Hemingway’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech:
Writing at its best is a lonely life.. (a writer) grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness, and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone, and if he is a good enough writer, he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.
the first time was just practice.
brooklyn
jersey
baltimore
generic southern rest area
houston1
houston2
houston3
houston4
galveston
galveston2
west texas
So I found myself reading obituaries online. At first it was kind of a voyeristic, you know, hey, look at that old person, man, they could have picked a better picture. But then I started reading them and 2 hours later I was still reading. This very likely is something that interests only me.
Ireane was a homemaker who loved to do needle crafts and beadwork. She also enjoyed a good ruckus and causing trouble.
She loved garage sales where she bought lots of Barbie dolls to dress them up and fixed their hair.
He served on the city council and also as mayor… He worked in aeronautics for forty-four years and helped to build the first doors for the space shuttle.
Paulette worked as a cashier for Pat’s Liquor for the past four years.
Survivors include: one daughter: Wanda Masengale; two daughters-in-law: Barbara Pendley; and Vada Pendley; nine grandchildren: Tim & Kathy, Nick, Sally Ann, Travis & Janice, Mike, Linda, Jeanne, Sara & Jim, and Jackie Sue & Jerry; eighteen great grandchildren: Kristy & John, Jeremy (the little boy), Milli & Chris, Shasta & Preston, Amy & Travis, Chris, Shelly, Krista, Michael & Joyce, Diane & Tony, Donna & Curtis, Susie & Wesley, Melissa & Ted, Melinda, Jon, Jay, Lahoma & Gregg, and Nathan & Lindsey; twenty-nine great great grandchildren: Abby, Taryn, Alli, Journi, Justis, Jentry, Kylie, Dylan, Delicia & Kelly, Rachael & Shane, Jamie & James, Jennifer, Jackie & Kevin, Jeremiah, Joshua, Ashley & Jerrod, Brittany, Jessica & Frankie, Cecily, McKaden, Jeremy, Jason, Gary, John, Kya, Damon, Taylor, Emily, and Jake; eighteen great great grandchildren: Brooklyn, Talon, Wyatt, Dylan, Micah, Ethan, Olivia, Sydney, Katie, Julie, Tyler, Eli, Damion, Damon, Lacie, Kevin Jr., Reese, and Kaleah. She is preceded in death by her parents, her husband: Elmer Pendley, three sons: Junior, Warnie, and Jack; son in-law: Ray Masengale; Daughters in-law: Lahoma and Louise; one infant son and daughter; one granddaughter: Elaine Krone; one grandson: Jackie Wayne Pendley; two sisters: Alta Turner and Lizzie Bean; two brothers: Orace Hance and Selby Hance.
When asked to assist, his answer was always, “I’ll be there”.
She was the leading lady in the high school plays.
Katie worked as a secretary and teacher’s aide at Dixie Elementary.
Nellie enjoyed working crossword puzzles, studying bible lessons and going to the Dollar Tree.
She is also survived by a special friend, Jason Levandowski.
From the time that they met, there was something special between them. They were friends, partners and he was her soul mate. On November 23, 1979, Bobby married Janice Saettel in Downey, California.
Driving from Savannah, GA to Mobile, AL today was long straight and boring. Here are a couple poems I wrote:
Diner People
The lady with the coffee pot was faithful
the old man with the sunken eyes was not,
the couple sharing pancakes aren’t in love
they just pretend harder out in public,
the cook’s daughter will soon be married
he’ll take all the extra shifts he can,
the business man with the iphone was beat by his old man
but never with a switch or with a belt,
the man with the thick mustache killed a boy in Vietnam
doesn’t know why it’s stuck inside his head,
the quiet girl just gave it up for the first time
to the spiky-haired boy laughing next to her,
the musician has a lot of things to sing about,
the grim couple just put her mother in a home,
the hipster kids had very happy childhoods,
the young man reading the book was in love, once,
the loud girl wishes she weren’t as fat,
the cheerful waitress is often cheerful off-the-clock,
the man behind the beer bottles doesn’t want to go home,
the sad-looking girl always smiles at strangers on the sidewalk,
when the man in overalls was little, his dog ran away,
the thin man with the bushy eyebrows can play every Willie Nelson song there is,
the bartender hasn’t had a drink in years,
the woman at the register has a good man back at home
the doctors once said her daughter might not make it
she hasn’t cried in a long time
she hasn’t cried in a long time
she hasn’t really cried in a long time
A call for time travel
Each of the tens of thousands of trees I pass today
I want to see
but don’t.
Each of the 8 million faces in New York City
I want to consider
but am unable.
Each cloud in the atmosphere, wispy majestic or dire
I want to smell
but it’s too much.
Every somber sunset, candid conversation,
printing word, blooming bud, scraping knee, backfiring car,
cracking heart, scratching dog, whistling branch, hurtling drop,
birthing idea, crumbling wall, withering life
I want to be there
but that’s impossible
without time travel.
My car’s finally repaired and I’m heading back to the west coast. I plan to leave New York over the weekend or early next week. It’ll be the same drill as the past summer but a little less frenetic.
Here’s my plan:
Not as ambitious as last time, but, hey, now I have a timeframe, and less money (thanks for the christmas money grandpa!).
May it be a year of progress perspective prosperity enlightenment and other good words like that!
or at least better than the last, eh?
2000 (olympia): freshman/sophomore in high school, wanted to be a baseball player, hated Charles Dickens, was afraid of girls, liked math class, crowned champion of James Bond Goldeneye 007 for nintendo 64, ruined left ankle playing basketball, ruined left knee playing soccer, ruined right shoulder playing baseball, still had squeaky voice from puberty, enjoyed splashing in puddles and physically dominating younger brothers.
2001 (olympia): quit baseball, quit advanced English, played chess nearly every day in math class, grew into present sexy manly voice, worried about kind of clothes was wearing, began fixing up 1966 mustang, learned to make bowling ball hook like they do on tv, knew all the words to 2 songs - ‘all star’ by smashmouth, and ‘i like big butts’ by sir mix-a-lot, began bravely speaking to girls in tense exchanges like:
girl: “hi”
me: “hi”
and every once in awhile:
girl: “can i copy your math homework?”
me: “yes.”
2002 (olympia): finished fixing up mustang, wanted to be an engineer, didn’t know what an engineer was, played a lot of tennis, took dog on many long walks at night, began evolving conversations with girls:
me: “hi”
girl: “hi”
me: “i have a 1966 mustang.”
girl: “oh.”
2003 (olympia, LA): wrote an epic poem about life of president george w. bush, crashed the mustang, had a girlfriend, didn’t have a girlfriend, had a girlfriend again, moved to los angeles, started college, did bad in college, freaked out and found how to do better in college, loved los angeles, shined a laser pointer at drunk kids stumbling home from frat parties, listened exclusively to led zeppelin and pink floyd, was too nice to strangers but not nice enough to the people who actually mattered.
2004 (LA): didn’t like college, didn’t like los angeles, didn’t like engineering, missed everybody, had a girlfriend, didn’t have a girlfriend, had a gf again, didn’t know the characters in the stories my back-home friends told, got caught in a crazy los angeles lightning storm and instead of hustling inside sat in the soggy grass and watched it, sold mustang, got thrown out of a frat party for not being on guest list.
2005 (LA): had a girlfriend the whole time, lived with her during the summer in her grandmother’s basement in bellevue while commuting to work at the seattle costco foodcourt, took many of her dead grandfather’s ties when left because they were gonna go to waste and you can never have too many free ties, decided to be a doctor, worked in LA county hospital ER, gave a mute homeless guy a sackful of books, took hard classes and did well in them, went to the beach often at night alone.
2006(LA): wanted to be a doctor, worked very hard in school, did well, volunteered all over LA, gutted houses in new orleans after hurricane katrina, met another girl in NO, switched girlfriends, organized doctors and meds and brought them to remote mountain villages in honduras, lifted weights constantly and gained 20 muscle-pounds, was very motivated and extremely productive.
2007 (montana): drove to montana 3 weeks into last semester of last year of college, moved in with girlfriend and commenced year-long emotional struggle, applied to medical school, went many times to shoot guns at wood stumps, hiked often to top of mountain behind house to look over the missoula valley, learned to control thoughts, learned to control self, learned to read, began to learn to write, almost went duck hunting but in the end didn’t go, told boss at Best Buy to fuck himself and dramatically tore off and handed him blue shirt only then remembering undershirt was humorous squirrel tshirt, experienced chief spiritual achievement of life thus far in final lines of ‘A Farewell to Arms’.
2008 (LA): finished school, wanted to be a doctor, didn’t want to be a doctor, wanted to be a writer, wanted to maybe be a doctor sometime in the future, had a girlfriend for a little bit then didn’t have a girlfriend, moved downtown, ate lots of mexican food, took thousands of candid photos, wrote many terrible stories, read many books, began writing a book, stopped writing book, began again, stopped again, spent a lot of time at downtown library imagining bukowski browsing the shelves, got drunk a lot, developed asthma, learned how to be a business person, fantasized about learning spanish, walked often through the downtown streets alone at night.
2009 (all over): left LA, drove around country for spring/summer, drove a yellow convertible, drove a red tandem bike, learned to communicate with deaf dog, learned to be alone in the woods, slept on dozens of couches, learned to make friends with strangers, learned to pick which strangers to make friends with, wrote better stories, didn’t want to be a doctor, wanted to be a writer, wanted to be an entrepreneur, wanted to be a doctor again, learned how to pay attention to things, saw fog so heavy over the bay that the only mark was a little gray duck family way offshore, began writing a book, saw fireflies, survived (pending).
Here’s a sentence from the book I’m writing. I can’t tell if it works or not. Help, internet!
He sat at the dining table listening to the whistling pipe sounds and the soft tapping water dropping onto her body and once in awhile the thudding splatter against the porcelain when she moved out of the spray.
me
I am not who you think I am.
not that I presume that there is some concept or idea that you associate with me,
consciously or not,
or that you’ve spent any amount of time considering the substance of my being,
or that a person is static enough of an entity to imagine some immense and thorough pronouncement
satisfactorily defining him or her with any degree of accuracy,
or that there is some type of description
tangible or otherwise
that is capable of bridging the infinite chasm between my self and yours,
or any 2 people, for that matter, no matter how simple or similar they may be,
but,
irregardless,
I can assure you, for better or for worse,
even with all the intuition, language, intellect, and training accumulated by the entire buzzing hive mind of humankind,
that you do not,
nor will you ever,
understand who I am.
people
Fluttering around my head like a herd of butterflies through a tall grassy meadow on a smoky Missoula summer night,
I get a beautiful glimpse of you, but that is all.
new york
who would guess - a city so full
could be so lonely?
who would think - a city so sweaty in summer
could be so dreary in fall?
who would imagine - the twists and turns days take here
and nights too
like the jostling of a subway car?
who would dream - that an island of concrete and steel and felt and glass and leather and tar and gold
could feel so alive?
beer
You take most of my money and leave me with a full fizzy achy feeling that I’m entirely sick of
and dry crusty teeth.
women
I don’t know what to do about you, but you certainly occupy many of my thoughts.
sleeping in
There is nothing more satisfying,
(well, maybe there are 1 or 2 things more satisfying,
like draining a 3-pointer in someone’s face,
or launching into a fat steak on a growling stomach)
than sleeping in on a Saturday morning after a long, hard, successful week.
There is nothing more depressing,
(well, there are plenty of things more depressing,
so easily imagined that they would be silly to include)
than sleeping in on a Saturday morning because you’ve got nothing else to do.
to hipsters
you must be an individual or no one will take you seriously outside your isolated scene.
to people #2
talk to me on the street, if you feel any inclination
and I promise that I will talk back.
to people #3
do not forget that the people surrounding you are also people.
They do not go away or stop being people if you wear headphones or pretend to sleep or act tough or rude or distracted.
They remain people.
to my body
I am not sure what I did to upset or mistreat you
but
please stop falling apart.
you are making it very difficult for me to thrive.
you and I are in this together, after all.
to NY
I’m sorry that I challenged you that day in the rainstorm.
It wasn’t a real challenge, it just came out.
You see, back then, I didn’t understand that you were a thing not to challenge,
just as God is not to challenge, even to a nonreligious man.
I hereby apologize
ask forgiveness
and wish to understand how I may atone.
on working
I haven’t working in 8 months.
that’s longer than it takes:
a caterpillar to become a butterfly
corn seeds to grow, be harvested, eaten, and replanted
a professional baseball season to occur
the lifespan of a snail to occur
puppies to become full-grown
and many other perspective-shattering things, I’m sure.
I don’t want to work, really
who does?
I have projects, interests, hobbies, arts, other things that take time,
but without work, without that foundation,
everything crumbles.
Why?
merry christmas
