Shadows (Poem)

The best never listen
They are illusionists
Skilled in the art of conversation
Able to weave their tale
Against the silences and pauses of your own

Like suns in their own solar system
People, events, revolve around them
Reduced to mere shadows
Engulfed by the light
Devoured by the best

For Paola

There's no piece of carbon paper between us
Our differences bind us
Together, we are stronger
With the other

Like fingers interlocked
Legs twined together, in bed
We breathe in unison
Our hearts almost synch

Together, different paths
We share the same goals
And find each other at the end
Soulmates, lovers, friends

Coffee Talk (Short Fiction)

I wrote this before I read the piece (which I can't find) about editors fleeing in terror from coffee shop pieces, so forgive me if it's been done.

===


She was always friendly when no one else was around to see it. I told Chris about it once and he didn’t believe me.

“You’re making it up,” he’d said. “I swear she burns my milk on purpose.”

She never burnt my milk. Not once, and if the shot ran too long or too fast she’d dump it out and start over until it was perfect.

I’d try to start a conversation and ask her how things were, like I knew about her life. I knew nothing except that she made great espresso, and she liked art. The walls of her shop were adorned with a constant rotation of local artists’ work.

My favorite piece was in the impressionist style, a woman sitting on the bench at the market, her foot kicked in the air somewhat; the sandal on her foot hanging on by the toes. She ate ice cream out of a cup, while her little daughter sat next to her; a vague, faceless, not completely formed being.

“That’s not her daughter,” she said when I told her how much I liked the piece, “The proportions are all wrong.”

“Couldn’t that be the point?” I asked, and she shrugged and held out her hand for the price of the drink. I didn’t want to hold the line up so I paid her.

On my way out the door she said, “It’s not her daughter, it’s a doll,” loud enough so that the whole café could hear.

I asked Chris, when I saw him again. “I don’t go there anymore. I got tired of her messing my drink up.”

“Where do you go now?”

“The one down the street with the drive-through.” Chris said. “I’m pretty sure she burned my milk on purpose.” He added.

“Have you seen the painting?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Art is silly, especially that half baked, amateur, café trash. Anyone can do that. A woman’s body, now that’s art.”

He nudged me with his elbow and winked. Chris was a coworker, not a buddy, and my politeness was out of convenience. He was the only other guy in my age bracket where I worked, so we’d formed a loose acquaintance based on common experience.

“Care to elaborate?” I asked, since the ball was rolling, why not.

“She always wears though Capri pants, right? The ones that fit,” he made a curving shape in the air with his hand. “I noticed that if I stood on the end, where they keep all the free newspapers, and flip through one, I could get a nice wake up shot to go with my espresso. It’s how she dumps the wasted shots out, all bent over.” He smiled like a schoolboy. “I bet she does it on purpose even.”

“I couldn’t tell.” I never really looked at her like that. I finished my lunch and went back to my desk to work.

The next day, I stopped by the café for my morning cup. There was no line and no other customers, just me and her.

“Hey there,” she said, beaming. I smiled back and went to look at the painting again. Maybe she was right and I just couldn’t see it. It was gone though.

“Someone bought it yesterday.”

She steamed my milk and I walked around and looked at the other pieces while I waited. Nothing caught my eye. “I wish it would have been me,” I said, the screeching woosh of steaming milk drowned my voice out.

“Here ya be, sir” she said, when the drink was finished. I paid her and wished her a good day. On my way out I stopped and glanced at the free media rack. It was populated with local classifieds, alternative papers and a little post-it board filled with the numbers of locals offering goods and services.

I looked above the board and remembered, right as I saw it, the camera aimed at the end of the counter, in the line of sight of the cash register and the espresso machine. They’d installed it after their third robbery in a year.

“Any luck with that?” I asked, pointing at the camera with my cup.

“Kind of… I mean it hasn’t helped us catch the burglar if that’s what you mean,” she said.

I nodded, and took a sip from my latte, glad that she never burnt my milk.

Untitled (Poem)

Joe Average holds his piece of the pie tighter
And says that love for his fellow man
Extends as far as his arms can swing
In the land of the free, altruism and social responsibility
Can be had on the cheap
In the land of the free, you get what you pay for
Even if it means overpaying
For something that shouldn’t be for sale
Even if it means settling
For Average

100 Words a Day or Go!

When in doubt the safest bet is lowering the bar although this can backfire if limbo is your game. I shouldn't have to tell you to do the opposite. Not you, because you know better than I. But just in case, I'll put it out there and let you decide what to do with it. After all choices are for the choosing and choosing not to decide is a choice of its own. Whatever it is, it's yours to make and yours to live with.

My current attempt at cobbling prose together and hammering it into paragraphs with or without some continuity is being assembled under the mantle: 100 Words a Day or Go! An obvious mistake on my part (should be 1000 tbh) but I liked it so much we're keeping it. It's only a working title anyway, I'm not married to it.

What's my idea? Well, probably not a good one... I read way too much Dostoevsky or some would say not enough. Fyodor, constructs his worlds slowly and carefully with people that all of us know on some level. If we don't know them when the book starts, by the end we do, which makes the reading all that more enjoyable for me. I'm spending more time on the construction part this time, using an outline as the underlying foundation for my universe.

My wife, who seems to take this stuff harder than I do, got really upset with me when I told her I was yanking the plug on everything and starting from scratch... again. What's a wannabe writer to do though? I've never been a fan of squeezing blood from a stone that's for sure. Hard work is one thing. I'll roll my sleeves up and get it done but I'm big into outcomes. Sure things are the ticket.

So how do you get over that feeling of trying to make an idea that seemed like such a sure thing, work? Is it best to go back to the drawing board or should one attempt the mental hurdles hoping that there's an actual finish line in site at the end of the excruciating, mind numbing, tedious stabs at fashioning words into entertaining, thought provoking, prose?

I hope you're not looking at me to answer that. How about a quote from Richard Bach though: A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit.

That is something I can buy into. Starting at 1000 words a day will be the first step for me.

*Deep Sigh*

I got nothing. Not in the "I'm a dried up former fountain of creativity" kind-of-way but in the "It's really hard to write something that I would want to read" kind-of-way, which is probably the most important thing.

Established writers say "Finish the darn thing and get better at finishing!" but how do you finish something that you can't even get excited about working on? I'm not on a self-pity trip, no not that at all. What I'm on about is the desire to create something that I can set next to the work of my literary heroes and not feel ashamed of.

Lofty goals? You bet, but we all have our own definitions of success and I won't be redefining mine anytime soon. Back to work.

Stay tuned.

Winston Churchill Said:

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."

Kudos to McCain for not dragging it out and giving an eloquent concession speech. Congrats to President Obama. I hope that he will take the lead in mending the partisan rifts that plague our nation.

It would be nice to see the same level of voter involvement in the future because this thing only works when your voice is a part of it.

Election Day

I wanted to say something meaningful like: "Tomorrow, our long national nightmare comes to an end." but it's probably been done by now. Let's keep that in mind. Tomorrow, after two years of downright, abject, stupidity this thing will finally start winding down. FINALLY!

You know what I'm tired of hearing? Campaign ads. It's the rampant, unrepentant, fear mongering and I won't miss it. Look, I've been around. I've met people in many countries and states, I went to school on both coasts, did some time in the Navy, and my job today still involves a healthy amount of travel so I rub elbows with folks from all over regularly.

There was a time back when I was a young man I'd be indignant that someone could have a different political view than mine. Most conversations about the subject would break down into hostile shouting matches without any sort of resolution, so I resolved to never talk politics with those that were close to me.

I'd like to say that lasted, but it didn't. Instead I became older and encrusted with a thick layer of cynicism at the whole process, and through my travels and exposure to different people I've come to find and understand that people have different reasons and circumstances for believing what they do.

That's fine by me. I'll even go one better and say that most people don't even know what they believe because their beliefs are never tested. Hey, you can say what you want about this, that or the other but the only thing that matters and the only thing that people see is how you ACT. How you act is what you believe, not some platitude or soundbite that you heard some guy drop on the TV. You can echo that all day but at some point you're going to have to get off your butt and stand behind it. Will you?

Is it hard to imagine that someone may have the best interests of the country in mind, even though their beliefs don't fall into step with yours? Think about what it means to accuse someone of being "Unpatriotic" because their ideas are not the same as yours and then think about how closed minded and ignorant it is to rebut someone's argument by calling them a name or (my favorite internet trick) attacking their character because you can't defend your point of view.

People, we come in all shapes, sizes, colors and genders and we all (generally) have one thing in common: We want what's best for ourselves and our country. There is more than one way to go about doing that and sometimes it may not necessarily be the way that you believe in, but you can not do anything at all if you don't participate in the process.

I would never attempt to sway an opinion one way or another, unless challenged to, I'm always up for that. However, there is one thing that I will not bend on, no matter what and that is voting. If you haven't already, you must vote tomorrow. Give voice to those opinions of yours that you think can help shape this nation of ours into the place that you want it to be. You will have my respect no matter what your beliefs.

Vote people!

Recommendation (Poem)

When our hearts fall out of concordance with convention, we need reminding:

It’s perverse to think an individual thought
We should all share one thought
The system which was written by…
(They changed it from written to handed down, when it suited them)
The words appeared, miraculously
Blank sheets of paper now covered in script
Intimate details on how humans should interact
Things are done a certain way
(They tell you at birth)
You should know on page X
That you should feel THIS about THAT
And if you don’t feel THIS about THAT
Well, how could you not feel THIS about THAT?
Only a monster would not feel THIS about THAT!
So you are a monster as the book judges you
From one monster to another
I’d tell never tell you how to feel
I’d only ask that
You never stopped

On Driving (Poem)

Driving punishes the individual
Driving rewards the conformist
Creative drivers attempt to redefine boundaries
And are frowned upon for not staying in their lane

Impulsive drivers leave a trail of brake lights
In their erratic wakes, a ripple spreads through traffic
Cell phones ring and they must be answered
Right this very moment, because they must!

Drivers slow to pay their respects to fallen comrades
Then speed off when the road opens up again, and forget:
It’s life or death when you hop into a car
Skill is only part of the equation for survival

Yet those that fear flying would just as easily drive inebriated
Is it willful ignorance of statistics?
Or does the wheel in our hands provide the illusion
Of control that we don’t have?

Control that we crave
When we yield the right of way, unnecessarily
When we stop at an unmarked crosswalk
And allow a single pedestrian to disrupt the flow

Deadlines

I read somewhere that it's always a good idea to write under a deadline because it forces you to create and develop the habits that lead to disciplined writing. This sounds great in theory, but if you're a thirty somethingish person living in a two income home and not relying on the written word to pay your bills, is there really such a thing as a deadline? I'm not going to starve if I miss it.

I can't tell my self something to be true in the hopes that I'll believe it. Besides, I have no illusions about my writing paying the bills one day. Getting published is the only thing on the agenda for now and if that means getting a crisp Jackson to stick in my wallet or just seeing my name in print then I'm all for it. Say what you will about Andrew Jackson, he set the precedent for many things to come in the Executive Branch and his whole windmill tilting attempt at destroying the Federal Bank is a classic example of "Unintended Consequences." But I digress...

I've given myself two deadlines, one which ends October 31st and another for November 30th... not including NaNoWriMo which I'm strongly leaning towards. If I'm getting involved in NaNo then technically both of the deadlines are now moved up to the end of October so I can go into November with a clear plate.

It's not as dire as it may sound dear reader, so please step back from the ledge. I have one story complete that needs a big fat edit in the middle and she's ready to submit, and I started another this weekend, reached 1500 words and the climax. I will most likely finish it in the next couple of days and then revise the heck out of it.

Meanwhile my quarter finished novel glowers at me... It's a delicate line because most writers suggest concentrating on the novel until it's done and the common belief is that short stories and novels are different animals altogether. Writing one doesn't make you any better at writing the other. As a reader, I expect different things from both formats.

What do you do when the story's there though? Do you just ignore it and plow on with the other works or take a breather and hammer the short out then get back to the grindstone? I'm trying to do what feels right and if that means spreading myself so thin that I'm transparent than I'm willing to give it a shot.

Maybe by taking on multiple projects of different scope I'll find discipline. Really though, the only thing that matters for me, right now, is finishing the things that I start which I think in the end will make me a better writer.

Multitasking and NaNoWriMo

NPR's Morning Edition is doing an excellent series about multitasking.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95702512

I love stuff like this because it makes me sound less like a know-it-all-douche-nozzle when I'm trying to explain to folks that using a hands free don't mean a darn thing.

Every job I've had in Washington State has come with a significant about of road time so I've come to understand the hazards of multitasking while driving... but I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about writing.

So far, I've written four short stories, taken one novel to the 16K word mark and started another one that has about 15K words logged. The second one occupies most of my time these days. It's hard, because ideas for short stories come and go. Then, there's NaNoWriMo on the horizon.

November is National Novel Writing Month if you hadn't heard. The goal: To produce a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month the winner gets a... seriously, what more do you need? I think a 50,000 word finished novel (1st draft obviously) is not a bad little prize for an aspiring novelist. It's a start anyway.

Well, I'm intrigued and inspired. Ideas are cheap, I think most would agree it's the execution that you pay for. I fell into an idea recently while we were celebrating my Mother-In-Laws birthday a few Sundays back. My wife, Mother and Father-In-Law, Sister-In-Law, and a family friend, were seated around the dining room table in the middle of a heated discussion about something or other (isn't that how these things always go?) and the friend's phone rang. It was in her jacket, which hung on a hook by the door. She excused herself from the table, walked over to the jacket, took the phone out and looked at the number then muted the ringer and came back to the conversation without missing a beat.

And an idea jumped into my head: What if she answered it and... well I'm not going to tell you the rest.

When my wife and I left that night, I'd lined out the bare skeleton of a plot. The next morning I jotted it all down and when I came home from work later that day, I wrote the opening line. I was giddy.

Well, my excitement was tempered by the fact that I'm still muddling through the sludgy bits of novel #2. I really want to finish it, more than anything in life! At the pace I write there's no way that will happen before November.

I'd also like to participate in NaNo and set my keyboard on fire typing fast and furious, never looking back, not even stopping to blink. I feel like it'd be a betrayal to suspend my current work for this one, however the challenge looms before me and it's to big to ignore.

What to do, what to do?

No matter what I choose, I've learned that I can not write with outside distractions even though I'm decent at multitasking. That means no music or NPR while I stare at the monitor and use the thesaurus on glamorous words like "went".

Seventeen days to decide; I suspect that my mind is already made up and I just don't know it yet.

The Way of the World (Poem)

It becomes ritual and when we ask
"Why do we do the things that we say
or mean the things that we do?"
our parents say:
"Ask your grandparents"

And our grandparents say:
"Back in my day we had
A thing called respect"

But respect is as tired as a two way street
littered with cliches
grown, not given out freely
earned from understanding

While familial love is unconditional and unbending
blind and faithful
and often means
loving that which we do not understand
but that which is closer to our heart
loving that in which we see our reflection

For reasons we do not question
because it's always been so
and it's become ritual

so when we ask:
"Why do we do the things that we say
or mean the things that we do?"
our parents and grandparents say:

"We always did the things that we said
and meant the things that we did
Back in my day
Back in our day
Back in those days."

And you learn to understand

It's Important to Remember

That you can disagree with someone on principle, but that doesn't invalidate their belief. I think we owe it to each other to understand why others feel the way they do rather than calling an idea "stupid" or attacking someone's character because they don't share the same views as ours.

It's great, big, wide, old world out there kiddos. Retreating to our own established comfort zone only makes it smaller. You don't have to believe the same thing as someone else, but certainly taking the time to understand their ideas and how they came to their beliefs will get you a lot a farther than denouncing something that you don't take the time to comprehend.

Besides, it's all theory anyway, until the aliens arrive and show us that we've been using the decimal point the wrong way all these years.

Hey, Wanna Finish My Book For Me?

Part I

1. Wake up! Tell myself that this the day! I will write it out! I promise!

2. Shower/Shave etc, listen to NPR. Think about how my story is a lost cause.

3. Fire up computer.

4. Make breakfast/coffee, listen to KOMO.

5. Pat myself on the back cause at least I'm not That Guy from the stupid KOMO news bit

6. Eat, check Myspace, Facebook, the blogs I read, forums, 16 different media outlets, etc.

7. Get distracted by media, forum or other interweb shininess.

8. Read whatever book I'm working on for 4 minutes.

9. Switch back to NPR and get ready to leave.

10. Make a coffee for the road, and GTFO.

Part II

1. Come home from work with every intent of writing it out! This is the day! NO excuses!!!

2. Fire up computer. Annoy the cats until we're bored with each other.

3. Do dishes while listening to NPR.

4. Make a cup of black tea, because all writing begins with good tea.

5. Wait for tea to steep, check Myspace, Facebook, the blogs I read, forums, 16 different media outlets.

6. Look up that thing they were talking about on NPR earlier. Get sucked into a wiki-click through.

7. Add sugar to tea, listen to compelling story on NPR while reading articles about improving writing skills.

8. Greet wife when she comes home. Answer "No" when she asks if I wrote today. Make more tea.

9. Annoy wife until we're bored with each other.

10. Eat dinner, check Myspace, Facebook, the blogs I read, forums, 16 different media outlets. More tea. Realize it's bedtime.

Sigh...

National Hug a Librarian Week

Banned Books Week started on September 29th. I'm late so bear with me, but IRL I have a sorta excuse because I was reading One of the Guys by Robert Clark Young. You probably haven't heard of this book. It's a fantastic tale about a man that impersonates a US Navy chaplain and finds his way onto an LST that's headed for the Pacific. It's pretty funny, and explicit, however I'd say this is a total must read for all sailors past and present. I didn't know of it myself until I was on a Wiki click through a couple of Fridays ago.

You know how sometimes you'll start reading about one thing, and then 'Ooh, that looks interesting' so you open it in another window and then there was that other thing you remembered and you're listening to NPR and Bill O'Grady's like 'David Foster Wallace found dead' and you have no idea who that is, so you find out, and your browser crashes because you have 8 windows open and the next thing you know you're buying a used book at 2am and when you wake up in the morning you're not sure if you've dreamed the whole thing or not. Ever happen to you?

The act of banning books, fosters a preposterous notion that a human being is incapable of independent thought. I also believe that making things taboo has the opposite effect. In the case of a book, I feel it is far more dangerous thing to suggest that an idea is taboo.

What is a book? At the very core, a book is an author's vision, and I can only speak for myself, but I've never allowed one person's vision to color my opinion of things. It is a shallow, conceited belief to think that you are doing a service to someone by preventing them from forming a judgment on their own, by denying them exposure to something that may or may not benefit them. Really, it's their choice to find out, and if you have faith in a person's character than there's nothing to be worried about.

So hug your librarian, because they're the ones out there fighting for this stuff.

Ideas should not be locked away from the world to die when they can be housed in a perfectly good library.

Two Words...

I'm beginning to despise are "stared" and "wondered." So help me, my next piece will be about eyeless, brainless, something or others just so I won't have to type those words out onto the screen ever again!

Are there adequate synonyms? Merriam Webster Online refers me to gape. That's a bad sign right off the bat, but I'm curious so let's see:

gawk = No.
gaze = Maybe.
goggle = F*k no.
peer = Wtf?
rubberneck = Depends.
stare = Wait...

The related words are even worse

glare = A glare is not a stare.
gloat = I didn't know gloating involved eye contact.
glower = He glowered at the key... no.
eye = maybe, but it would get tedious after the fifteenth time.
observe = Observe is strictly reserved for characters with monocles and Austrian accents.
watch = Not a stare. Watching suggests an active form of observing to me.
leer = Mom always said it was rude to do that.
ogle = See above.

I'm not even going to bother with wondered since I value my sanity.

Addis stared at the page and rubbed his eyes until they felt raw. He rubbed them a little more to be sure, and his suspicions were confirmed: They were raw.

He was tired, tired of all the headaches and hangups, rejections and redoes. He was getting nowhere, and he wondered if there would ever be an end to the madness.

As with most things, the end would only be the prelude to another beginning and so our story begins... with an ending.

Solidarity (Short Fiction)

I've never thought of myself as nostalgic, unless holding a grudge was considered a form of that. I’ve always been good at that, but I’ve had my reasons.

Nostalgia snuck up on me in the form of a woman that I’d gone to school with, when I saw her at the SeaTac airport. I recognized her from the back, the shape of her head… It’s funny what one remembers.

We’d barely been on a first name basis back then, but we knew the same people, and had always been polite to one another. I was content in knowing that I’d seen someone from back home, so the thought of going over and talking to her never occurred to me.

She had other plans and found me at my gate. She’d probably caught me from behind as well when I walked past. Lots of folks tell me they can spot my walk from a mile away.

We talked about memories, and asked each other about people from home. I found out that she was going to UCLA for something or other, she found out that I was going back to gather the rest of my things in order to ship them back to Seattle.

“Do you miss it?” she had asked.

I thought for a moment. There were things I missed about Anchorage, but most of those things were tied up in people. A lot of those relationships with people had turned into the grudges I couldn’t let go of. Did I miss it though? “Yes,” I said, surprising myself. Anchorage never felt like home to me, and being away from it and experiencing the world without a filter had reinforced that. Did I miss it?

“I do too,” she said. “I’m going back when I finish school.” We hugged each other and that was the last time I saw her.

I never planned to go back after that trip.

My job had a heavy travel requirement, so I spent a lot of time in the SeaTac airport going to Portland, or San Francisco, occasionally as far east as Denver. My company operated on the cheap which meant I never got a chance to get out and experience the cities. A routine trip for me involved flying in on the late flight, checking into the hotel, grabbing a bite and crashing.

The next morning, I’d do my presentation and catch an afternoon flight back to Seattle, where I’d have the pleasure of fighting my way through rush hour traffic, back to my apartment.

There really wasn’t much time for living in my line of work. I was either prepping, or decompressing, traveling or just returning from a trip. I didn’t mind it so much. I knew what would happen if I gave myself the time to be alone with my thoughts. I’m not a bad dude, it’s just those grudges. They’re hard to let go of.

It was inevitable that spending all that time in an airport that was practically on Anchorage’s doorstep, I’d start running into people I knew at every trip.

Okay I’m exaggerating, but the frequency with which it occurred, I began to suspect that the average Alaskan’s number one hobby was to flee the state only to come slinking back when they found out the real world wasn’t as quaint as Anchorage.

I ran into the Captain of the Hockey Team on one trip. His mullet was gone and I took that as a good sign since it had been 8 years from when he’d strapped the skates on for the Varsity Team.

I didn’t follow sports then so I had no idea if the team had been any good. We shared many classes through High School, and had had a friendly relationship. Running into him turned out to be a pleasant experience, until he brought up Sophia.

“Whatever happened to her anyway?” We’d stopped at one of the restaurants in the airport mall, and had treated each other to a pint. He’d danced around the subject earlier, but the alcohol had loosened his tongue.

I wanted to say something witty, or spin the conversation back to something tame, but really, there are only so many things you can talk about with a fellow Alaskan. Anchorage is such a small burg that it’s impossible to have your personal business remain personal. Eventually it will find its way into a conversation. For all I knew, he was probably related to Sophia, or knew someone that was. It always seemed to go like that with me.

“I don’t know,” I said, after about 3 minutes of staring at the head of my beer. I decided it would be better to start cutting my departure times closer. I couldn’t weasel my way out of this conversation by saying I needed to get to my flight, because I still had an hour before they opened the doors. Punctuality, it’s a blessing and a curse.

He realized that he had hit a nerve and redirected the conversation accordingly. We spent the rest of our time together reminiscing about the Senior Kegger and joking about the upcoming 10 year reunion.

When we parted, he surprised me be by giving me an awkward hug. I didn’t think any less of him for it. I’d have done it first if I'd known he’d planned to.

Beer Control

We took a trip to what has to be my third or fourth favorite place on Earth, the Deschutes brewery in lovely Bend, Oregon.

Since building control panels is part of what puts food on the table, and a roof over my head, I'm always intrigued by the work of other craftsmen.

So here's a picture of a cute little number that I saw there. It sure would have been nice to open her up and take a peek inside.

Mountains (Haiku)

Snow capped peaks make homes
the gods of antiquity
eagerly covet

The Rules

10. Get a hammer. If you own a single tool it must be ball peen hammer, and you must not be afraid to use it. Go one step further and carry a small chunk of 2 by 4. Makes a great cushion when you don't want to mar that thing you're smacking.

9. Don't be THAT GUY. Oh hey, that's great that you fixed that one thing that was really hard to do that one time, but nobody wants to hear about it for the rest of their lives. Get over it. We all overcome obstacles.

8. Electricity is your friend, and it can just as quickly kill you dead, blind you, or create a horrible fire that will make you mentally unable to function in that kind of environment again. If you have to work on a live circuit, make sure everyone around you knows it, take the correct precautions. Or better yet, don't work on live circuits. Disconnect them and go nuts.

7. Horseplay is stupid. Feel the need to grab-ass with your buddy? Take it outside and preferably off the job site. Bad enough things happen when people mind their own business and pay attention. No need to create a situation that could potentially injure someone.

6. GO HOME! Do not stay on a job and be the walking dangerous zombie if you can't keep your eyes open. Do not neglect your breaks in order to get things done that a reasonable person couldn't, or wouldn't. Practice saying "NO." Stand in front of a mirror and say it until you feel comfortable to do it when it matters.

5. Shortcuts are bad. My favorite example of this are the contractors that want to bypass a boiler safety in order to run a piece of equipment. Just because I know how to do all kinds of stupid, dangerous things doesn't mean I'd do them, especially for a guy I've just met. If a safety fails, most likely it's protecting you from an unsafe situation. You jumper around it, you're taking yours and other folks' lives into your hands. Assess the situation, take the means to correct it and come back later when you can do it right or have the right part.

4. Know your limitations. It's impossible to know everything. Knowing what you don't know is just as important as recognizing what you do. Find the people that can answer the questions you don't know, remember their names, and respect their abilities. You'll never suffer for it, and you'll learn from it.

3. Don't over explain. I cringe when people ask me what I do, because I like to talk about it way too much. Most people really don't care where their heat or whatever technical thing you work on comes from. Keep that in mind when someone asks you what it's going to take to get something done. In other words, know your audience and tailor the conversation accordingly.

2. You are smarter than the equipment, because equipment for the most part is a big hunk of inanimate parts assembled by another human being. Don't be stupid and try to lift heavy objects when you don't have to. Find someone to help, use chains, hoists, come-alongs and whatever else you can get your hands on. Pride goeth before a bad back.

1. Never lie. Don't tell people what they want to hear just because it's going to get you off a job quicker. You will just end up having to come back and spin another tale. If you can't make something work and you don't know why, document what you see and share it with wiser heads. Don't ignore a bad situation because you think an installer is your buddy. People's allegiances can suddenly change when the equipment that you touched last is not doing what you said it was going to do.

If you want people to respect you, say what you mean, say what you see, stand behind your work, and admit your mistakes. You will go much further if people understand that you are a person of your word and are not saying things to play the blame game or hiding behind your own lack of understanding of a problem.

What do you guys have to add to this?

Trust

Whenever I've found myself in the position of checking on someone's work, it's made me feel icky. Especially if the person is a reasonably competent adult. I'll admit to sneaking a peek or two at the way others do things to see if I can learn something but hand holding ain't my gig. If I can figure something out, than I don't think another person is that far away from figuring it out, with a little nudging in the right direction.

If someone tells me they can do something, I'm not going to second guess them on it, and if they need help doing it I'll gladly lend any assistance I can, but I refuse to stand over their shoulder and cluck my tongue, or wait for them to finish than explain why they did it wrong... unless they ask, which is entirely different, or they've made a mistake that would endanger people's lives. Then you kind of have to.

I'm certain that this stems from my own insecurities. I don't like when people come behind me, so I wouldn't want to give someone else those feelings with my actions. It's even worse when they go around me and I get the criticism second or third hand. Yikes!

I always appreciate constructive criticism though, and if I'm in the process of doing and a coworker has a suggestion that will make my life easier, I'll be eternally grateful. That's what makes us all better. It's the nitpicking I can live without.

That's what makes us turn into chickens.

Pants (Part II)

I was supposed to be working on my book tonight, but something had been kicking around my mind lately and distracted me.

It all started a couple of weekends ago. I turned the TV on to scan the guide and see if there were any interesting movies coming up that I'd want to record and lo and behold, the intro sequence to Top Gun was playing. Yes, that Top Gun, which I'll readily admit is one of the cheesiest movies ever to grace a movie screen, but I can attest to that movie playing a central role in the decisions I've made in life. Kind of.

Ever since I can remember being able to get upset at people telling what to do, and how to do it, my Mom used to tell me that I was going to grow up to be an engineer. Mind you, Mom never told me what engineers did, or why I would want to be one, so I was never too enthusiastic about the prospects. In my mind it had something to do with the running of trains and things of that nature, which really didn't interest me at all.

What I did find captivating though, was the military. My father was Special Forces and he was always going to cool places to train, and bringing back shirts and other nifty swag that totally projected that "Snake Eater" mentality of the Special Forces. Every now and then, we'd get to go to the airfield and watch him and the members of his unit paradrop from a plane. I thought that seemed like the real deal to me, and I wanted in.

Until I saw Top Gun and became obsessed with everything there was to know about the US Navy. This led me to read the classic Red Storm Rising, and then Hunt for Red October just as the movie was made. By the time I got through devouring every source of info I could find on the subject, I was convinced that I was born to pilot an SH-60B off the tail of small boy doing port and starboard ASW ops until they pried me away from the thing, kicking and screaming.

There was just one problem with that. My vision has been atrocious since I was about 9 years. Which means I couldn't meet the bill for the military in that regard. I chased the red herring of all red herrings, and because of that, I settled into a rut where I didn't allow myself to dream about what could be.

I'm not sure when I consciously decided that I wasn't going to go to college, but it was a choice that I made on my own, that I'm certain. I know part of it had to do with the writing part (surprise). In those days, I hated writing with a passion, even though I'd always been a voracious reader, and still am one. Something about putting together a structured paper turned me off. I suppose it may have been the research element.

David Sedaris mentions something along the lines in Me Talk Pretty One Day, where he suggests the idea of telling a writer to "Create!" may be a little draconian. Now granted, there are journalists and media writers that do that type of thing at will, but for me, it's always been a constant struggle. The idea is there, or it's not, I can't just produce one or pretend to be excited because it's an assignment.

Then there was biology, which I loved, but when I finally got to take the class in Sophmore year, the teacher decided to change the curriculum. From now on the grade would consist of a weekly project, that had to be some kind of art presentation, and a final test at the end of the year graded on a curve. 50% of each score would determine your final grade.

I loved biology, still do, but jeezohcriminy I've never been able to freehand a straight line in my entire life, and never had any desire whatsoever to participate in anything resembling an art class so I thought the teacher was playing a dirty trick on us by turning a class about science into a hybrid art class. Luckily, I've always been a pretty good test taker, especially when it comes to things I like, so it was easy enough for me to squeak out a C without doing any of the projects, and blowing the test up. How's that for motivation?

So PSAT's came, I never took them. Then SAT's. Skipped those too. No one asked me why, and life went on, me with no plan, until I sat down with guidance counselor, probably the tail end of junior year.

Mary Ellen Shea was a friendly woman, that remembered who you were. She had short hair that in my estimation had greyed prematurely, and a friendly warm smile. She was also no nonense, and when I sat with her she noticed immediately that I had done absolutely no college prep work.

There were other things going on in my life at the time, and I was probably only there because it was a requirement. I skated pretty hard the last two years of school. It wasn't like I was going to college anyway? Why should I care about grades and transcripts and the like?

She asked me if I'd thought about Voc Tech, which I hadn't. She pointed out that over the next ten years 24% of the job growth was going to come in skilled trades and that the labor pool wasn't being replenished fast enough and that I should really consider that when making a career choice.

And that was that, probably the longest and most serious discussion I ever had about my future with another human being at that point in my life. Needless to say, when I sat in front of the career counselor at the MEPs station in Anchorage, choosing my job I heeded those words and remembered that disscusion. My ASVAB scores put me in a postion to choose my fate and I did, choosing Electronics Technician, because it sounded like a job with a civilian equivalent, unlike Fire Control Technician, or Gunner's Mate. Also, all the nuclear fields scared the pants out of me, even though they had the fastest rates of advancement. Probably all those Tom Clancy novels.

They say that people never forget a memory. Once something happens it becomes part of you, but if you neglect the memory enough the pathways to it become it worn and tangled and harder to reach over time even though it's still there buried in the recesses of your mind.

As I go on through time, I reflect a lot on the choices I've made, conversations I've had, friends that I've lost contact with and the people that have said things that have stuck with me. I find it especially endearing when I'm speaking to a friend of mine and they bring up a little anectodote that I've said years ago, even though I may take some coaching to remember it, because then I know that I made an impression, and that I'm part of that person, just as they are part of me.

I'd like to think that a counselor would be happy to know the same, and I wish that I could tell her that she did steer me towards the right path. There was no way that I was ready for college then, heck I may never be ready. We all have to take our path, we all have to find our own way, and people may push or pull us one way or the other, but the choices we make, in the end are our one. I would never complain about the way my life has gone. Other than a brief period of self inflicted unhappiness, it's been more than I could have asked for.

I had thought about writing this on Friday, partly because of the piece that Steve Scher did on NPR about the job growth opportunies for skilled labor, and the fact that they're still not really being promoted as a viable alternative to college. For some, working with your hands suggests that you're condeming yourself to a life of menial servitude, poverty or somesuch. Well, I'm certainly not going to waste my time debunking that, but if you ever get bored go look up the prevailing wage rates for King County trade workers, and you'll probably come away with a different opinion of your average Plumber, Electrician, Sheet Metal Installer, Heavy Equipment Operator, etc, if you didn't know before.

So I looked her up today just to see what she'd been up to, because I knew she ran sled dogs, back then, even participating in the Iditarod, and came to find that she'd died March 6th 2006, at the all too young age of 55, from cancer.

That's when I knew I had to write this, just to say thanks and to acknowledge the forward thinking woman that helped set me on my path, with I'm sure were the best of all intentions.

===========

Ms. Shea's Obituary on Sled Dog Central

Steve Scher's piece on Training for The Blue Collar Job

Under an Overcast Sky

The clouds form overnight
Dewy and heavy, they touch the ground

The sun may make a guest appearance
But here the rain is the true star

Not that heavy mid-western rain
That appears out of nowhere
Thunders across the sky
To vanish and evaporate in a summer's heat

But a steady, familiar drizzle
You could almost set your watch to

A steady, familiar drizzle
That leaves the weather guessers scratching their heads
Because they never know when or where
They only know that it will

And I look forward to these days the most
Between the seasons
When the winds are cool, and the days are shortening
And I feel the most at home
Under a Northwestern Sky

You shall know me

I've taken to wearing my steel toed boots before I plop down at the keyboard and hack away. Lately the hacking has been competing with the incessant daydreaming which is like junk food and leaves me with a nice empty feeling.

Upstairs, on my foot locker there's a plastic binder that haunts me. It's a gloss blue, three ring that I probably paid 89 cents for. When I got it, say 11 years ago or so, the idea was to put the pages of my book in it, which I did. 85 of them written in my barely legible lefty script, the words piled on top of each other appearing forced out and squished together. No spaces between lines, and surprisingly for me very few line outs or other typos.

"And that's all it takes," Gregg said; Is the last line that I wrote. I wonder what caused me to give up then? If I read it now, I can see the answer clearly. THE STORY WAS GOING NOWHERE.

That is about as horrible a feeling one can have. Ideas form and get sketched out in the rough, a thin string holds them together, but this means nothing. What means something is 250 pages of a cohesive entertaining story that the writer feels tells the story they want to tell.

I started to write another story, recently and got 42 pages, but the story lines were so similar from my first one that I had a hard time navigating the plot. It didn't help that I came upon inspiration at work for another idea. This lit a fire in me so hot that I had no choice but to get the first scene down, which I did after stalling it out for a week. This is my story. If I had one book to write, one shot this is it.

That week turned to another week after I finished the third chapter and realized that the POV I used would fail to tell the story I wanted, so I rewrote the whole thing. That turned into another week when it came to me that even though I knew the dominant themes of the story, I had no idea how to tie them all together.

After three days of staring at a blank screen, and surfing interwebs, I woke up on Sunday and immediately wrote five paragraphs, then curled up on the couch with my two cats and spent a half day plotting. That yielded 3 and a quarter pages of material. It's a start, but not enough to avoid the snags, pitfalls and little traps that I keep creating for myself.

So I will spend at least another week plotting, letting it simmer and develop into the idea that I want it to be. I'll be easy enough to recognize if you come looking. Mine will be the steel toed covered feet sticking out from underneath the pile of wasted paper, silly ideas, hackneyed plot devices, overwrought cliches, grammatical and syntax errors, two-dimensional characters, and barely comprehensible premise.

This is how you shall know me.

Fruit Flies

We have a few. Probably because we compost and they love that. They swarm around our little compost bin and breed, devouring the fruits and veggies we toss into it. Occasionally they venture from the kitchen to the living room, or my computer desk.

The journey usually ends there, because fruit flies seem to have a taste for bourbon, but not the stomach for it. I've found a few floating on the surface of an unfinished glass, or stuck to the bottom in the residue of an evaporated swig's worth.

Of course while I'm writing this, one has developed a taste for Haymaker Extra Pale and crashed landed into my drink. He flails about for a minute, finally his movements slow and he appears dead, floating motionless on the surface of my beverage.

I'm as average as the next guy which means I may be a snob about what I'm drinking but that doesn't mean I'd pour it out because one of God's Creatures took a dive into it. Have you seen the price of microbrew these days?

I fished the fly out with a spoon and finished typing this, wondering if I've underestimated the species' sense of irony, or if this stupid heatwave is making me loony. The beer surprisingly still tastes just like I did when I poured it into the glass, which is all right. I forgot that Extra Pales are more like lagers i.e. Rolling Rock.

Yeah, the heat is probably making loony. Oh well, society's loss, since that means I'll spend today and as many as I can get away with hiding from the sun only opening the shades after the sun's gone down.

I'm sure my witty conversational banter will be missed, at least not by the fruit flies. They're not going anywhere.

Sunbreaks

You are so bipolar
happiest when you're sad
and nothing means
all of it
when the sun
goes away
for days
I watch you swim
up your river of tears
to never drown
in joyous sorrow

If You Were Born on This Date

You could be:

Sir Mix a Lot
Cecille B. Demille
Pete Sampras
Christy Matthewson
Miss Cleo
Rebecca Gayheart
Michael Ian Black
Dominique Swain
Casey Affleck
Antoine Walker

or my cousin Channell.

You could also be me, except for the part that I'm me, at least last I checked I still was. (Notice how I omitted Willie Horton and Richard Reid from that list?)

Those are the cool ones I found, I'm sure there could be more.

Happy Birthday, Leos of the world! Feel free to celebrate by bossing some folks around, preening yo'self in the mirror for an hour or three, or overindulging in all kinds of overindulgencies.

Don't hold back.

Vanity

She's all so sure
of herself
with a proud, haughty glare
a persona not blanched
by neuroses or fear

She's all so sure
as she stands
high on a ledge
knowing she'll never slip

She's all so sure
to the world
her chin high
and imposing
cold eyes a stop sign

She's all so sure
all so lonely
so far and away
detached from us
that are unsure and afraid

How To Succeed

No, I haven't forgotten about this lonely internet place mark. I've been spending my free time writing, believe it or not. I'm at the 17,000 word mark of my book which means only 63k or so to go, woo-hoo!

So, in the interest of doing something with this space, I've decided to post some of the stuff I wrote from ages ago when my mind was in a completely different place.

This piece is about 8 years old, and it describes the quickest path to success:

The key is not to ask why.

Move forward, at a breakneck speed, using any advantage you encounter.

Never hesitate to toss impunity into the face of the other man.

Sand is good for blinding your enemies.

Trust no one.

Sleep with one eye open.

Keep secrets from yourself, as well as others.

The fist is the sharpest sword, darkness your only friend, shrouds of secrecy the uniform, brazen lies the code word.

Always underestimate yourself, never the enemy.

Believe in nothing, nobody, not even you.

Neglect your sanity.

Pants

I used to fix espresso machines. When I started this job, I couldn't tell you the difference between an americano, cappuccino, or latte. My coffee experiences had been limited. When I was a teen, I drank the stuff, just to stay awake after a hard night of partying followed by a hard night of working at Burger King. The black, oily fast food drip that no one in their right mind should quaff. Those were my first coffee experiences.

In the Navy, it was the same thing. Attending "A" school in Great Lakes, Illinois, my roommate would brew a pot with his home brewer, then we'd settle down for the night, and mostly talk about Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes. Thanks to Jarod Williams, I know a hefty amount of minutiae about that series without having watched a substantial amount of episodes.

I loved that job. At that point in my life, this was the best job I ever had. I showed up, dismantled and reassembled machines, occasionally going on long distance service runs to exotic locations like Union Gap, Yakima or Sequim for emergencies. Also, we could drink as much of the coffee as we wanted. This is how I learned to steam milk, and after many different experiments, and taste tests came to the conclusion that even though a cappuccino is my favorite drink, you can't beat a double latte when it comes to economy. You spend a lot of time making a cap, for less quantity. Lattes take far less time and give you much more beverage. Very practical.

Our claim to fame was a super automatic machine that was manufactured by a company located in Switzerland. A super auto is not a child's toy. I wasn't a novice tech at this point, having worked on radars, and navigational equipment in the Navy, but to this day, even as a heating tech, I still think those super autos were tough cookies!

I blame the coffee. The water didn't help either. From what I saw, most issues with the machines had to deal with coffee either grinding to fine, or to coarse. Not enough, too much, or ending up some place it didn't belong throwing a wrench in the process. Forgive the bad pun, but organic materials will take on a life of their own, and this it would do, with a vengeance.

Since we were a distributor, the Swiss company felt obligated to send their technical rep over once in a while to see how things were going stateside. I still remember him quite well. Ueli was dressed head to toe in black. He wasn't tall, or short. He had black spiky hair, and he spoke irony filled English in a Swiss German accent. My kind of guy.

A conversation came up about coffee, as it is a well known fact that Americans drink their joe different than a Euro would . . . as we do most things I suppose. The question turned to taste: Bitter, or smooth, which was preferred? Ueli observed our bickering with a knowing half smile on his face and said something that I've held onto all these years and can't imagine ever letting go of.

"What's the difference?" he said, "Coffee is like pants. You can't tell someone how to wear their pants in a way that makes them comfortable."

This is a common knowledge, simple, effective, statement, that I might go so far to proclaim as a universal truth. It struck a chord with me, because for a long part of my life, I let people tell me how to wear my pants.

Not any more.

Beginnings

10 years ago, was a tumultuous time for me. Life, is a series of ups and downs, strung together in an awkward fashion that eventually become irrelevant once you run out of time. I had lots of time on my hands, having been unceremoniously dumped by a girl at that time and losing my job with the US Navy.

I had started to hang out with an ex of mine from my hometown of Anchorage. Coincidentally, she had ended up in Seattle as well. How we rediscovered each other is a story for another day, but we had. With this rediscovery, a renewal began, starting with the desire to restart our friendship first . . . at least on my end. She may tell you something completely different, and I won't pretend to read into her thoughts on the matter. Let's just say that we parted under difficult circumstances.


She had fallen into a couple of free passes that would allow us to get our fortunes told at a little place in Wallingford. I have always been a little kooky when it comes to things like that, especially if they're free. So I made the trek over from Bremerton on a weekend, picked her up and we headed to the seer's place to discern our future.

Some things that you must understand about me before I reveal to you what was foretold. I am a skeptic by nature, not of the doubting sort, but of the "How would I take this apart and put it back together sort?" I would never profess to having an uncanny intuition into the souls of men. Hardly. I find all of y'all confusing, but that doesn't stop me from making my inferences and deducing what I may. When it comes to folks' intentions though, I take them with a grain a salt. In other words, I believe in results, because we all talk a good game. Especially, the worst of us. Show me, don't tell me.


My immediate thought upon entering this establishment centered around keeping my wallet in my pocket. Knowing there is no such thing as a free lunch, I figured the same thing applied to fortunes. We all have bills to pay, right? I'm not suggesting that I entered with a closed mind, quite the contrary, the process excited me! However, I decided that it would probably be in my best interests to keep that to myself and go about the procedure as stoically as possible.

Upon entering the place, we were separated and each brought to our respective prognosticator. My memory may fail me on the details, but I do recall a middle aged lady with frazzled black hair, eyeglasses perched on the end of her nose, and mouth wrinkles, the type one can only get from smoking. She took my left hand without a moment's blush and looked at my life line. After observing the geography of my hand she diagnosed my fate:


First, she intoned that I would start my own business, most likely by the time I was 28. I'll spare you the math and tell you that I happened to be 21 at that time and the thought of starting my own business wasn't an idea remotely close to any thoughts I had about life in general. To be clear, the thought of doing such repulsed me. See, I hate doing paperwork of any type. Period. So that's out the window. Just the thought of having to learn a little tax code knowledge and deal with the local bureaucracy, had also lain that idea to rest before it could germinate. No sir, that wasn't in the plans. I recall that I smiled and thought to myself "Well that's that then." My lack of faith in humanity being renewed. (More on that later!)


She then asked me about the woman that I came in with it. "Do you have a relationship?"


Caught off guard, due to the delicate nature of our situation, I'm sure that I responded in the affirmative, with caveats. "We used to, but no."

"Well," she said with absolute certainty. "She is not the one for you. There is another that will make you happy." With that proclamation, she produced a deck of tarot cards and implied that we had now come to the paying part of our program. I politely excused myself, thanking her for her time and went outside to ponder my fate.

Here it is, ten years from what was certainly an obscure moment in my life. One that, although I wouldn't say it haunts me, maybe it resides in my psyche like a small poltergeist, knocking around poking and prodding, shuffling things here and there, behaving as a general nuisance. I often wonder what that women who sat across from table from me, boldly declaring the path I was to take saw. I know that I attempted to suppress my thoughts, biting my tongue so hard that the caustic remarks I could have made never had a chance to leave my mouth. Did I frump myself into that chair, with an annoyed look on my face, jaw so firmly set that she could hear it pop with each answer she gave? Did my eyes betray the fact that I had just gotten out of a relationship and was still reeling from my new found singularity? Could she have guessed, that the woman I had walked in there with I had once declared the love of my life, and promised repeatedly that I would marry her, only to be ungracefully dumped shortly after leaving Anchorage to join the Navy?

As I type this, that same woman, the one that wasn't meant for me, lies asleep in the bed that we share, in the house that we own, wearing two rings on her left ring finger that symbolize our all encompassing love for each other. One for me zip for the seer.

I do have a business plan, finally although it's a mediocre one. Some day I will actually begin producing works of fiction with the hopes of selling them for a profit. Could this be what the fortune teller had meant? We'll call that a push until I realize the dream.

So where does that leave me? I still have a way to go in my journey before I can make a statement with any substance. I am happy though, and only foresee myself getting happier. As I get older, I've found that it's much easier to shape your reality rather than be forced into a situation that you don't desire. I have dreams, some that may be revealed in time on this blog, and some that I will keep close to myself until they realize themselves. I'm hardly in any position to complain about the direction my life has taken.


This, is a good thing.