top, a man crouched over the flames? That's me. Now I'm waving.
Yeah, you see me.

Hey.

That's where I live now. I'll be the one you see at night pacing the mountainside for firewood, warming my hands over the coals with my eyes fixed on the horizon. I'm done with watching the sun rise from the valley. I want visibility infinite. I want to see the curvature of the earth and my life stretched like skin over the whole of it. I'm going epic.

You should try it.