Last week, untroubled, drinking Irish-whiskey lethe, forgetting words as soon as they were spoken and not really minding, I thought it would be easy to go where I intended to go. But sometimes arriving in a good place means going to a lot of other places first. And you just have to wait that shit out, brother. And sometimes waiting that shit out is worth it. Sometimes it's the best part.

So I went outside in the morning dark. The town already wide awake, excited, true. Like the quick intake of breath. Like the root and the stir. Like the clutch of a tongue-tied pinky swear. And packed purposefully into layers of clothes, I went chasing the down and the din.

And in those moments—before, during, after—I think we all found ourselves in the place we had gone searching for. And that was the place we wanted to be.

Today, I start the early things. The bedroom air is cold. By the bed, Honey tumbles over herself and makes morning sounds. Snorts. Collar clangs. She paws at my hands. She pulls herself across the berber carpet on her belly. As I put on socks and crocks, she angles for a tummy rub. I give in. We go downstairs and outside and then return and I put food in the bowl and she eats it.

And then, a switching on: of breakfast, of coffee, of radio. I stir up the grits. I try to stir up the living things. C is showering upstairs. Then her footsteps. Then her lips touching mine goodbye.

The heater begins it's loud surge from the night's off, pushing warmth through the vents. The oven hisses and I stand near it and look out the window. Outside it is all hard and freezing and beautiful. I click in the button on the espresso machine. I listen. I wait. I breath.

Moses thinks there's no such thing as arriving someplace you didn't intend. He says you find what you seek. He says it's that freakin' easy. I tell him I hope he's right. That there's a lot that's good here. But there's a lot I miss. And a lot I just don't get.

He thinks I will. He says he has a good feeling about me. But I'm not sure.

link to this | comments (5) | File:  TheLine  Chewing 

"David and I could wait for you in LA for a few days of quality time together before we all head off."

"Just to be clear, when C says 'quality time,' she means she will watch anime while I go to the beach to catch up on the latest bikini fashions."

"He sooo gets me."

link to this | comments (1) | File:  Ho_Hum  Cath 

In all the places C and I have lived before New Jersey, I've always been aware that our neighbors could potentially hear us. And I'm not just referring to during the, you know ... play times. I'm talking about during casual conversations. Fully clothed. Just talking about things like tea. Or grits. Or the Tao of JD in Scrubs.

In our DC apartment, the walls were actually quite good and thick. But I always knew that if I would call out to C from the bathroom asking "Honey, could you bring me a roll of toilet paper?" and she would call back from the living room saying "We're out!" and I would call back to her saying "Okay, well, could you bring me the Andy Warhol t-shirt, then?"—well, I could be fairly certain that all our neighbors had been privy to that exchange, and not just the neighbors who lived on our floor but those above and below us, as well. And if there were people in the hallway, we wouldn't even need to have been speaking loudly for them to catch it. People could pick up everything out there, because every little sound travelled through our door and echoed up and down the hallway, getting amplified as it went. This is why I would pray for empty hallways after any night of hard drinking or extra spicy Thai food.

After we moved out of that apartment and began our brief stint in Baltimore, I became acutely aware of just how thin our 1910-era brownstone walls were when I started hearing strange grunts and growls bellowing forth through my neighbor's wall each night. And he would shuffle up and down his upstairs hallway like he was dragging a dead carcass around with him. I'm still 99% sure he was not a werewolf. Though he did kill a cat once, so ... who knows.

Who, indeed? But when I say I was constantly aware that our neighbors could hear us in these places we used to live, your take-away might be that I was paranoid or that it bothered me in some way. But this wasn't the case at all. In fact, it made me feel closer to my neighbors, and I liked that. I appreciated the fact that they knew intimate things about me, some of which my best friends didn't even know. And when I'd run into them in the lobby and we'd shoot the shit about the weather or the sink hole in the front yard, I knew there was this unspoken dialogue going on between us and that their end of it went something like this: I am aware that sometimes you play "Whiskey River" on repeat one while soaking yourself in a tub full of mayonnaise. And while I don't understand it, I am okay with it. You are my neighbor and I accept you unconditionally. As long as you're not hurting anybody, we're good. You can't imagine how freeing it is for people who are otherwise strangers to you to know all your dirty little secrets and yet accept you so completely. The bond you feel with these people, it's unparalleled. And it's something I just don't feel with my current neighbors and our twenty-five feet of space between our houses.

But I should reiterate that even though all this intimacy didn't necessarily bother me, it was something I was always keenly aware of, and I operated under that awareness at all times. And so I would calculate what I should let them know about me and what I shouldn't. Like: is it wise for people to know I like a little Eminem now and again? Maybe not. Maybe it's better, therefore, not to belt out the lyrics to a song like "Criminal" while cleaning the apartment:


The assonance and consonance on his verses, man. Goose bumps. And it's also some fun shit to recite while vacuuming. Try it. You'll see. It's hard to resist. But as tempting as it always was to spout those lines out loudly in our apartment, I never did. And while I might dance and gesticulate with the recklessness and the fury—and I might even do it naked in nothing but a sock, all Flea-like—I would always make sure to keep vocal dynamics to nothing more than a hoarse whisper.

I think this has made me somewhat frustrated over the years—not being able to fully let go and just yell and scream every once in a while. When we lived in Dallas, I could at least get my loud voice out on my drives to and from work. Big D's roads and highways are just loaded with people yelling at the top of their lungs from the perceived sound-proof confines of their SUVs and sports cars. But when we moved to DC, I stopped driving and started walking most places. I became one of the many robots with white headphones in my ears, silent on the outside, but a whole world of noise going on inside. And even though in a city like DC, I needn't have been shy about singing out loud while I walked down K Street or 7th, the drugs I took weren't hard enough to make me feel comfortable with that sort of thing. So my big rock-star voice got relegated to the four walls of my brain studio.

But here's the crux of this thing: since moving to the Jersey burbs and having—for the first time—a detached house AND—for the second time—a truck, all this quiet voice crap has gone out the proverbial window. During the many hours I've spent painting our walls, I've assisted dozens of artists, from Jeff Tweedy to Tom Waits to Dave Matthews. And yes, Eminem. And my truck might as well have a "Recording" light on it. God, I've laid down some tracks in there, brother.

But the other day, something made me take pause. I was outside waiting on Honey to finish up a poop and I heard quite clearly the sound of a baby crying from our neighbor's house. Now, if I had been right up on my neighbor's property line that would have been one thing. But I was about as far away from his house as I could get.

Wow, I thought. That baby's pretty loud. I wonder ...

Then, the other day I was walking down the street with Honey and I could hear a voice from inside a house calling out to somebody else to pick up the goddamned phone.

Hmmm...

That's when it dawned on me: a detached house does not a sound-proof oasis make. If somebody's walking by our house, they can probably hear me. Perhaps I need to rethink things.

Perhaps, indeed. I guess what really bothers me isn't the singing. What I'm really beginning to question is the wisdom of naming our dog Honey. Because C and I have taught her certain things—certain commands. And sometimes I will toss one of those suckers at her just all spontaneous-like. And sometimes the voice I'll use to do it will be quite loud. And maybe—to the outside listener—it would sound a little odd, these commands I'm making. Maybe odd isn't the right word. Maybe kinky is a better word. Like when I say "Honey! Go to your bed! Now! Oh, that's a good girl. She's my good girl. My Honey-Bunny." Or when I'm teaching her the concepts of "take" and "give" and I say something like, "Honey, take the bone! Yes! Good girl. Now give it to Daddy! Come on, Honey. That's it! Give it to Daddy! There you go! Yes!"

Yeah, I'm thinking "Honey" might have been an unfortunate name for our dog.

And maybe this is why I keep getting winks and knowing glances from that lady who does her morning walks down our street.

link to this | comments (4) | File:  Ho_Hum  House  Honey 

I've spent the last several days in DC at the inauguration. I'll keep it short and just say I had a great time and I'm going to let the pictures I took tell the story. These are all captioned with time and description, but I think you have to click through to the set or slideshow on Flickr to see those. Be sure to turn the captions on for the full story.

And thanks (again) to those of you who put me up for a night or more. See you next time!

Follow the links, or scroll down for embedded content.

Use one of these for captions:

Flickr Set

Flickr Slideshow

Or if you don't care about captions and you hate extra clicking, here's an embedded gallery:



Videos

Warning: I am not great with the video. Watch at your own risk of becoming nauseated from motion sickness.

Arriving at the Mall



Rebroadcast of "Shout"



Oath of Office



link to this | comments (1) | File:  dctrip09  DC  inaug09 

"So are you coming home for the Big Event?"

"Geez, I don't know. The crowds, the traffic."

"Listen to you, Old Man. "

"Wow. No kidding. Where did that come from?"

"I'm not letting you get away with that."

The Old Man has started to inhabit me. He conjures up words and uses my mouth to speak them.

Stodgy Old Fuck. Stay away from my mouth.

Sometimes it's necessary just to give him a good boot to the ass. So I will be doing that. I will be kicking The Old Man.

And I think I'll grow a fucking beard to mark the occasion. Because The Old Man hates fucking beards.

link to this | comments (4) | File:  inaug09  dctrip09 

Right now, I have several pairs of wearable jeans. But not one of them is my favorite. My favorites all have big holes in them. And that leaves me with no old standby to wear to anything that isn't a Poison concert or my monthly Grunge Club social. Even then, it's really just too cold to wear these swathes of denim. So instead, I wear one of The Others.

The Others are okay, but they ain't my favorites. They've survived this long because they're not. Something about them doesn't set quite right with my ass. And my ass objects to this.

There is still one pair, though. A little high in the ankles, but good for the house. Speckled with paint and dried things I can't discern. In these, I do the dishes with headphones on. For some reason, this activity helps me focus. I need more things in my life to help me focus. Because I'm horribly unfocused these days.

Smoking is another activity that used to help me focus. I think because it helped me remember I was going to die. And made now seem more urgent. This was always a double-edged sword for me. I don't smoke anymore. And now never seems very urgent.

My todo list has fifteen items on it. I have to add "read [insert title of current book I'm reading here]" as a todo item. Otherwise, I won't do it.

Writing is not on my todo list, because I will do that whether I put it there or not. But methinks I should add it to the todo list. That way, after I've done it, I'll feel something other than blinding futility.

Blinding Futility would be a good name for a rock band. Much better than Poison.

Last week, I remembered that I could delegate things. And this made me happy. And optimistic.

Optimism has been elusive lately. She hides in shady back alleys. And cavorts with men much tougher than me. Men who probably own several pairs of favorite jeans. All of which probably set right with their asses.

For the most part, I've stopped frequenting shady back alleys. Because I no longer carry a shank. Which is sort of tragic, really. I have been known to carry a flask, though. And I guess that's something.

Before going to bed, Honey will often set her bone on an object of mine—a book on the floor by the bed, or a shoe, or a sock. I'm not sure what it means, but I like to think it's got something to do with love. Last night, she dropped it on a pair of my jeans. She probably didn't know or care that they weren't my favorites.

link to this | comments (4) | File:  Writing  Honey  Chewing 

Out of all the things I lose each day—my keys, my hat, my sweater ... my sobriety, my dignity—the thing that bothers me the most is a lost voice. And I'm not talking about a spell of the hoarseness, though that can indeed be dreadful awful stuff. I'm talking about the hollow ache of a flow turned trickle, like the belly of the Queens Midtown tunnel early on a Sunday morning.

Losing the voice is worse than losing the story.

But finding the voice—oh, finding the voice!—it's like the secret taco-heaven handshake.

It's like the smooth sake, chilled and overflowing into a box, and served up with ancient Japanese tradition, deep inside the pounding, underground decibel heartbeat. Twice.

It's like the Manhattan skyline from Queens at 7 am Sunday morning, strong and irrefutable and painted purple and orange by the crusty-eyed sun, the buildings holding quiet communion with the East River. Both oblivious to your hangover. Both entirely unsympathetic. Nonplussed.

These things swirl and steam and spit. And for a second I can see it: The great delivery mechanism. The burping, bubbling well of raw shit spewing.

And it occurs to me that I need to do more of this in 2009—Connect with old friends. Pursue old interests. Re-examine old careers. Discover places that remind me of the old places, like my new favorite bar in Brooklyn. And sometimes doing these things can bring back the voice.

People often take change to mean doing something new, especially during this time of year. Finding new passions, new places, new people, new loves. And all that can be good and positive and meaningful. I'm not knocking new.

But sometimes it's simply about finding a few old things you lost. And remembering why you felt so good about them in the first place.

link to this | comments (4) | File:  NY  New_Year  Chewing  Brooklyn